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Self-immolation among Afghan Women (horrible photos)
Windsor Star: Afghan women - particularly in the volatile south, where the Taliban was born - rarely appear in public without burkas and often show deference to the opposite sex, lowering gazes to the floor, almost shrinking when a man approaches. Given that some hard-line Islamists believe the Koran decrees women to be subservient to men, improving conditions for women in a war-torn country with one of the world's lowest literacy levels requires more than education. It requires social engineering. more...
IWPR: Khadija Ahadi used to be the most active journalism student in town. At press conferences in Herat, she would always be there with her video camera, usually the only woman in the room. Nobody was surprised that she landed a job as the deputy editor-in-chief of Radio Faryad after her studies. But now her successful career has suddenly been stopped – by force. “Some men threatened me because I am a reporter, but initially I kept working and I didn’t tell my family because they would have stopped me,” said Ahadi, 32. “Then one day they threw two grenades in my house. I have not gone to work since.’’ more...
IRIN: Family planning services are available in over 90 percent of health facilities across Afghanistan but the number of women using them in rural areas is too low, according to the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH). Hamida Ebadi, director of MoPH’s reproductive health unit, reckoned only 14-15 percent of women in rural and remote regions use family planning services. Most pregnancy-related deaths happen in remote, isolated and insecure areas of the country where people have poor access to quality health services, officials say. more...
PAN (Translated by RAWA): A father brutally murdered his daughter and a young boy for having love affairs in Samangan province, Northern Afghanistan. He stabbed them many times with a knife. The girl was named Shakila and was 18 years old and the boy named Ghulam Sakhi was 22. This savage incident took place at 3 in the morning in Haji Umar Village of Aibak city (centre of Samangan). more...
The Washington Times: The "bravest woman in Afghanistan," in the view of her admirers, Ms. Joya has continued her defiant critique of the Afghan government two years after she was suspended from parliament for insulting her mostly male colleagues by likening them to farmyard animals."These warlords are killers, drug smugglers and dirty-minded criminals who are ruining our country, with support from the United States," she told The Washington Times in a recent interview at a safe house in Kabul. "This is a mafia regime that has betrayed its people." more...
Three women were killed and another eleven civilian injured in a clash between NATO and armed Taliban the previous day in Dare Peech of Kunar Province. According to the governor, the Afghan and NATO forces retaliated and a fight took place. Wahidi said that during the clash some of the bullets were fired in a populated area on people’s homes, as a result of which 3 women were killed and 11 others, including 6 children, were injured. more...
Rethink Afghanistan: $100 billion, and for what? To bring more troops to Afghanistan without an exit strategy? To further US foreign policy that fails to address the humanitarian needs of the world’s third poorest country? To escalate military operations that directly result in Afghan civilian casualties?... Fortunately, there are ways to take immediate action and address Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis. more...
The National: Juma Gul’s muffled crying became noticeable only when she wiped the tears away using her burqa or slumped forward with her head in her hands. Speaking Uzbek, she described how she made the equivalent of about Dh440 by selling her baby daughter off for marriage. The girl’s fiancé had memorised the Quran and his father promised that her virginity would be respected until she was an adult. The couple eventually wed four years ago, when she was eight and he was in his late twenties. more...
RAWA News: A tacit agreement operates between the Obama administration, the U.S corporate media, most progressive U.S. liberals, and the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA). All dream to a lesser or greater degree of a future social democratic paradise in Afghanistan where girls’ schools would be flourishing and small farmers exporting pomegranates. Some debate exists over the means to achieve this end. Much ado has been made during the past five months as to whether the Obama approach to Afghanistan differs or not with that of its predecessor. more...
IRIN: Attempts to set oneself on fire (self-immolation) are an extreme reaction often practiced by desperate women who lack access to justice and protection. Anargul, 25, set herself ablaze in Herat Province, western Afghanistan, in a bid to end her misery, and ended up with burns to her chest, belly, neck, hands and face. She told IRIN about her ordeal and why her attempted suicide has worsened her plight. more...
