Since 2001 women have suffered anew the dangers and deprivations of war, the increased militarization of society, and worsened male violence in the chaos of war. Misogynist warlords permeate the national government the Parliament, Cabinet, and the extremely conservative Judiciary. They have imposed restrictions on women comparable to those of the Taliban - to wit the Shiite Personal Status Law passed in summer 2009 which permits men to starve their wives if they refuse sex, denies women legal guardianship of their children, requires wives to have their husbands' permission to go outside, and allows rapists to pay their victims rather than face criminal justice.
Women activists -- including the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan, Malalai Joya (illegally banished from the Afghan Parliament for exposing the corruption and criminal past of many warlord Parliamentarians), and Afghan expert Ann Jones -- report that equal rights for women was a "feel good" fiction used to sell the 2001 war and to prop up the markedly corrupt Karzai government established in 2005.
President Obama's recent decision to escalate the war disregarded the fate of Afghan women, a point made obvious when he failed to cite their extreme plight in his December 2009 war speech at West Point. According to Joya, the mujahideen, the warlords in government, and the Taliban are one and the same for women: "It's as easy to kill a woman in my country as it is to kill a bird." (4)
Does U.S. military aid for development in Afghanistan serve humanitarian purposes?
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
