John Follain

This was a difficult book for me to rate as it left me torn.
On the one hand as a person who is an empath and has a terror of torture, I felt I should have felt worse than I ended up feeling about the entire subject matter.

What bothered me a lot was the constant murder, torture, rape, etc of women, girls and children there that makes them total victims. Yet .................they do the same to their own children. They 'marry' off the children at a very young age, often to much older men for a profitable dowry, without any consent of the daughter and she does not get to see the man until the wedding day itself.

Virginity is prized nearly above everything, so they keep that miserable tradition of showing the bloodied cloth after the first sexual encounter and heaven help her if it can't be produced. Women are illiterate there, have no job skills, and are beaten regularly.

So while many people feel that women there are victims, and naturally they are, no doubt, yet, they seem to be swallowed up by a religion and culture that allows them to marry their young daughters off, turn her into a non stop baby machine and get beaten.

Naturally I am thinking and evaluating everything thru Western eyes and thoughts, and I stand by that. No mother in her right mind, and I don't care where she comes from should be ok with making her 12 year old daughter marry a stranger of 40 or more.

Time magazine rated Afghanistan as the worst place on earth for women, and after this, The land of Blue Burquas, and Kabul Beauty School, I agree 1,000%.

It also seems that going to an arena to watch the Taliban cut off people's hands and bringing their children to watch, smile and clap over it is serial killer-psychopath territory.… (altro)