During the 20th century in third world countries women had very limited rights or no rights at all. They couldn't say what they thought; They could not work outside the home; They had to remain completely covered from head to toe and were denied the right to education. Women have been forced to obey outrageous laws that have kept them silent for many years without having a say or a way to defend their rights. As the years have passed, many literary works have been published showing the experiences endured by women. The role of women in third world countries is questionable, as evidenced by the way women are portrayed in A Thousand Splendid Suns. Women have always been the most affected during times of social and political conflict. An example of a third world country where women have experienced this is Afghanistan. Afghanistan is one of the most difficult places in the world to be a woman. In the article Life as Afghan women we learn that 9 out of 10 women are illiterate and their life expectancy is 44 years, one of the lowest in the world. We can also see the causes of all the difficulties of being an Afghan woman. More than fifty percent of Afghan girls get married or engaged before the age of 10. They are forced to marry much older men who they sometimes meet for the first time at their wedding. Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative society, where men dominate and hand out sentences that give girls and women the chance to settle debts and disputes. Girls who marry so young do not continue their education and are more likely to suffer abuse from their husbands. There is also an unfair divide between girls and boys attending school. There are approximately three times more boys than girls who attend school. These are some of...... half of the document ...... the role of women in third world countries is questionable, as evidenced by the way women are portrayed in the literary work A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini Cited page of the Google work. “Life as an Afghan Woman.” Trust in education. March 21, 2014. Retrieved from http://www.trustineducation.org/resources/life-as-an-afghan-woman/ Google. A Thousand Splendid Suns. Rough Rider Blog. March 21, 2014. Retrieved from http://rriderlausd.org/blog2/?p=4603 Yahoo. Reduction of women's rights: not just in Afghanistan. 02/14/2014 National Geographic Daily News. March 21, 2014. Retrieved from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140220-women-rights-afghanistan-karzai-arab-spring-sharia-world/ Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns Chapter 7. Pg. 137Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns Chapter 16. Pg.254