The Burka-clad women, female graffiti artist Shamsia Hassani, spray painted in Kabul mean she risks being arrested or even worse executed. Yet she's determined to highlight the oppression felt by women in the war-torn Afghanistan through her art. Her activism to highlight women's rights comes as Afghan Clerics announce repressive new rules that state women are subordinate to men, should not mix in work or education and at all times have a male guardian when they travel, it seems we have not made Afghanistan a better place as it reverts back towards Taliban policies and we plan to leave. "I wanted to do something about women's rights," says Shamsia, 24, an associate professor of fine arts at Kabul University. "I felt like no one was doing them justice. I wanted to mix modern style of my painting with their past life to show what kind of life women have in this age."
One of her most celebrated murals shows a woman in a Burka sitting on a concrete step with her head bowed. 'She's wondering if she can get up, or if she will fall down.'
Hassani now faces being arrested for working with a male colleague, as well as it being illegal to graffiti on public buildings, it's especially dangerous walking around the street sharing her art and with it her political message. "In three decades of war, women have had to carry the greatest burdens on their shoulders . Women in Afghanistan need to be careful with every step they take." Women like Shamsia Hassani are the artists we should be looking up to, not the nut jobs like Tracey Amin who take back charitable work she donates. Her work is the kind that inspires as well as grabs headlines across the world in a time when most papers and news outlets are downsizing their foreign news departments. Reminding us that while we'd prefer more reality shows than another episode of Panorama, such ignorance and disinterest in the world around us makes for a fertile environment in which atrocities tend to occur. Shamsia Hassani not only highlight's women's rights in Afghanistan but reminds me of all the other women currently struggling across the globe for recognition. These spray paintings are not just symbolising oppressed Muslim Burka-clad women but representative of the many women's movements such as the denunciation of female genital mutilation in Africa, campaigners advocating rights for divorced and unwed mothers in India, stopping forced marriages in Iran.
