I am very proud to be a Pashtun but sometimes I think our code of conduct has a lot to answer for, particularly where the treatment of women is concerned. A woman named Shahida who worked for us and had three small daughters, told me that when she was only ten years old her father had sold her to an old man who already had a wife but wanted a younger one. When girls disappeared it was not always because they had been married off. There was a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl called Seema.

身为普什图人，我感到很骄傲。但有时候，我也会觉得，普什图在行为上有太多传统规范要遵守了，特别是对女性而言。父亲的员工中有个叫夏西达的女人，她有三个小女儿。她告诉我，她才十岁时，她的父亲就把她卖给了一个老男人。这个老男人已经有老婆了，但还想要一位年轻太太。这里的女孩子如果消失，不见得都是因为嫁人了。有一个很美丽的15岁女孩，名叫西玛。

Everyone knew she was in love with a boy, and sometimes he would pass by and she would look at him from under her long dark lashes, which all the girls envied. In our society for a girl to flirt with any man brings shame on the family, though it’s all right for the man. We were told she had committed suicide, but we later discovered her own family had poisoned her.

大家都知道她爱上了一个男孩子，当这个男孩经过时，她就会眨着那双人人称羡的有着浓密睫毛的眼睛看着他。在我们的社会里，任何女孩只要向男孩暗送秋波，就会让她的家族蒙羞，尽管男人却有这样的权力。我们当时听说她自杀了，后来才知道，是她的家人将她毒死了。

We have a custom called swara by which a girl can be given to another tribe to resolve a feud. It is officially banned but still continues. In our village there was a widow called Soraya who married a widower from another clan which had a feud with her family. Nobody can marry a widow without the permission of her family.

我们有一个习俗，叫作使瓦拉--当两族之间发生纠纷时，就将一个女孩送出去，以此平息纷争。这个行为虽已被官方禁止，但仍持续在民间流行。我们的村里有个寡妇，名叫索瑞雅，嫁给了一个与她的家族有纠纷的家族的鳏夫。按照我们的传统，如果未取得寡妇家人的同意，寡妇是不可以再嫁的。