The Tyee - B.C., Canada February 4, 2011
Don't Believe the Taliban Have Changed
They're not softening on girls' education, as some media have reported. I know. I'm in Kabul, working for those girls.
By Lauryn Oates | Troy Media
On Jan. 14, the U.K.'s Times Educational Supplement ran a story titled "Taliban backs girls' education," elatedly announcing the Taliban had a change of heart with regards to their long-standing ban on girls' education.
However, in the story itself, it turns out the announcement came not from the Taliban leadership but rather from their sworn enemies: the Afghan government. The only person quoted in the story was Afghan Education Minister Farooq Wardak, who reported, "What I am hearing at the very upper policy level of the Taliban is that they are no more opposing education and also girls' education."
No confirmation from Taliban
No confirmation from the Taliban itself was provided in the story, or since.
The same day, the BBC picked up the story, using the headline, "Afghan Taliban 'end' opposition to educating girls," while their counterparts at The Telegraph ran a story headlined "Taliban 'abandons' opposition to girls' education."
The story quickly spread from the U.K. to around the world.
This is strange journalism to say the least. There is scant evidence besides Wardak's speculations that the Taliban have any notion of giving up the ban. More than half of the schools in some provinces are closed, mainly due to insecurity, such as in the southern province of Helmand, where 150 out of 282 schools remain closed.
Here in Kabul, I continue to hear regularly of attacks against schools, the poisoning of girls' schools, arson of schools and threats to educators, sometimes carried out, resulting in murdered teachers and terrified students and parents.
Afghanistan has made tremendous progress in the field of education, with the enrolment of some 7 million students, nearly 40 per cent of them girls. Yet millions more school-aged children, the majority of them girls, are not in school. The insurgency, including the Taliban's overt targeting of girls' schools, is one of the major culprits blocking further progress. This is the real news story, rather than a poorly sourced claim that the Taliban have been suddenly enlightened.
Taliban business as usual
What makes this statement from Wardak even less of a news story is the fact the Taliban have long been inconsistent in their imposition of the ban, as Afghanistan analyst Una Moore pointed out in a recent article that cautions against taking Wardak's statements too seriously:
"It's not at all clear what acceptance means in this context. Acceptance of education for teenage girls and adult women? Acceptance of women in co-educational universities? Would the Taliban accept the presence of girls in schools that operate in gender-segregated shifts? What about schools that segregate classrooms, but allow boys and girls to attend at the same time?"
Moore is alluding to when the Taliban were in power and made the occasional exception to girls' schooling, but always with a dizzying array of caveats, such as restricting instruction to religious subjects or denying girls from continuing schooling past puberty.
What this effectively amounted to was a tiny fraction of girls accessing what barely qualified as an education. The current situation differs little when, for example, once in a while, the odd Taliban commander breaks ranks and allows some minimal (and heavily religious) schooling in a madrassah in an area under Taliban control. It's frankly nothing to get too excited about.
'Most do not favour reconciliation with Taliban'
Despite this un-newsy story, almost immediately many of those who oppose NATO's presence in Afghanistan and Canada's participation were quick to circulate the dubious "news."
There was almost a celebratory mood: finally, we have permission to like the Taliban. You see, they're not so bad after all.
It begs some serious scrutiny of our commitment to the future of the Afghan people when so many in the West are so keen to jump up and down in response to a vague report of a Taliban policy change, in search of any excuse to disengage from the country.
Meanwhile, many ordinary Afghans remain deeply uncomfortable with the idea of reconciling with the likes of the Taliban. The Karzai government advocates talking to the Taliban, but this is far from the will of the Afghan people, who have lived amid the violence and intolerance of their former governors, and are far less naive than those in the West about their destructive intentions. The populist and intrepid Afghan member of Parliament, Fawzia Koofi, told me that she believes the Taliban are even more extremist today than they were in 2001.
She added, "Most of the people do not favour reconciliation with the Taliban. You have a snake half killed. And when it finds you, anywhere, it will bite you even harder than before."
Education a dangerous 'right' in Afghanistan
Recently I watched dozens of girls fixate on their teacher in a dilapidated mud building that serves as a school in a poverty-stricken neighbourhood of north Kabul. Clutching their notebooks, they furiously recorded what the teacher lectured. There were no desks, chairs or central heating as the grey, frigid winter prevails over Kabul. But there is nowhere else in the world they would rather be.
Their parents are poor, and school, even one like this, is a hard-earned luxury.
Education is a right that has not come easily for these kids. We shouldn't be so quick to bid it away, leaping enthusiastically at a far-fetched rumour that the Taliban promise to be a little less demonic toward little girls who would do anything to be in a classroom.
