Afghanistan: Women fighting for freedom

Poetry is their new sword. Afghani women are fighting back against the growing challenges to their freedom through poetry. They use words to express their feelings, ask questions, make statements. Poetry is also a way to share their pain, to give it expression so that it does not consume them.

A few dozen women writers meet every week to share poetry in a quiet place sealed off from the din of a bustling neighbourhood, and the pressures of a deeply conservative society.

Afghan women are drawing on their own traditions to break taboos. For centuries, in a largely illiterate society, women used verse as a means of expression and escape from lives largely controlled by men, except for their deepest thoughts.

Truth can be hard to tell in country struggling to emerge from 30 years of war.

As these women give expression to their fears, dreams, pain, and longings, pray that God would come and reveal himself. And pray for Christian women to use this means of sharing their story with others as well.

Read the story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24608666