▶ Afghanistan's Eastern Voters Embrace Democracy Despite Taliban- YouTube

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Published on Apr 6, 2014:

The Afghan elections are being hailed a success after more than seven million people turned out to vote. That's three million more than last time and a third of them were women. In the more conservative east of the country, the city of Jalalabad, men and women defied threats to participate.

LINK: ▶ Afghanistan's eastern voters - YouTube

Afghan female governor breaks new ground - Features - Al Jazeera English

   
LINK: Afghan female governor breaks new ground - Features - Al Jazeera English

NATO Summit Chicago : Press Conference by the NATO Secretary General after meeting on Afghanistan - YouTube

NATO Summit Chicago : Press Conference by the NATO Secretary General after meeting on Afghanistan - YouTube

Afghan Elder Bibi Hokmina: Why Let the Taliban Control Our Lives? - The Daily Beast

“If the Taliban return to positions of power, the situation of Afghan women will become much worse; it would be a backward step,” declared elected Afghan provincial council member Bibi Hokmina. In an impassioned appeal to Afghan men and women, she said, “It’s time for us to stand up on our own two feet, to better our lives by ourselves. Who are the Taliban anyway? Who are they to have so much control over our lives?” Her emotional declaration was all the more memorable because Hokmina wore the turban and clothes of a Pashtun man. 

FOR THE FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE: Afghan Elder Bibi Hokmina: Why Let the Taliban Control Our Lives? - The Daily Beast

Torturers of Afghan child bride sentenced to 10 years in jail

 Saturday, 05 May 2012

Sahar Gulwas burned, beaten and had her fingernails pulled out by members of her husband's family. (File photo)

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By AFP 
KABUL
 

The case of a tortured Afghan child bride whose treatment shocked the world has led to three members of her husband’s family being jailed for 10 years, an official said Saturday.

Sahar Gul, 15, who was burned and beaten and had her fingernails pulled out was found in the basement of her husband’s house last December in northeastern Baghlan province, where she had been locked in a toilet for six months.

“The court sentenced her father-in-law, mother-in-law and sister-in-law each to 10 years in prison on Tuesday,” Afghanistan’s supreme court spokesman Abdul Wakil Omari told AFP.

A rights group, Women for Afghan Women which helped Gul in the court case, said it was not satisfied with the sentence.

“We are not happy with the sentence, we are going to help her appeal,” program manager Huma Safi told AFP.

“How can someone get only 10 years in prison for torturing a girl to almost death,” she said.
FOR THE FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE: Torturers of Afghan child bride sentenced to 10 years in jail

NATO in Afghanistan - True Sharia law protects women

NATO in Afghanistan - True Sharia law protects women

Some 150Afghan schoolgirls poisoned in alleged attack

About 150 Afghan schoolgirls have fallen ill after drinking poisoned water at their high school in the country's north, officials said.

The alleged poisoning on Tuesday is being blamed on hardline conservatives who oppose female education.

Since the 2001 toppling of the Taliban, which banned education for women and girls, females have returned to schools, especially in Kabul."This is either the work of those who are against girls' education or irresponsible armed individuals" 

But periodic attacks still occur against girls, teachers and their school buildings, usually in the more conservative south and east of the country, from where the Taliban insurgency draws most support. "We are 100 per cent sure that the water they drunk inside their classes was poisoned," said Jan Mohammad Nabizada, a spokesman for education department in northern Takhar province.

Some of the 150 girls, who suffered from headaches and vomiting, were in critical condition, while others were able to go home after treatment in hospital, the officials said.

They said they knew the water had been poisoned because a larger tank used to fill the affected water jugs was not contaminated. 

FOR THE FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE: Afghan schoolgirls poisoned in alleged attack

Girl Power - Afghanistan: FIGHTING THE WORST MYSOGYNISTS ON THE PLANET

Girl Power - Afghanistan

In war-weary Afghanistan women are still sold to pay debts and brutalized by family members. This report exposes the full horror of their plight and introduces the brave women combating the injustice.