Lauryn Oates is a Canadian aid worker managing education projects in Afghanistan and has been advocating for women's rights in Afghanistan since 1996. She's a founding member of the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee and projects director for Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan. She wrote this piece for distribution by Troy Media.
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Posts
Afghanistan mother and daughter stoned and shot dead
ReplyDeleteBBC News November 11, 2011
A group of armed men have stoned and shot dead a woman and her daughter in Afghanistan's Ghazni province, security officials have told the BBC.
The officials blamed the Taliban, who they said had accused the women of "moral deviation and adultery".
The police said two men had been arrested in connection with the murder.
The attack was only 300m from the governor's office in Ghazni city, which is on a list of places to be transferred to Afghan security control.
Taliban grip
The incident happened on Thursday in the Khawaja Hakim area of Ghazni city, where the family lived.
The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says it is close to the governor's office, the police chief's office and a Western-backed Provincial Reconstruction Team.
Security officials said armed men entered the house where the young widow lived with her daughter and took them out to the yard, where they were initially stoned and then shot dead.
"Neighbours did not help or inform the authorities on time," an official said.
Officials said a number of religious leaders in the city had been issuing fatwas (Islamic religious edicts) asking people to report any one who was "involved in adultery".
In October last year, a woman accused of murdering her mother-in-law was killed by the Taliban in Ghazni.
Ghazni has seen an upsurge in violence in recent years.
Strategically located on the route between Kabul and Kandahar, the province was once a centre of trade.
Ghazni city is on the list for the second tranche of areas to be transferred from Nato to Afghan control but critics say the government is struggling to secure it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15688354
Afghan woman to be freed from jail after agreeing to marry rapist
ReplyDeleteJeremy Kelly, The Guardian December 1, 2011
An Afghan woman jailed for adultery after she was raped by a relative is set to be freed – but only after agreeing to marry the man who attacked her.
The case, which has highlighted the plight of Afghan women jailed for so-called moral crimes, was to be the subject of a documentary film funded by the European Union – until diplomats censored it out of fear for the woman's welfare, and for their relations with the Afghan government.
But the decision not to broadcast the film, unintentionally led to a storm of publicity that has resulted in the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, intervening in the case of the 19-year-old woman, named Gulnaz.
Karzai, who will soon head to an international conference on Afghanistan in Bonn to seek financial support from foreign donors, ordered Gulnaz to be released on condition that she and her attacker agree to mediation.
In a statement released on Thursday night, the presidential palace said Gulnaz would be released after she agreed to become the second wife of her rapist – a prospect that supporters say she had dreaded.
In Afghan culture, marrying the father of a child born out of wedlock is seen as a way of "legitimising" the child, even in cases involving rape.
The documentary's British director, Clementine Malpas, said Gulnaz's decision would have been made under duress. "She has told me that the rapist had destroyed her life because no one else would marry her after what happened to her," Malpas said. "She feels like she has no other option than to marry him and it's the only way to bring peace between her and his family.
"I know she wants honour but I also know she doesn't want to marry this man. And of course I am worried about what the future holds for her because of this decision."
In Malpas's film Gulnaz says she would never forgive her attacker but adds that she would consider marrying him. "I don't want people to call her (her daughter) a bastard and abuse my brothers. My brothers won't have honour in our society until he marries me," she says.
Gulnaz was jailed for 12 years for adultery after she reported being raped by a cousin by marriage in an attack that left her pregnant. As the case became publicised, the sentence was reduced to three years. She has spent the past two and a half years in jail, during which time she gave birth to a daughter. Malpas, 30, had spent months following Gulnaz's case after being commissioned by the EU to make a documentary on women's rights in Afghanistan.
News of Gulnaz's ordeal prompted an American lawyer to launch a petition, which attracted more than 6,000 signatures demanding her release. This helped prompt the meeting between Karzai and senior figures in the Afghan justice system, including the head of the supreme court, the justice minister and the attorney general.
The attorney general and justice minister visited both Gulnaz and her attacker in their jails to seek their approval for the union.
Gulnaz's lawyer, Kimberley Motley, said: "My concern is that an illiterate woman, in the face of high-level government officials, all men I believe, would be a very intimidating situation for her."
Motley and Malpas and other supporters had arranged for Gulnaz to be taken to a safehouse if she was released unconditionally.
