ABSTRACT
On a dusty tent-filled plain a mile and a half from the Afghan border, a group of black-clad women, their faces marked with weariness yet full of dignity, communicate through sign language their plight of having been raped and of having lost as many as ten or twelve members of their families at the hands of the Soviet occupiers of their country. One of the women, Sultana, related how she herself had escaped only by pretending she was dead in the apparent rush of the Soviet soldiers to get on to the next village.
