Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan — Her father is dead and her brother is just a boy. For Shabana, a radiant young woman of 17 with dark eyes and flowing hair, the absence of a strong male protector has cost her dearly.
One day last fall as she was walking home from school, Shabana was kidnapped by a young man from her neighborhood. He forced her into marriage, then beat and imprisoned her in his home over the next seven months. Her mother did not intervene.
"He knew I had no one to protect me, and he took advantage," Shabana said of her kidnapper.
But in late May, Shabana managed to escape to a women's shelter on a quiet side street in another part of Kabul, the Afghan capital. And into her life came Esther Hyneman, 70, an American who speaks virtually no Dari but has brought a New Yorker's sharp tongue and aggressive attitude to the cause of Afghan women's rights.
One day in June, Hyneman hugged Shabana and caressed her hair as the young woman struggled to describe what had befallen her. They sat in an office at Women for Afghan Women, a private agency that assists abused women in a country where they are commonly treated as chattel.
Shabana said her head still aches from the beatings, and she clutched her throat to demonstrate how her kidnapper had choked her the night before she fled to a police station, which referred her to the shelter. Twenty-six days had passed since her escape, enough time for outrage to overcome the pain and shame.
"I am not a toy. I am human," she said in a clear, strong voice. "I should not be treated like an animal."
The agency, which has three Afghan lawyers, has gone to court to seek a divorce for Shabana. On this day, she had just returned from the courtroom, where her erstwhile husband vowed to get her back, and where her mother and uncle urged her to remove the stain on her family's honor and return to him.
"I would rather die than go back," Shabana said, a hard edge creeping into her voice. "If I go back, he will kill me. I am sure of that."
If forced to return, she said, she will commit suicide, "and my blood will be on their hands."
The shelter, part of the Family Guidance Center in Kabul, is funded by private donors in the United States, European governments and nongovernmental organizations. The center and its nearby shelter opened in March 2007, followed by centers in two other Afghan cities; they have given refuge and legal help to 750 women.