The Canadian Press: The trafficking and sexual exploitation of children in Afghanistan is a growing concern, Canada's Foreign Affairs Department was told in a confidential human-rights report prepared by senior officials. The illegal marriage of underage girls and the sexual abuse of young boys is commonplace, warned the Afghanistan Human Rights Report obtained by The Canadian Press under access-to-information laws. "Sexual violence is commonly reported but remains difficult to verify," said the partially censored review, written last summer. more...
Reporters Without Borders: Radio journalist Zakia Zaki’s murder two years ago tomorrow is still unpunished and her husband assures Reporters Without Borders that the lack of progress with the investigation is almost certainly due to the influence of the murder’s masterminds. The director of Sada-e-Solh (Peace Radio), Zaki was gunned down in her home in Jabalussaraj, in the northern province of Parwan, on 6 June 2007. more...
Amnesty International: Millions of people living in southern and eastern Afghanistan, terrorized by the Taliban, other insurgent groups and local militias ostensibly allied with the government, suffered insecurity that further restricted their already limited access to food, health care, and schooling. Indiscriminate attacks, abductions and the targeting of civilians reached unprecedented levels. The Taliban and other anti-government groups significantly expanded their attacks to cover more than a third of the country, including areas once considered relatively safe in the centre and the north. more...
MADRE: Women in Afghanistan are routinely denied basic human rights, including education, healthcare, freedom from violence, and freedom of movement. Afghan women who fight to change this reality are attacked and even assassinated by ultra-conservatives. Meanwhile, US airstrikes that kill civilians further endanger Afghan women and their families. They also increase the power of the Taliban and other reactionary forces as more Afghans turn to them for protection from the United States. more...
PAN: A teenage mother was stabbed to death by her in-laws in northwestern Faryab province on Wednesday what appears to be a result of domestic violence, officials said Thursday. Raheela, 18, who died from multiple stab wounds was the mother of one who got married four years ago, women affairs director in Faryab, Sharifa Azimi told PAN. Raheela's family members charged her father-in-law for killing her. more...
Six schools in the northern region of Kunduz closed following Taliban threats in recent weeks. The German army says it can't protect them. The schools received letters threatening acid and gas attacks, and teachers and pupils responded by staying home. The Afghan authorities finally decided to shut the schools altogether. The affected district of Chahar Darreh in the province of Kunduz is largely under the Taliban's control. more...
Boise Weekly: American soldiers serving in Vietnam wondered what they were fighting for. U.S. troops in Afghanistan don't have that problem. They know exactly what they're fighting for: rapists. America's media repeatedly claimed that Afghan women would be better off under the U.S.-supported Northern Alliance puppet government headed by Karzai than under the Taliban. But when I went to Afghanistan and asked women what they thought, they had a different story. The defeat of the Taliban brought about the collapse of law and order, making life even more dangerous, especially for women. more...
Xinhua: Nearly 100 girl students and teachers of a school in Kapisa province, 80 km north of the Afghan capital Kabul, mysteriously fell unconscious on Tuesday, spokesman of Public Health Ministry Ahmad Farid Rahed said. "A possible poisonous gas attack in Qazak Girl School this morning in Kohistan district has sickened 90 students and seven teachers," Rahed told Xinhua. more...
The Independent: Of course there will be an inquiry. And in the meantime, we shall be told that all the dead Afghan civilians were being used as "human shields" by the Taliban and we shall say that we "deeply regret" innocent lives that were lost. But we shall say that it's all the fault of the terrorists, not our heroic pilots and the US Marine special forces who were target spotting around Bala Baluk and Ganjabad. more...
PAN: Residents of the Bala Boluk district in western Farah province on Tuesday claimed more than one hundred 'innocent people' have been killed in the Monday's air offensive by the US forces. The air-strike in Bala Boluk district came after an insurgent attack on a police check post that killed six people and three others on spy charges on Sunday. more...
