Beneath the Veil

British reporter Saira Shah (whose father is Afghani) travels to Afghanistan in order to secretly film aspects of daily life, in a country in which “women have become invisible.” She begins her journey in Pakistani refugee camps, meeting many members of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, RAWA, a group of women human rights activists who work subversively in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The group enables Saira Shah to operate hidden cameras in order to film the country’s poverty that she declares to have been “deliberately created by the country’s rulers.” Shah films women begging on the streets in burqa, as they are not allowed to work, as well as abandoned children who are left to starve in the open. Shah also uncovers some remnants of normalcy in Kabul, however, such as a RAWA-run beauty parlor that conducts business in an old luxury apartment complex.