How can you even know what a woman wants, or if she's lying/saying something being heavily influenced by some factors?
If knowing what a women wants/thinks is proof of whether or not a women is wearing a burka due to her own free will, then this is something nobody can prove to you. Furthermore, how many other things can your above statement be applied to? Why priests decide to live the life they have chosen, why nuns choose to wear their outfits, why Jewish people wear the skullcap etc, the list is endless if you start applying it universally.
All I'm simply saying is that I personally have experience of Muslim women wearing burqa's because they have chosen to. They aren't abused because I know them and their husbands/dads/brothers very well (and in some cases have lived with them).
How do you explain after the taliban were thrown out the burqa use has been declining?
Syria, a very arabic and very much muslim country, has effectively banned the darn thing.
I think you are mistakenly taking the examples of a few instances where the popularity of the dress has declined and applying it to all regions. Over the decades the burka has increased and declined in popularity over the decades, depending on the location and time. 1960's Cairo was a bit like Paris, with most women wearing skirts and few wearing burka's. Now it's almost all burka's. A few years ago in the Pakistani city of Karachi, not many women wore Burka's, but now it's shot up in popularity. Turkey, a country which for decades has been deeply secular and pro western, has in recent times seen a shift towards a pro Islamic attitude, to the extent that the government banned the Niqab (headscarf) in universities.
In summary, as I said, it varies with time and location. Two links below highlight the trend towards the dress becoming more popular:
http://religion.info/english/articles/article_173.shtml
http://www.styleshrine.com/the-rising-popularity-of-burkas-in-worldwide-fashion
Look I dont think everyone is forced to wear it, but I do believe the amount of women who chose it on their own free will, without being influenced as children, or by a husband, is a very very small percentage
And I'm not denying that women out there aren't forced to wear it. On a global scale, the majority probably are, and it's something I don't condone. But I personally reckon most women in the west who wear it do so through their own personal desire, whilst those being forced are probably in the minority.
p.s. On a seperate note, I think this topic has perhaps strayed a little off-topic and ran it's course. The threads probably close to being locked by mods, so I think I'll call it a day on this