Almost every girl fancies dressing up in colorful clothes, wearing fancy jewelry, and having luscious long hair – but some are compelled not to hold such fantasies in reverence.
So is the case with Sitara Wafadar – the brave Afghan girl who is forced to wear shabby clothes, boy-cut her beautiful hair – that too covered in a scarf so that her girlhood doesn’t shine through.
Standing true to her name, Sitara Wafadar is loyal to her father who needs her to work beside him as a boy in a brick kiln. Living up to her father’s expectations, Sitara wakes up as a boy every day and walks to the workplace with his father.
For many of us, even the idea is soul-crushing and suffocating, but this ordeal is actually a reality for this Afghan teenager and tens of thousands of others in Afghanistan and some Pashtoon-majority parts of Pakistan.
What is Bacha Posh?
The practice, commonly called Bacha Posh, has been going on for decades in which fathers without sons pick any of their daughters to live and behave as a boy. They are forced to change their appearances as boys so as to assist their fathers on tougher labor jobs.
In patriarchal societies of Pakistan and Afghanistan, economic dependency on men and social stigma leads families to resort to Bacha Posh. There is even this belief that a bacha posh daughter will bear a son in her next pregnancy.
Ironically, even in such societies, Bacha posh girls are “allowed” to roam outside alone, for shopping, to look for a job and work, play a sport, or play any other role as that of a boy in society. This is the only privilege a girl can enjoy in Afghan society.
This is why some girls choose to adopt this ordeal to have the freedom like their male counterparts.
Since the practice is common among the less privileged faction of the society, the jobs Bacha Posh girls have to take are more laboring and physically demanding. Survival in such circumstances is not easy and Sitara has to take this challenge head-on every day. From 7 am in the morning to 5 pm in the evening, the 20-year-old Sitara performs labor equal to her male counterparts.
Immersed into her day-to-day routine, Sitara says the memory of her being a girl has long-faded in her mind and now after years of pretending to be a son to her parents, she has started viewing herself that way as well.
I never think that I am a girl. My father always says ‘Sitara is like my eldest son. Sometimes… I attend funerals as his eldest son’ – she said while talking to AFP.
Even after being skilled at her work, she has to conceal her gender identity to ensure her security.
If they realized that a young girl is working morning to evening in a brick factory then I would encounter many problems. I could even be kidnapped.
Under the scorching sun, Sitara bakes 500 bricks daily and earns $2. Her mother says she recognizes it is unjust to her, but she has no other option. The family borrowed 25000 Afghani rupees from the factory owner to pay her mother’s medical expenses. Now, Sitara works alongside her father to pay back the loan.
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