The movie “Osama” depicts a young Afghanistan girl named Osama who struggles to help take care of her widowed mother and grandmother. The movie takes place in Afghanistan sometime during the 1980’s when the city where she lives has been taken over by the Taliban. During that time the Taliban had very strict rules and restrictions on how women lived and how they were treated. If the women did not adhere to these constraints there were very harsh punishments given to them.
Up until the rise of the Taliban, Muslim women had many of the same rights as American women. They received the right to vote in the 1920’s and in the 1960’s the Afghan constitution provided for the equality of women. The Muslim culture has a practice of protecting the rights of women and children. Muslim women were allowed to work, become school teachers, lawyers, doctors, serve in the legislative body of the government and contribute to society. The Muslim women also had the right to freedom of expression, the right to an education, the right to move around freely, and the right to health care.…show more content… As portrayed in the opening scene of the movie, women were not allowed to gather openly in public and they were required to wear the “burka”, a long blue dress that covered their entire body including their heads, face, hands and feet. This cumbersome garment was extremely hard to walk in. “…according to one Taliban spokesman, ‘”the face of a woman is a source of corruption”’ for men not related to them.” (1) The women from Kabul were demonstrating, they were chanting “We want to work”. (2) The women were not allowed to be anywhere in public without being escorted by a male relative. For Osama, her mother and many of the other women it was impossible for them to be escorted by a male relative, since most of the men were killed during the