Channel 4 (UK) Documentaries

Afghan Army Girls (2013x31)

Air date: Jun 15, 2013

Afghan Army Girls provides an unprecedented insight into life as a young woman in war-torn Afghanistan, following three very different female army recruits, Zeinab, Samiya and Homa. These women are trailblazers of their time. They face stigma and shame for joining up, but are determined to better themselves while maintaining their country's strict traditions. They face recriminations from their extended family for working outside their home, or even worse, coming into contact with men. There's a rumour that the Taliban has put a price on their heads. But Zeinab, Samiya and Homa know this is a time to make history, and those with the best grades will have an opportunity to join the air force, where some of the training takes place abroad. This film follows the women through the highs and lows of their six-month basic training course. Zeinab, who's 21, is trying to escape an arranged marriage after a failed love affair. Her fiance doesn't know she's in the army. Homa, 25, is a single mother trying to create a better life for her son. As an unmarried woman with a child, her marital prospects are already slim, and joining the army isn't helping. She struggles physically but she wants to make it into the air force to honour the memory of her dead sister. Samiya's parents made her join the army, and she hates it. She was brought up as a boy. In the practice of Bacha Posh, families without sons often raise their daughters as boys until they reach puberty. Samiya is now 22 but maintains her boyishness, with which come some very conservative ideas about the role of women, which clash with the progressive career she now has. The film also follows them home to meet their families who talk frankly about war, marriage, religion, domestic violence, family, honour, love and, above all, what it's like to be a woman in modern Afghanistan.