PAN: A father murdered his daughter and her paramour for their alleged involvement in an adulterous affair in the Timoryan village of Baghlan-i-Markazi district of northern Baghlan province on Tuesday night. The boy of age 23 and the girl, 25, was cousins. Dr. Khalil Naramgo, head of the district hospital said bodies of the two have been brought to the hospital. He claimed after the postmortem report it was learnt that the couple did not have sexual relations. more...
Xinhua: Three dozen girl students were poisoned in Parwan province 70 km north of Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday, Ahmad Farid Rahid a spokesman of Public Health Ministry said. "There was a ceremony at the compound of Sadiqi Padshah Girl School in Charikar, the capital of Parwan province, today and suddenly 36 students, one police and one teacher got unconscious, all of whom were taken to hospital," Rahid told Xinhua. more...
Xinhua: Unknown armed men set fire on a girl school in Ghor province, in northwestern Afghanistan, a local newspaper reported Sunday. "Unidentified men dynamited a girl school in Tiwara district Friday night and destroyed it," a security official was quoted by the daily Arman-e-Millie. The report put the attack on Taliban militants, but the outfit has yet to claim responsibility. more...
IRIN: Razia, aged 10, cannot go to school because doing so is deemed too risky for girls in the southern province of Kandahar, and because her father believes only boys should attend school. “My father says schools are not for girls and that girls should work at home,” she told IRIN in Kandahar, adding that she had always wanted to go to school and become a doctor. more...
Quqnoos: According to UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UNESCO and the United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF in Kabul, 66 per cent of Afghans are illiterate but the figure is remarkably higher for women, nearly 90 per cent. UNICEF estimates that more than 80 per cent of females and around 50 per cent of males lack accessing to education centres, mostly in the rural areas of the country. UNESCO Director for Afghanistan, Shigeru Ayoagi, marked this country with a highest rate of illiteracy in the world. more...
Spero News: Today, while the internet makes it possible to find similar information about the conflicts in the world in which the US is participating, either as primary combatant or as the chief provider of arms, as in Gaza, one actually has to make a concerted effort to look for them. The corporate media which provide the information that most Americans simply receive passively on the evening news or at breakfast over coffee carefully avoid showing us most of the graphic horror inflicted by our military machine. more...
Globe and Mail: What started eight years ago as a military operation to deprive terrorists of a safe haven from which to launch attacks on the West morphed, in the eyes of many, into something much grander: an exercise in nation building and bolstering human rights. The hopes for an improvement in the lives of Afghanistan's women have been sorely challenged recently by a series of events, from the horrific acid attacks on schoolgirls in Kandahar and the targeted assassinations of female politicians and police, to what is seen as the ultimate betrayal: the Afghan government's endorsement of the family law bill that appears to legalize rape in marriage. more...
OpEdNews: Last month, the new Afghanistan parliament passed the "Shia Family Law" which legitimates marital rape and child marriage for Shia Muslims who make up ~15% of the population. At least 300 women protested the law, with their faces exposed. Nearly 1,000 Afghan men and their slaves turned maniacal and stoned the protesters. Police struggled to keep the two groups apart, reports the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). more...
NPR: A growing number of Afghans — including children — are escaping the pain of war and poverty by using opium or heroin, for as little as a dollar a day. A United Nations survey begun this month is widely expected to show that at least 1 in 12 people in Afghanistan abuses drugs — double the number in the last survey four years ago. Experts say that the alarming trend is not being addressed by the Afghan government and its international partners, even though most officials acknowledge that the drug scourge threatens lasting stability in Afghanistan. more...