The case is far from unique. Roughly half of the country's 600 adult female prison inmates have been imprisoned for similar "offences". ...
read the rest of the article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/01/afghan-woman-freed-marry-rapist
Afghan says she must marry her rapist or suffer her brothers' wrath
ReplyDeleteAGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE DECEMBER 17, 2011
KABUL - She was jailed for adultery after being raped, then pardoned and set free. But now her brothers are threatening to kill her and with nowhere else to go, Gulnaz is resigned to marrying her attacker. Gulnaz, who does not know her exact age but is 20 or 21, spoke in a quiet voice with her blue burqa pushed up over her face. Her baby daughter, the child of her rapist, played on the floor at her feet.
"I have to marry him, I need a father for my child. I need somebody to take care of my daughter and give us a home," she told AFP. "I don't have any other place to live. My brothers have vowed to kill me and my attacker and my daughter."
Gulnaz was freed from prison on Tuesday, two years after she was jailed for a so-called moral crime - being raped by her cousin's husband. President Hamid Karzai pardoned her on December 1 following an international outcry, but even then it was almost two weeks before she was released. And now, in ultra-conservative Afghanistan, she faces great pressure to marry the man who attacked her, to provide security for her baby and restore family honour.
Campaigners describe such persecution, all too common in Afghanistan, as a "remnant of the Taliban era" highlighting the poor state of women's rights, 10 years after the U.S.-led invasion sought to put the country on a democratic path. Gulnaz was jailed after reporting the rape to the police.
"I petitioned and asked the government to arrest the man, but they arrested me. Why was I put in jail innocently?" she said. "I don't know why we have this kind of government here, they don't even care about a poor woman. I brought up the case to seek justice but I was put in jail."
Gulnaz was raising her child in a prison cell in Kabul. And although she was released, she is still confined. With fears for her safety, she has moved to a women's shelter in a secret location. Her U.S. lawyer, Kimberley Motley, said Gulnaz was "trying to figure out the best way she can protect herself and her daughter."
But with her attacker still in jail for another five years, it will be even harder for Gulnaz to marry and move on.
"Unfortunately the culture quite often decides that even if a woman is violated or a victim the best way to find protection is to embrace their attacker and marry them," Motley said. "Often women are treated as second class citizens and don't have a voice. The best way is to have a male figure to protect them and I think Gulnaz is wrestling with those issues."
She said by issuing the pardon, Karzai and the prosecutor's office recognized that rape victims were not to be persecuted. "But unfortunately this is the remnant of a Taliban era which still has an influence in Afghan culture," Motley said.
There is little sign that violence against women in Afghanistan is decreasing, despite billions of dollars of international aid which has poured into the country during the decade-long war. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission logged 1,026 cases of violence against women in the second quarter of 2011 compared with 2,700 cases for the whole of 2010.
Some 87 percent of Afghan women report having experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage, according to figures quoted in an October report by the British charity Oxfam. Last month, the United Nations said that a landmark law aiming to protect women against violence in Afghanistan had been used to prosecute just over 100 cases since being enacted two years ago.
Gulnaz was grateful for the attention her case has received. Others are not so lucky. "I'm not afraid. He has accepted me, and I have also accepted him," she said. "I want to send my daughter to school, I want her to become a doctor."
http://www.vancouversun.com
Official: 122 girls, 3 teachers poisoned at Afghan school
ReplyDeleteby Nick Paton Walsh, CNN May 23, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- More than 120 girls and three teachers were admitted to an Afghanistan hospital Wednesday after being poisoned in their classes with a type of spray, a Takhar provincial official said.
The incident occurred in the provincial capital of Talokhan, in the Bibi Hajera girls school, said Dr. Hafizullah Safi, director of public health for the northern Afghanistan province.
Forty of the 122 girls were still hospitalized, he said, with symptoms including dizziness, vomiting, headaches and loss of consciousness.
Blood samples have been sent to Kabul in an effort to determine the substance used, he said.
"A number of girls from 15 to 18 were brought from a school to hospital today," said hospital director Dr. Habibullah Rostaqi.
"Generally they are not in a critical condition. We are looking after them, but let's see what happens later. We understand so far from the situation ... they are more traumatized."
"The Afghan people know that the terrorists and the Taliban are doing these things to threaten girls and stop them going to school," said Khalilullah Aseer, spokesman for Takhar police. "That's something we and the people believe. Now we are implementing democracy in Afghanistan and we want girls to be educated, but the government's enemies don't want this."
There have been several instances of girls being poisoned in schools in recent years. In April, also in Takhar province, more than 170 women and girls were hospitalized after drinking apparently poisoned well water at a school.
Local health officials blamed the acts on extremists opposed to women's education.
While nearly all the incidents involve girls, earlier this month nearly 400 boys at a school in Khost province fell ill after drinking water from a well that a health official said may have been poisoned.
