Published Paper Details:

The rights of women in Afghanistan were safeguarded under law. The constitution of Afghanistan ensured and advocated equality for women. The country was heading towards a democratic setup. The sense of tolerance was widely embraced. Women had an active role in Afghanistan's overall development. They were holding some of the key positions in the administration. A good number of women were school teachers, doctors and university students. But the onset of Taliban regime in 1996 took total control of the Kabul city of Afghanistan and soon after they imposed some seriously strict restrictions and the country started ultimately moving into a hostile regime. All this came as a result of misinterpretations of Islamic Sharia by the Taliban. Women were the most horribly victimized section of the society by the Taliban's high handed and hard line approach. They were forced to quit their jobs, now they could only afford to work in limited circumstances. This paper will explore the same plight of Afghan women narrated in Khalid Hussaini's novel A Thousand Splendid Suns through a feministic approach. The novel gives a good account of this theme of women oppression through the character of Mariam and Laila who are subjected to various hardships during their survival in Kabul in the novel. My study is bases on Iris Young's (a political theorist and a feminist) most famous idea about "Five Faces of Oppression."