Lana Slezic
Forsaken
In March 2004, when award-winning photographer Lana Šlezic went on assignment to Afghanistan from her native Canada, she never dreamed she would stay for two years. At the time she believed that since the ousting of the suffocating Taliban in 2001, Afghan women and girls were living under considarably less oppressive conditions. She soon discovered that life for Afghan women was not as she expected and felt compelled to stay and document their story.
With the help of a young female Aghan as her friend and translator, Slezic photographed women all over the country. Over endless cups of tea in sitting rooms from city to village, she learned that Afghan women are still living in a harrowingly oppressive society where forced marriage, domestic violence, honor killings, and an unpalatable lack of freedom still exist. Even today many are not allowed to leave their houses or go to school, and the burka remains a common sight on the dusty streets of the war-torn country.
In 2007 Forsaken was published
"This body of work represents a very emotional journey that has allowed me to learn about the lives of Afghan women and girls in an intimate setting. Unfortunately, most of them understand subservience and fear all too well. The theme ‘ordinary' is appropriate because it is, sadly, quite ordinary to witness the kind of conditions women are forced to live under in Afghanistan. What should be extraordinary is not. On a grass roots level, the human rights and gender equality issues are endless although the effects of centuries of oppression cannot be expected to disappear overnight."