The Taliban is struggling with the country's government over Afghan schools. It recently demanded the closure of schools in two eastern provinces. In Ghazni province, the school closure was in retaliation for the government's ban on motorbikes often used by insurgents. Locals in Wardak province said the Taliban has been a little more lenient and has allowed schools to open late after making changes to the curriculum.
The battle indicates broader fears about Afghanistan's future amid the drawdown of U.S. troops in the country. NATO leaders on Monday signed off on U.S. President Barack Obama's exit strategy from Afghanistan, which calls for an end to combat operations next year and the withdrawal of the U.S.-led international military force by the end of 2014.
During the Taliban's rule from 1996 to 2001, many Afghan girls were not allowed to attend school. The schools began reopening after the regime was toppled by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. However, observers say abuse of women remains common in the post-Taliban era and is often accepted in conservative and traditional families, where women are barred from school and sometimes subjected to domestic violence.
Afghan Education Minister Dr. Farooq Wardak told the Education World Forum in London in January 2011 that the Taliban had abandoned its opposition to education for girls, but the group has never confirmed that.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/23/world/asia/afghanistan-girls-poisoned/index.html
Official: 160 girls poisoned at Afghan school
ReplyDeleteFrom Masoud Popalzai, CNN May 29, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A hospital in northern Afghanistan admitted 160 schoolgirls Tuesday after they were poisoned, a Takhar province police official said.
Their classrooms might have been sprayed with a toxic material before the girls entered, police spokesman Khalilullah Aseer said. He blamed the Taliban.
The incident, the second in a week's time, was reported at the Aahan Dara Girls School in Taluqan, the provincial capital.
The girls, ages 10 to 20, complained of headaches, dizziness and vomiting before being taken to the hospital, said Hafizullah Safi, director of the provincial health department.
More than half of them were discharged within a few hours of receiving treatment, Safi said. The health department collected blood samples and sent them to Kabul for testing.
Last week, more than 120 girls and three teachers were admitted to a hospital after a similar suspected poisoning.
"The Afghan people know that the terrorists and the Taliban are doing these things to threaten girls and stop them going to school," Aseer said last week. "That's something we and the people believe. Now we are implementing democracy in Afghanistan and we want girls to be educated, but the government's enemies don't want this."
But earlier this week, the Taliban denied responsibility, instead blaming U.S. and NATO forces for the poisonings in an attempt to "defame" the insurgent group.
There have been several instances of girls being poisoned in schools in recent years.
In April, also in Takhar province, more than 170 women and girls were hospitalized after drinking apparently poisoned well water at a school.
Local health officials blamed the acts on extremists opposed to women's education.
While nearly all the incidents involve girls, earlier this month, nearly 400 boys at a school in Khost province fell ill after drinking water from a well that a health official said may have been poisoned.
The Taliban recently demanded the closure of schools in two eastern provinces. In Ghazni, the school closure was in retaliation for the government's ban on motorbikes often used by insurgents. People in Wardak said the Taliban has been a little more lenient and has allowed schools to open late after making changes to the curriculum.
The battle indicates broader fears about Afghanistan's future amid the drawdown of U.S. troops in the country.
NATO leaders last week signed off on U.S. President Barack Obama's exit strategy from Afghanistan, which calls for an end to combat operations next year and the withdrawal of the U.S.-led international military force by the end of 2014.
During the Taliban's rule from 1996 to 2001, many Afghan girls were not allowed to attend school. The schools began reopening after the regime was toppled by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. However, observers say abuse of women remains common in the post-Taliban era and is often accepted in conservative and traditional families, where women are barred from school and sometimes subjected to domestic violence.
Afghan Education Minister Dr. Farooq Wardak told the Education World Forum in London in January 2011 that the Taliban had abandoned its opposition to education for girls, but the group has never confirmed that.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/29/world/asia/afghanistan-girls-poisoned/index.html
Afghan legislators block law protecting women
ReplyDeleteMeasures would have banned violence against women, child marriages
The Associated Press May 18, 2013
Conservative religious lawmakers in Afghanistan blocked legislation on Saturday aimed at strengthening provisions for women's freedoms, arguing that parts of it violate Islamic principles and encourage disobedience.
The fierce opposition highlights how tenuous women's rights remain a dozen years after the ouster of the hard-line Taliban regime, whose strict interpretation of Islam once kept Afghan women virtual prisoners in their homes.
Khalil Ahmad Shaheedzada, a conservative lawmaker for Herat province, said the legislation was withdrawn shortly after being introduced in parliament because of an uproar by religious parties who said parts of the law are un-Islamic.
