01 November 2001
Human Rights Watch Says Taliban Mounted "Catastrophic Assault" on Women
(Says Afghan women being erased from public life) (830)
By Susan Domowitz
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental human rights
organization, has published a comprehensive report on systematic
violations of women's human rights in Afghanistan. Afghan women,
according to the report, "have suffered a catastrophic assault on
their human rights during more than twenty years of war and under the
repressive rule of the Taliban."
The report, published on October 29, and entitled "Afghanistan:
Humanity Denied," urges the international community to include full
respect and protection for women's rights as an integral part of any
post-conflict reconstruction in Afghanistan.
"The Taliban have sought to erase women from public life through
widespread discrimination. They punish women with public beatings,"
said LaShawn R. Jefferson, executive director of the women's rights
division of Human Rights Watch. "Any political solution in Afghanistan
must not bargain away accountability for this systematic violence and
discrimination."
"Women have borne the lion's share of human rights abuses in
Afghanistan throughout the conflict, and they are in particular danger
now," said Jefferson. "Any future political arrangements in
Afghanistan have to take special account of what women have suffered
-- and how that can be remedied."
Human Rights Watch, based in New York, is one of the most influential
non-governmental organizations covering human rights abuses around the
world.
The Taliban have banned women from employment in most sectors, and
have prohibited women from going out in public unless they are
accompanied by a close male relative. Women are acutely affected by
the restrictions on women's employment and movement. There are an
estimated 40,000 war widows in Kabul alone, and they are deprived of
the means to support themselves and their children, according to the
report.
The report says the Taliban have banned the education of girls beyond
primary school. The rate of illiteracy among Afghan women is now over
90 percent.
As the report notes, throughout the Afghan civil war, all sides in the
conflict have committed flagrant violations of human rights law,
including violations of women's rights, with impunity. Historically,
the report says, "When the Taliban have felt threatened, they have
redoubled their persecution of women."
"Women living under the Taliban report being in a constant state of
fear," Human Rights Watch says. "The slightest infraction, real or
perceived, of gender-specific norms or mores as expressed by the
Taliban edicts can and often does lead to summary beatings by the
Religious Police."
Most women interviewed by Human Rights Watch had either been beaten or
had witnessed other women being beaten, and many of their testimonials
are included in the report. A woman doctor who left Kabul in January
2001 recounted the risks she had taken simply to get to work at her
hospital. She worked long shifts and so took her infant son, whom she
was breastfeeding, with her to work.
"My husband hailed a taxi to take my child and me to the hospital.
Five minutes later, a Religious Police car stopped the taxi. He made
me get out of the taxi. I was lucky my husband told the taxi driver I
was a doctor. The taxi driver told the Taliban that he was taking me
to the hospital. There were three Taliban. One of them beat the driver
with a yellow cable that was pretty wide. I was scared. He asked me
why the holes in my chadari (burqa) were so big. Why are you alone in
the taxi? I asked, "Are you going to beat me?" I put my child away in
the car and told them, "Beat me, but do not hurt the child." He beat
me. I hid my face. He hit me several times on the back and arms. I had
bruises."
An educated widow who left Kabul in June 2001 told Human Rights Watch
about the difficulties she faced in trying to earn a living by
tailoring women's clothes in her home.
"The Taliban asked my customers, 'Why are you going to her house? Are
you going to gather and make plans against us?' I had a board outside
which read, 'Tailoring for women and children.' Three times they came
and warned me, and I told them, 'I am a widow, what should I do?' the
third time they took board down and said that if I do not stop this
work they will kill me. They accused me of making plans against the
Taliban. They said, 'Everyone should sew their own clothing; our wives
sew their own clothes. God will assist you, if you do everything as
God wishes.' It was the Religious Police, and I was forced to close
four months ago, and leave for Pakistan."
The Human Rights Watch report, "Afghanistan: Humanity Denied," is
available at www.hrw.org/reports/2001/afghan3/.
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)
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