Associated Press: A group of some 1,000 Afghans swarmed a demonstration of 300 women protesting against a new conservative marriage law on Wednesday. The women were pelted with small stones as police struggled to keep the two groups apart. The law, passed last month, says a husband can demand sex with his wife every four days unless she is ill or would be harmed by intercourse — a clause that critics say legalizes marital rape. It also regulates when and for what reasons a wife may leave her home alone. more...
The Age: FOR the women of Afghanistan, it is yet another brutal message — that death awaits those who choose a public life... Malalai Joya understands better than most the oppression of Afghan women — and the danger of speaking out. The women's rights activist and member of Afghanistan's national parliament has lived in hiding for five years and never spends more than 24 hours at the same house. more...
The Associated Press: A NATO operation killed six civilians Monday, including a woman and a young girl, in a mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan, villagers and officials said. But the military alliance said its force killed four to eight "militants." The governor of Kunar province, Sayed Fazelullah Wahidi, said four men also died in the NATO air strikes. Five houses were damaged, and one was demolished, Wahidi and villagers said. more...
Reuters: Taliban militants publicly executed a man and girl on Monday for eloping when she was already engaged to marry someone else, an official said, in a sign of the grip the Islamists have over parts of Afghanistan. Hashim Noorzai, head of Khash Rud district in southwestern Nimruz province, said the two were executed by gun shots in front of a crowd of villagers. more...
Toronto Star: A female provincial official known for fighting for women's rights was gunned down in southern Afghanistan yesterday... Gunmen killed Sitara Achakzai outside her home in Kandahar city and then drove off, said Matiullah Khan Qateh, police chief of Kandahar province. He said the four men drove up on two motorcycles and shot Achakzai as she was getting out of her car. more...
Times Online: Tom Coghlan, reporting for The Times in Kabul, has been leaked the full text of new laws in Afghanistan, under which a woman from the minority Shia community will not be able to leave the house without her husband's permission and cannot refuse him his marital rights. 'The wife is bound to preen for her husband, as and when he desires,' the law says. According to the United Nations Development Fund for Women, the new law legalises the rape of a woman by her husband. more...
UNOHCHR: The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Thursday urged the Afghan Government to rescind a new law, reportedly signed by President Karzai earlier this month, saying it would seriously undermine women's rights in Afghanistan and contravene the Afghanistan constitution as well as universal human rights standards. more...
Times online: This grainy footage appears to show a 17-year-old girl being beaten by Islamic radicals in Pakistan’s northwestern region of Swat, where Sharia law was introduced after the government reached a truce with the Taleban in February.A local Taleban commander in the militant stronghold of Matta, 25 miles from the regional capital, Mingora, ordered the girl to be flogged a week ago after accusing her of adultery, according to local reporters. more...
IRIN: Despite a July 2008 joint emergency appeal for US$404 million to help the most vulnerable 550,000 pregnant and lactating women and under-five children in Afghanistan, nutritious food aid - specially fortified food -is yet to reach those in need. Some 24 percent of lactating women are malnourished, over 19 percent of pregnant women have a poor nutritional status (low on minerals, vitamins, food insecure and weak) and about 54 percent of under-five children are stunted, according to a joint survey by UN agencies and the government. more...
The Independent: Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, has signed a law which "legalises" rape, women's groups and the United Nations warn. Critics claim the president helped rush the bill through parliament in a bid to appease Islamic fundamentalists ahead of elections in August. more...
The Guardian: Hamid Karzai has been accused of trying to win votes in Afghanistan's presidential election by backing a law the UN says legalises rape within marriage and bans wives from stepping outside their homes without their husbands' permission. The Afghan president signed the law earlier this month, despite condemnation by human rights activists and some MPs that it flouts the constitution's equal rights provisions. more...
