Where American soldiers dropped bombs only a year ago, the American beauty delegation hopes to regain the trust of Afghani women. This is no joke: American women set up the first Western beauty school in Kabul designed to “help Afghani women to regain confidence” – and to generate an independent income from opening and running beauty parlors, eventually all over Afghanistan. Curlers against Misery takes a look at this unusual kind of development aid – and at cultural misunderstandings despite good intentions.
With 2 million returning refugees and further 1.5 million expected this year, Afghanistan’s resources have since long been spent. Only 12% of the population has access to safe drinking water. In Kabul, the population has doubled to 2.7 million over the past winter, with refugees flooding into the UN secured city. Limited housing and employment coupled with inflation and repeated rocket and bomb attacks make life increasingly difficult. At least 100.000 squatters eke out a marginal existence in the bombed-out ruins of houses, without access to water or electricity.
The overall situation for the female population has changed very little since the American war machine “drove out the Taliban”. Many women are still subject to rape, forced marriages, torture, killing, domestic violence and social exclusion. Most violations against women are still not even taken into account by the current Islamic law. The low social status of women remains the underlying reason for ongoing physical and sexual violence against girls and women.
Afghanistan is a Third World country that lacks food, medicine and essential survival items. Can shampoo and make-up really be the answer? In the face of poverty and tragedy, the question arises: can Western luxury creatures help Afghan women to rise out of poverty? How do the locals view visitors from the country that bombarded them only one year ago? Can the wounds of men’s warfare be healed by women’s efforts?
“Curlers Against Misery” tells the emotional story of the encounter between victims and culprits on many levels. Sound journalistic research and background information about the current situation in Afghanistan is embedded in a human story that deals with overcoming guilt, anger and a victim mentality on the road to self-determination.