"Whatever is against Islamic law, we don't even need to speak about it," Shaheedzada said.
The Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women has been in effect since 2009, but only by presidential decree. It is being brought before parliament now because lawmaker Fawzia Kofi, a women's rights activist, wants to cement it with a parliamentary vote to prevent its potential reversal by any future president who might be tempted to repeal it to satisfy hard-line religious parties.
The law criminalizes, among other things, child marriage and forced marriage, and bans "baad," the traditional practice of exchanging girls and women to settle disputes. It makes domestic violence a crime punishable by up to three years in prison and specifies that rape victims should not face criminal charges for fornication or adultery.
Kofi, who plans to run for president in next year's elections, said she was disappointed because among those who oppose upgrading the law from presidential decree to legislation passed by parliament are women.
Afghanistan's parliament has more than 60 female lawmakers, mostly due to constitutional provisions reserving certain seats for women.
There has been spotty enforcement of the law as it stands. A United Nations analysis in late 2011 found only a small percentage of reported crimes against women were pursued by the Afghan government. Between March 2010 and March 2011 — the first full Afghan year the decree was in effect — prosecutors filed criminal charges in only 155 cases, or 7 percent of the total number of crimes reported.
Protecting rape victims contentious
The child marriage ban and the idea of protecting female rape victims from prosecution were particularly heated subjects in Saturday's parliamentary debate, said Nasirullah Sadiqizada Neli, a conservative lawmaker from Daykundi province.
continued in next comment...
Neli suggested that removing the custom — common in Afghanistan — of prosecuting raped women for adultery would lead to social chaos, with women freely engaging in extramarital sex safe in the knowledge they could claim rape if caught.
ReplyDeleteAnother lawmaker, Mandavi Abdul Rahmani of Barlkh province, also opposed the law's rape provision.
"Adultery itself is a crime in Islam, whether it is by force or not," Rahmani said.
He said the Quran also makes clear that a husband has a right to beat a disobedient wife as a last resort, as long as she is not permanently harmed.
"But in this law," he said, "It says if a man beats his wife at all, he should be jailed for three months to three years."
Lawmaker Shaheedzada also claimed that the law might encourage disobedience among girls and women, saying it reflected Western values not applicable in Afghanistan.
"Even now in Afghanistan, women are running from their husbands. Girls are running from home," Shaheedzada said. "Such laws give them these ideas."
More freedoms for women are one of the most visible — and symbolic — changes in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led campaign that toppled the Taliban regime. While in power, the Taliban imposed a strict interpretation of Islam that put severe curbs on the freedom of women.
For five years, the regime banned women from working and going to school, or even leaving home without a male relative. In public, all women were forced to wear a head-to-toe burqa, which covers even the face with a mesh panel. Violators were publicly flogged or executed.
'We will bring it back'
Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, women's freedoms have improved vastly, but Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative culture, especially in rural areas.
Saturday's failure of the legislation in parliament reflected the power of religious parties but changed little on the ground, since the decree is still the law of the land, however loosely enforced. Kofi said the parliament decided to send the legislation to committee, and it could come to a vote again later this year.
"We will work on this law," she said. "We will bring it back."
Some activists, however, worry about potential changes to the law. Bringing the legislation before parliament also opened it up to being amended, leaving the possibility that conservatives will seek to weaken it by stripping out provisions they dislike — or even vote to repeal it.
"There's a real risk this has opened a Pandora's box, that this may have galvanized opposition to this decree by people who in principle oppose greater rights for women," said Heather Barr, a researcher for Human Rights Watch.
That's true for lawmaker Rahmani, who said President Hamid Karzai should never have issued the decree and wants it changed, if not repealed.
"We cannot have an Islamic country with basically Western laws," he said.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/05/18/afghanistan-women.html
HRW: More Afghan Women Jailed For Moral Crimes
ReplyDeleteRadio Free Europe/Radio Liberty May 21, 2013
Human Rights Watch says the number of Afghan women and girls jailed for "moral crimes" has risen by 50 percent in the past 18 months.
The international rights group says the increase suggests that Afghan authorities may feel they no longer need to support women's rights as international troops prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan next year.
The group presented its findings at a press conference in Kabul on May 21. It said 600 women are now imprisoned in Afghanistan for "moral crimes."
It said most of them were victims of sexual assault and family violence who had run away from their attackers.
It appealed to President Hamid Karzai to ban jailing girls for running away from home.
It also called on international donors to focus on preserving gains in women's rights after 2014.
http://www.rferl.org/content/afghanistan-moral-crimes-women-girls/24992922.html