(with photos and movie clip)Samia, victim of family violence in fundamentalists-dominated Afghanistan (with photos and movie clip)Afghan carpet weavers are unpaid slaves, rights activist says Being a writer -or woman- still dangerous in Afghanistan Female foe of warlords faces them in Afghan assembly Was Women's Vote a Roar, or a Whisper? The women of Afghanistan find a leader Afghan Woman Accused of Being U.S. Spy Is Killed Violence against women in Afghanistan remains dramatic – UN expert The Taleban may be gone, but the abuse of women goes on AI: Afghan Women Still Under Attack -- Systematic Failure to Protect Three Afghan women found dead with warning note A woman was stoned to death in Afghanistan Afghan women still in chains under Karzai Women Prisoners Complain of Bad Conditions and Sexual Abuse Access to Justice for Afghan Women 12-years old Rahima was gang-raped by warlords Afghan women offer to replace hostages Female election worker commits suicide after rape attempt on her (with photo) Afghan Women No Better Off; US accused of not fulfilling promises Painful story of the Herati shelter girls Afghan rights advocate expects death A populist hero emerges from under the rule of the gun Blast Kills 2 Afghan Women On Election Workers' Bus Afghan Schoolgirls Poisoned Afghan province bans women performers on TV, radio Self-Immolation Of Women On The Rise In Western Provinces Afghanistan's Supreme Court protests women singing on TV Afghanistan's Women after 'Liberation' Woman delegate almost expelled from Afghan assembly Thousands of married Afghan women were expelled from school Amnesty International: Constitution fails women Amnesty International: No justice and security for women Apathy of Afghan women after Taliban AFGHANISTAN: Report exposes continuing human rights abuses HRW Report Details Threats to Women's Rights, Freedom of Expression Afghan women: Fighting for the right to sing Eve Ensler: This is Most Fragile Time for Afghanistan "Climate of fear" rules Afghanistan, Girl's education at risk Afghanistan: the Taliban's smiling face Afghan poor sell daughters as brides Why burqas still stifle Afghan women Afghan warlords still enforcing Taliban oppression Post-Taliban Warlords Oppress Afghan Women Widespread abuse, restrictions on freedom continue Self-Immolations on Rise in Afghanistan Afghan Women Die Giving Birth at Staggering Rate Afghan Woman Fired for Meeting Bush Uncovered Afghan Girl Schools Struck by Attacks RAWA Literacy Program for Afghan Women (photos) Afghan Women Remain Victims of Hope Unfulfilled RAWA Interview with some prostitutes Women at risk in Afghanistan Afghan women still languish What the future holds for the women of Afghanistan? ZARMINA'S STORY "A female worker was gang raped in northern Afghanistan", UN HRW: Women Still Under Threat Afghan laws still repress women Afghan Woman Teacher Attacked with Acid Northern Alliance gunmen rape fourteen-year-old Fatima and her mother 3 Afghan women awaiting repatriation die Warlord's men commit rape in revenge against Taliban Pashtuns subjected to murder, sexual abuse in North of Afghanistan Annan: Afghan Women May Still Suffer Lifting The Veil On Taliban Sex Slavery Taliban Restrictions Drive Women To Suicide Reports of rape, looting by Afghan militiamen Afghan girls on sale for 100kg wheat "Give me security, then I will remove my burqa" Crimes of the "Northern Alliance" Seen Through the Eyes of a Grieving Mother The Heartbreaking Story of an Afghan Woman Taliban whipping a doctor and his female patients Inside Afghanistan: Behind the veil Misery brings down bride price in northern Afghanistan, UN Taliban orders women aid workers to stop driving Taliban stage lashing of unwed couple accused of having sex Taliban Hang Convicted Prostitutes Afghans trading young daughters to pay debts Story of a mother who never sees her only son Red Cross aids and interview with widows in Kabul Afghan women working in poppy fields prefer other jobs Samano, a poetess forced to turn to begging (photo) Taleban shuts 'widow's bakeries' Taliban arrest US aid worker, Ban women from working for NGOs Bakeries Sustain Afghan Widows Eager for Food-and Work Story of a Woman Victim of War
Salehah was burnt alive
