[Duurzaamlijst] onrecht in afghanistan

[Gejo Klos <gejoklos@wanadoo.fr>]

> Hallo beste mensen,

Misschien even wat aandacht voor de afschuwelijke situatie waarin
de vrouwen van Afghanistan moeten (helaas) leven.

Gejo Klos

>
>
> > 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 misbehavior.
> > 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 told me that we in the United States 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 if they are
> > women in a Muslim country in a part of the world that Americans do not
> > understand.  If we can threaten military force in Kosovo in the name
> > of
> > human rights for the sake of ethnic Albanians, Americans can certainly
> > express peaceful outrage at the oppression, murder and injustice
> > committed against women by the Taliban.
> >
> > *************
> >

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