Even in Afghanistan amidst endless unfolding horrors, the case of a 15-year-old girl named Sahar Gul shocked and ashamed many Afghans as they saw images of her brutalised body. The teenager was imprisoned and tortured at the hands of her husband's family, because she refused to become a prostitute. She was cut, burned with cigarettes, beaten to a pulp and many of her fingernails were ripped out. She was barely alive when police found her. "It's not just Sahar, there could be many more we're not aware of." Even after the ultra-misogyny of the Taliban has retreated into isolated pockets, women in Afghanistan are desperately downtrodden. "I think when you are born a woman in Afghanistan you are taught every day to hate yourself. Women don't respect themselves." But across town, another teenager Noorjahan Akbar refused to look away. And, as an Australian TV producer working in Afghanistan points out, Noorjahan is not alone. "I see now a generation of amazing young women, determined to make a change." Through the eyes of Noorjahan this is a confronting but ultimately inspiring story of emerging female power in Afghanistan.

A Film By ABC Australia
Distributed By Journeyman Pictures
March 2012

To The U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives: Protect Afghan Women's Human and Civil Rights Gains in Afghanistan

SIGN HERE: To The U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives: Protect Afghan Women's Human and Civil Rights Gains in Afghanistan

  

Why This Is Important

When the Taliban were driven from power in Afghanistan in 2001, the reign of a brutally misogynist state ended. Since then, women have been able to gradually achieve more freedoms, legal constitutional rights, education and opportunities.

For instance, violence against women was finally declared a crime in 2009, Before then, such violence had been considered a de facto male prerogative. Private and public beatings, stonings, honor killings, public floggings, even mutilations and disfigurements had become routine under the Taliban, with such crimes still persisting against women even today in areas beyond enforcement of the new law. Worse still, elements of the Taliban, in league with al Qaeda, even ran human trafficking rings enslaving women before their overthrow, as highlighted in this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Oppression_of_women.

Some of the major gains for Afghans in general and women and girls since the overthrow of the Taliban include: 

- Nearly seven million children in school, compared to less than one million in 2001 (mainly boy students of madrassahs);
- More than 90% of Afghans have access to basic healthcare; unlike in 2001, when less than 10% had access;
- Girls and women are free to work, attend school, and seek medical care-rights that were denied to them under Taliban rule;
- A Constitution is in place, and it grants men and women equality in the eyes of the law;
- There is a democratically evolving government and a parliament that is gradually becoming a more forceful check on the executive and has a higher percentage of women members than in Canada actually.
- Afghanistan once had the highest maternal mortality rate in the world, however this has steadily been decreasing since 2002 as midwife training programs have been established and access to healthcare is increased
- Early reforms to the judiciary are underway, and Afghan women have played an active role in introducing legislation that will better protect their rights such as the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) Law
- Successful introduction of country-wide inoculations for children
- The growing impact of a strong Afghan feminist movement on reform and rights efforts. (source: http://www.cw4wafghan.ca/PolicyStatement )

But, as Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch recently wrote, "With international interest in Afghanistan waning, negotiations with the Taliban in the offing, and Karzai's endorsement of the Ulema Council's [paternalistic] statement, Afghan women are more vulnerable than at any time in the past 10 years. Now President Obama and other backers of the Afghan government should make it clear that they will not support any deals that sacrifice women's rights, and press Karzai to make his position clear. The risks for Afghan women are too high to do anything less." (source:http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/03/08/are-afghan-women-better-after-decade-war)

Concerned citizens around the world cannot and will not allow millions of Afghan women and girls to be sacrificed upon the altar of political expediency. It is thus incumbent upon Congress to lend a strong and positive voice and its full support to maintaining and strengthening women's rights in Afghanistan. There can be no surrender to the horrors of the past nor tolerance in the present for ongoing assaults against women, as well as their fundamental human and civil rights.

Accordingly, we invite you to contact your senators and congressmen and women, and in particular the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Senator John Kerry and the Chairwoman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to do what is needed to hold the line and strengthen it for women and girls in Afghanistan.

 SIGN HERE: To The U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives: Protect Afghan Women's Human and Civil Rights Gains in Afghanistan