Afghan women not ready to cast off burqa

KABUL, Afghanistan — "I feel naked without my burqa," the woman says, dragging two large shopping bags and gasping in the heat. "I cannot take it off. I would feel that everyone was looking at me."

More than three years after the fall of the Taliban, the streets of the Afghan capital are still filled with ghostly blue shapes. They float through the city's bazaars and perch on motorcycles behind their husbands, often holding a cellular phone to their azure-covered ears.

But now that the baton-wielding religious police are no longer around, what makes a woman cling to a stifling shroud? Soraya Parlika, director of the Afghanistan Women's Union, believes the burqa provides a sense of security in dangerous times.

"Kidnapping of women and children is on the rise; crime is increasing, and women feel safe in a burqa," said Parlika, 60, an outspoken advocate for women's rights.

The all-encompassing covering also affords a measure of privacy, she said. "If a woman is reduced to begging for bread or goes to people's houses to clean or wash clothes, she will wear the burqa so her relatives will not see her," said Parlika.

Parlika herself dresses in stylish clothing and wears a filmy headscarf rather than a burqa, but she said she understands the concerns of other women. "I am against the burqa, but until security is restored completely, I do not think women will take them off," she said.

Mir Akram, a psychology professor at Kabul University, agrees that the burqa is necessary to protect women from unwanted attention.

"A woman on the street without a burqa is seen as fair game for any sort of male overtures," he said. "Men are always making remarks and cursing women, and this certainly has a negative effect."

The burqas worn in Afghanistan usually completely cover a woman. They are usually sky-blue, although white, brown and other shades are occasionally seen. Most are made of cheap synthetic material, with a mesh covering that allows only a limited view of the outside world.

While in the West the garment has become virtually synonymous with the Taliban regime, the burqa has a long tradition in Afghanistan.

Women have been wearing them for centuries, but until the Taliban took power in the early 1990s, they were just one of several choices for Muslim women who wished to conform to Islamic standards of modesty. Islam requires that a woman wear the hijab, or veil, to cover the head and neck, and long sleeves and trousers.

"Wearing a burqa was a tradition in our society, and then tradition changed to coercion," said 30-year-old Kabul woman Zahira, 30, a resident of Kabul. "The Taliban made it an Islamic duty, but hijab does not mean a burqa."