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Women of the Afghan War:

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This is an excellent book and well worth the price.(All proceeds are donated to the childrens Afghan War Fund)The oral accounts from women who are trapped in their homes or forced to become refugees is heartbreaking.An entire generation of young girls are being raised illiterate with little hope of any normal life.Public executions where people are forced to attend is an almost daily event.The horror that these women face day to day will inspire you with their endless courage and urge you to become involved in their struggle..

Ellis, Deborah Women of the Afghan War, London: Praeger Publishers, 2000.
Pp. xxvii, 236. 14 photos. Index.

Deborah Ellis' Women of the Afghan War should be praised for its value in bringing the trials and tribulations of Afghan women to the forefront of this region's politics in a straightforward fashion that relies on the testimonies of the women themselves to tell the story of their hardships. The strength in Ellis' method is that this patchwork of first-person accounts "gives a face" to the conflict by introducing the women by name and using the actual translation of their words to show the harsh reality of these women's lives. Although Ellis' style is remarkable for the lack of detachment from the issues that an author's narration usually risks, it does present some downfalls in screening the accuracy of these women's stories and the discrepancies that arise in the translation of these accounts. Since the structure of the book is the most striking aspect of the book, it is easy to assume that the focus of Ellis' work is primarily just the women in this society - however, a more in-depth analysis reveals a greater commentary on the self-defeating nature of Afghan society itself, the inadequacies of relief foundations and organizations, and the potential for real-life solutions that can be achieved with frighteningly minimal effort.
Part interview, part historical overview and analysis, Women of the Afghan War effectively conveys the uniformly bleak nature of all Afghan women's lives within this society by grouping women from different socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds under a common theme of misery. Through the person-to-person accounts compiled by Deborah Ellis and her Afghan translator Benazir Hotaki, a tale of missing husbands, dead children, and stolen livelihoods surfaces that could prompt even the most stoic of individuals to break down and cry. Indeed, this provocation of emotions is most probably the intent of Ellis' choice in the format for her work. As a mental health counselor in her native Canada, there is no doubt that Ellis is well acquainted with the power of human emotion. Much of her work documents her skills within the field of psychology as she weaves her way through the refugee camps of Russia and Pakistan and speaks with Afghan women who are traumatized by the prolonged Russian occupation of Afghanistan and the ensuing wars that resulted from the Russian invasion, multiple inter-ethnic conflicts, and most recently, the takeover of the Taliban.
Rousing the emotions of the audience in response to the plight of these women while including the women's criticisms of humanitarian organizations as being spread too thinly to provide substantial aid reveals the author's other purpose besides rallying sympathy for the women of Afghanistan - she also wishes to show the inability of relief organizations to address the problem effectively due to lack of funds and cultural hindrances. Basically, since this book was written pre-September 11th, it is a call for greater awareness of the burden facing Afghan women and the need for a greater-scale solution that goes beyond just a scattered assemblage of relief organizations that provide intermittent assistance at best to those most in need.

For an academic or student writing their dissertation this book serves a purpose. It is well researched and documented.
However, aside from the experiences of displaced women of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the middle east in general, who were and still are treated as non-human, there is little exploration or analysis of the reasons for this inhumane treatment. The book is good historical documentation of the treatment of women in the middle east, but little or no insight is offered by the author. For most readers, it is not worth the high price demanded.