Forsaken but not forgotten!

Lana Slezic went to the war afflicted country of Afghanistan way back in 2004 on an assignment for the Canadian Geographic Magazine. The assignment was supposed to last six weeks, but Lana, deeply moved by the plight of the women there, ended up staying in the country for two years. She felt a strong need to do something for them–in her case she wanted to capture them through her lens.

Slezic remembers her days and the emotional upheaval that inspired her work. “It has been a very moving journey but it allowed me to learn about the lives of Afghan women. I hope that the photographs will communicate, influence, and inspire others to learn more about the plight of Afghan women.” On asking her what motivated her to cover the lives of these Afghan women, Slezic says, “I was on a six-week assignment to cover the role of the Canadian military in Kabul. When the six weeks were over, I decided to stay on to document the plight of Afghan women. I wanted to document something which had either not been documented properly or had been misinterpreted by the media. I was so moved by the women I met that I just kept going on and it took two years to do complete what I had in mind.”

Slezic elaborates on how she documented the lives of the women and how she had grown close to an orphan named Kulsima. “I was working with the Human Rights Organisation and had gone to Kandahar with my assistant. When we reached their office, they told me about Kulsima, who was in an orphanage. Kulsima was not exactly an orphan–when she was very young, her father had died and her mother had eventually remarried. Her stepfather sold her for $60 to another family, where she was married to one of the sons, who was only six years old. For the next seven years, Kulsima was relentlessly tortured by that family. Then one night she managed to escape.

The following morning she was found 8 km away, lying in the dirt by a group of people, who took her to the police station. That is where she met Malailai, who at that point of time was the only policewoman in Kandahar. Malailai took Kulsima under her wing and placed her in the orphanage, where I found her. I wanted to take her with me. I bought her a ticket  so that she could come with me to Canada, but when the governor came to know about it, he did not allow it. Later the Human Rights Organisation contacted me and told me that I was not allowed to take her because she was legally not divorced from her husband. I refused to leave without her and made a few calls to Kabul because I knew someone in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and they agreed to put her up an orphanage in Kabul. I later came to know that she had indeed been shifted to an orphanage in Kabul,” says Lana.

Slezic also talks about the issues and the plight of the Afghan women and their place in society. “As far as I could see, I feel that the issues that plague these women are cultural and not related to money or religion. They are deeply rooted in their culture and it might be difficult to take it out of them. I would also like to say that the documentation I did and that before me so many others have done, portray the actual lives of the Afghan women.”

The redeeming factor, however, was that in spite of the great odds that the Afghan women have to deal with, they still try to enjoy life with whatever little they have. “The Afghan women welcomed me to their homes, they were so warm and so open and loving. They wanted to give me everything.

There was no animosity. They were warm, amazingly generous, and open-minded. They would always give me more than they could. The endless cups of tea I shared with those women will be forever in my heart and mind. Those two years were really special. It was a humbling and a beautiful experience, which I will always remember,” says Slezic.