Afghanistan, Where God Only Comes to Weep

Shirin-Gol was just a young girl when her village was leveled by the Russians' bombs in 1979. After the men in her family joined the resistance, she fled with the women and children to the capital, Kabul, and so began a life of day-to-day struggle in her war-torn country. A life that included a period living in the harsh conditions of a Pakistani refugee camp, being forced into a marriage to pay off her brother's gambling debts, selling her body and begging for the money to feed her growing family, an attempted suicide, and an unsuccessful endeavor to leave Afghanistan for Iran after the Taliban seized control of her country. Told truthfully and with unflinching detail to writer and documentary-maker Siba Shakib, this is the story of the fate of many women in Afghanistan. But it is also a story of great courage of a proud woman who wanted an education for her children so that they could have a chance at a future without fear and poverty.