Drug addiction among Afghan women on rise Sick women and the stick of Taliban Taliban Stone Woman for Adultery No female student in Afghan universities Taliban sack all female civil servants, teachers UN report flays Taliban rights violations against women Eyewitness report of a RAWA activist from Kabul A bereaved family cries for your help Taliban publicly execute woman (with photo and movie clips) Interview with many women kidnapped from Shamali regions Prostitution Under the rule of Taliban UN lashes out at Taliban for Violence against Women Large number of Afghan women are turning to prostitution Women Burning Under the Taliban Rule The Conversion of Girls Schools into Seminaries by the Taliban Taliban lashed a mother and her daughter publicly A Man Publicly Executed and a Woman Beaten Trafficking of Afghan Women from Kabul to Pakistan Cry of an Afghan women Lashing of women by Taliban Taliban impose new rules on women Trafficking of Afghan and Pakistani girls to Gulf states Women in Afghanistan suffer from depression Afghan female journalist survives life attempt Miserable life of educated Afghan women under Taliban rule Taliban Rules Weigh on Afghan Women Letter of a tormented Afghan woman to commemorate Princess Diana Mariam Girl’s High school turned into a market A woman’s sacred anger Attack on United Nations special girls’ schools Killing in front of the family members The Taliban Rapists Taliban raped two innocent girls Nazaneen’s Mother goes blind A woman challenge Taliban on the road Taliban’s another treatment of women Shakiba's Suicide The Wickedness of the Taliban and a couple Taliban raped Mariam in Kabul A woman stoned to death for adultery Taliban mistreat women Women under house arrest in Afghanistan Taliban's law drives women to suicide Taliban flog woman, cut off two men's hands Doctors ordered not ot treat women without their legal Mahrams What is going on Afghan widows? The Taliban's war on women (New York Times, Nov.6,1997) Girl-lashing by Taliban in Kabul The fundamentalist's gift: Prostitution Raping license Consequence of girls teaching Gang raping Execution for refusing forced marriage Women's self-immolation under the Taliban's domination A man and a woman are stoned to death by Jehadis (Photo) Dostum commander's crime "Women in their houses or in the grave" The fundamentalists and the Afghan women The gift of the fundamentalists Raping nine-year old girls Masoud's men rape foreigners The fundamentalists after gang-raping Shukria, killed her in cold-blooded Celebration of the conquest by raping Suicide to avoid rape Commanders have ten "wives"! The gift of the "Islamic revolution": Body-selling Women’s fault or cruelty in the name of "Shariat" (Islamic Law)? "Only loose women working in foreign aid agencies" Women workers beaten up in Kabul Taliban impose more curbs on nationals Foced abortion, Taliban style Reckoning for wearing thin socks
Gulbar, an Afghan woman who was burnt by her husband in Nov.2005 (details...)
Muska, a female election worker who committed suicide after rape attempt on her in Jalalabad on Oct.9, 2004 (details...) A true face of Afghan women today.
"There is a huge gap between the reality on the ground and the 'remarkable progress' claimed by western diplomats who sit in fortified compounds behind guards..." (Christina Lamb, The Sunday Times, November 5, 2006)Women wailing with grief as they are turned away from a funeral in Kabul in late 1994. AI
Those responsible for these killings are now in possession of power in Afghanistan and strongly supported by the US government.A woman with her child recounts how her husband was killed in Afshar, west of Kabul. Hundreds of innocent people from Hazara minority were massacred by forces of Sayyaf and Ahmad Shah Massoud in this area in 1993
Public execution of an Afghan woman by Taliban in Kabul
Photos from a video film by RAWA (click here to view more photos and movie clips)A victim of the fundamentalists brutalities against women More photos
WOMEN IN AFGHANISTAN: A human rights catastrophe
(Amnesty International document, March 1995)
The Jehadi fundamentalists after gang-raping Shukria, killed her in cold-blood
Naheed another victims of the Jehadi Fundamentalists