women in Afganistan

[Kathy Hirsh-Pasek]

The Taliban's War on Women:

The government of Afghanistan is waging a war upon women. The
situation  is  getting so bad that one person in an editorial of the
Times compared  the  treatment of women there to the treatment of Jews
in pre-Holocaust  Poland.

Since the Taliban took power in 1996, women have had to wear burqua
and  have been beaten and stoned in public for not having the proper
attire,  even if this means simply not having the mesh covering in
front of  their  eyes. One woman was beaten to DEATH by an angry mob
of  fundamentalists  for accidentally exposing her arm while she was
driving. Another was  stoned to death for trying to leave the country
with a man that was not  a  relative.

Women are not allowed to work or even go out in public without a male
relative; professional women such as professors, translators, doctors,
 lawyers, artists and writers have been forced from their jobs and
stuffed  into their homes, so that depression is becoming so
widespread that it  has  reached emergency levels.

There is no way in such an extreme Islamic society to know the suicide
 rate with certainty, but relief workers are estimating that the
suicide  rate among women, who cannot find proper medication and
treatment  for  severe depression and would rather take their lives
than live in such  conditions, has increased significantly. Homes
where a woman is  present  must have their windows painted so that she
can never be seen by  outsiders. They must wear silent shoes so that
they are never heard.

Women live in fear of their lives for the slightest misbehaviour.
Because  they cannot work, those without male relatives or husbands
are either  starving to death or begging on the street, even if they
hold Ph.D.'s.  There are almost no medical facilities available for
women, and relief  workers, in protest, have mostly left the country,
taking medicine and  psychologists and other things necessary to treat
the sky-rocketing  level  of depression among women.  At one of the
rare hospitals for women, a reporter found still, nearly  lifeless
bodies lying motionless on top of beds, wrapped in their  burqua,

unwilling to speak, eat, or do anything, but slowly wasting  away.
Others have gone mad and were seen crouched in corners,  perpetually
rocking or crying, most of them in fear. One doctor is considering,
when  what little medication that is left finally runs out, leaving
these  women  in front of the president's residence as a form of
peaceful protest.

It is at the point where the term 'human rights violations' has become
 an  understatement. Husbands have the power of life and death over
their  women  relatives, especially their wives, but an angry mob has
just as much  right  to stone or beat a woman, often to death, for
exposing an inch of  flesh  or offending them in the slightest way.

David Cornwell has said that those in the West should not judge the
Afghan  people for such treatment because it is a 'cultural thing',
but this is  not  even true. Women enjoyed relative freedom, to work,
dress generally as  they  wanted, and drive and appear in public alone
until only 1996 -- the  rapidity of this transition is the main
reason, for the depression and  suicide; women who were once educators
or doctors or simply used to  basic  human freedoms are now severely
restricted and treated as sub-human  in  the  name of right-wing
fundamentalist Islam. It is not their tradition or  'culture', but is
alien to them, and it is extreme even for those  cultures  where
fundamentalism is the rule.  Besides, if we could excuse everything on
cultural grounds, then we  should  not be appalled that the
Carthaginians sacrificed their infant  children,  that little girls
are circumcised in parts of Africa,  that blacks in the deep south in
the 1930's were lynched, prohibited  from  voting, and forced to
submit to unjust Jim Crow laws.

Everyone has a right to a tolerable human existence, even as women in
a  Muslim country in a part of the world that North Americans do not
fully  understand. If the U.S. can threaten military force in Kosovo
in the  name  of human rights for the sake of ethnic Albanians, we can
certainly  express  peaceful outrage at the oppression, murder and
injustice committed  against  women by the Taliban.

*************

STATEMENT:

In signing this, we agree that the current treatment of women in
Afghanistan is completely UNACCEPTABLE and deserves support and
action  by  the people of the United Nations and that the current
situation in  Afghanistan will not be tolerated. Women's Rights is not
a small issue  anywhere and it is UNACCEPTABLE for women in 1999 to be
treated as  sub-human and so much as property.  Equality and human
decency is a RIGHT not a freedom, whether one  lives  in  Afghanistan
or anywhere else.

*****

1) Bruce J. Malina, Omaha, NE

2) Raymond Hobbs, Hamilton, ON, Canada

3) Elizabeth Demaray, Kanata, ON, Canada

4) Fred Demaray, Kanata, ON, Canada

5) Leslie Penrose, Tulsa, OK

6) Susan Ross, Perkins, OK

7) Jeannie Himes, Tulsa, OK

8) Lois Adams, Tulsa, OK

9) Mona M. Miller, Fort Collins, CO


10) Kara A. Sheldon, Colorado Springs, CO

11) Gay Victoria, Colorado Springs, CO

12) Catherine Euler, Leeds, UK

13) Margaret Talbot, Leeds, UK

14) Deena Scoretz, Berlin, GER

15) Claudia Brunath, Berlin, GER

16) Michaela Nickel, Berlin, GER

17) Christophe Mailliet, Berlin, GER

18) Gudrun Doll-Tepper, Berlin, GER

19) Bruce Kidd, Toronto, CANADA

20) Doug Richards, Toronto, CANADA

21) Caroline Sharp, Ottawa, CANADA

22) Michelle Van Vliet, Ottawa, CANADA

23) Darren Cates, Ottawa, CANADA

24) Daniel J. Moorcroft, Ottawa, CANADA

25) Mary K. Dickey, Ottawa CANADA

26) Jennifer MacLeod, Ottawa, CANADA

27) Rebecca Eaton, Toronto, CANADA

28) Jacques Mainguy, Ottawa, CANADA

29) Fred Holliss, Calgary, CANADA

30) Mike McDonald, Edmonton, CANADA

31) Kirby, Edmonton CANADA

32) Shauna de Cartier, Edmonton, CANADA

33) Chris Peters, Edmonton, CANADA

34) Genevieve Carolan, London, ENGLAND

35) Craig Tooley, London, UNITED KINGDOM

36) Joanna Topham, London, UNITED KINGDOM

37) Sarah Anderson-Edward, Guildford, UNITED KINGDOM

38) Sarah Phillis, North London, UNITED KINGDOM

39) Sally-Anne Wilson , Victoria, AUSTRALIA

40) Nicki Leech, New South Wales, AUSTRALIA

41) Kristi Edwards, Queensland, AUSTRALIA

42) Angelique Monk, Queensland,AUSTRALIA

43) Nicole Butler, Queensland, AUSTRALIA

44) Emily Mackenzie, Queensland, AUSTRALIA

45) Meg Kerwick, London, UNITED KINGDOM

46) Helen Campbell, London UNITED KINGDOM

47) Julie Peckham, San Diego, California UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

48) Carolyn Salerno, San Diego, California, United States of America

49)Bonnie Jones, Tustin, California, United States of America

50) Alison Clarke-Stewart, Laguna Beach, CA, USA

51) Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ardmore, PA, USA

**** Please sign to support, and include your town and country. Then

copy and e-mail to as many people as possible.

**** If you receive this list with more than 50 NAMES on it, please

e-mail a copy of it to:


mailto:sarabande at brandeis.edu

Even if you decide not to sign, please be considerate and do not kill

the petition, pass it on. Thank you.

It is best to copy and paste the petition into a new email rather
than forwarding the petition, to keep the number of >>>> forwarding
symbols from getting out of control.
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