From the very beginning, Hosseini establishes that the circumstances that Mariam and Nana, her mother live under are tragic. Afghanistan is very much a place ruled by social conventions, especially so in the 1960s and if a person doesn’t fit into those standards, they’re out. In a man dominated world, often times women are victims of that. Mariam is but one example of that unfair system. It is because of this Nana instills into Mariam values probably passed from her own mother. “There is only one, only one skill a woman like you and me needs in life, and they don’t teach it in school . . . Only one skill. And it’s this: tahammul. Endure . . . It’s our lot in life, Mariam. Women like us. We endure. It’s all we have” ( Hosseini 7). As a young …show more content…
Though she is only there 10 days, Mariam can see just how tough prison life is, but also the community the women there have managed to create. Most of these women shouldn’t even be there, but because the Taliban forces such a strict hand down on women, they often get charged harshly for petty or “moral” crimes. According to an article by Kathy Gannon in 2013, Afghanistan's main women's prison, Badam Bagh, which in Pashto means Almond Garden. Out of the 202 inmates in a jail mostly filled with women, two-thirds of them are serving time for so-called "moral" crimes. Many had sought justice for domestic violence or tried to run away from an abusive situation. Only two of the women were actually there for a crime as bad as murder. In the same article, Zubaida Akbar, founder of the volunteer Haider organization, which fights for women's rights and sends lawyers and other representatives to the women's prison to defend the inmates in court, said women often risk being jailed themselves if they seek justice against the violence. In the overwhelmingly male-dominated legal system, Akbar went as far as to say, even when a female inmate gets in front of the judge, "He says 'it is her husband, she should go back and make it work. It is her fault and not her