Taliban death squads ‘trawl porn sites to compile kill list of Afghan prostitutes after US withdrawal'

From the US Sun:

Taliban death squads are trawling porn sites to compile a kill list of Afghan prostitutes and are putting names to faces of brothel workers who have been filmed having sex during the 20-year allied occupation of Afghanistan.

Security sources told The Sun Online that videos featuring Afghan prostitutes have made their way onto niche porn sites and have been discovered by the jihadis.

Our source said the Taliban are now “hell-bent” on “hunting down” the prostitutes to publicly execute or “humiliate for their own pleasure”.

They added the women face being gang-raped by the terror nuts before being “beheaded, stoned or hung”.

Some of the videos allegedly feature the women having sex with Westerners - further raising the fury of the Taliban.

Women are expected to face the most vicious and brutal repression under the new Taliban regime, with strict new rules and morality codes expected to erase them from public life.

“The Taliban are displaying the height of hypocrisy with this horrific witch-hunt," a source said.

read more here @ US Sun

Women In Post-Taliban Afghanistan

From The Independent:

Just before she leapt from her roof into the streets of Kabul, Farima thought of the wedding that would never happen and the man she would never marry. Her fiance would be pleased to see her die, she later recalled thinking. It would offer relief to them both.

Farima, 17, had resisted her engagement to Zabiullah since it was ordained by her grandfather when she was 9. In post-Taliban Kabul, where she walked to school and dreamed of becoming a doctor, she still clawed against a fate dictated by ritual.

After 11 years of Western intervention in Afghanistan, a woman's right to study and work had long since been codified by the U.S.-backed government. Modernity had crept into Afghanistan's capital, Farima thought, but not far enough to save her from a forced marriage to a man she despised.

Farima's father, Mohammed, was eating breakfast when he heard her body hit the dirt like a tiny explosion. He ran outside. His daughter's torso was contorted. Her back was broken, but she was still alive.

In a quick burst of consciousness, Farima recognized that she had survived. It was God's providence, she thought. It was a miracle she hadn't prayed for. But it left her without an escape. Suddenly, she was a mangled version of herself, still desperate to avoid the marriage her family had ordered.

Afghan Women Trapped In Tribal Law System

From CBS News World Watch:

In Afghanistan, there are essentially two legal systems that exist in parallel. One is the Kabul central government's justice system which, despite years of funding from the US and the international coalition, is rife with corruption, widely discredited and virtually disregarded by the populace. The other track is built around traditional legal practices, including ba'ad, and the cases are heard by local, tribal courts.

"In the tribal courts, the first sacrifice is women," Sirran said. "Always. If there is a fight for land, for water, if there is violence, a girl can be given in ba'ad to settle these things."

Despite a decade of hard work and significant investment by the international community to improve the lives of women after the fall of the Taliban government, the problem of violence continues to grow.


Read more of Sakina's story here.

Acid Attack On Mother & Daughters

From Care2 Make A Difference:

Acid attacks are one of such violent forms of assault that is most common in countries like Cambodia, Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. A recent story from Afghanistan left four women – 3 daughters and their mother – disfigured from an acid attack.

The perpetrators were after the family’s oldest daughter because her father had denied one of the men’s requests for her hand in marriage. The girl’s father said he rejected the man’s offer of marriage at the time because his daughter was too young. Forced marriage of young Afghan girls is not uncommon today which makes the father’s protection notable.

Rejected, the man and his brothers, who are suspected of being members of a local militia, broke into the house to attack the girls and their mother in revenge. The men involved in the attack have since been brought to the capital by the Interior Ministry for investigation and potential prosecution.

“The attackers defamed Afghanistan in the eyes of the world,” said the ministry’s spokesman, Sediq Sediqui. “It was the harshest violence they could ever carry out.”

He said that the Afghan police were warning “those who commit such brutal acts that they will be brought to justice at any cost.”

The Elimination of Violence Against Women law, which was passed last year, specifically prohibits chemical attacks against women. Such offenses carry a punishment of at least 10 years of imprisonment and at most life in prison.

Given the law and the ministry’s quick arrest, one would hope that the men will be adequately punished, but history has proved differently. Since Afghanistan enacted the law banning violence against women there have been 2,299 complaints of gender-motivated abuse registered with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission from March 2010 to March 2011 only 7% of those crimes have been prosecuted.

Afghan Womens' Rights Threatened

From BBC News:

Women's rights in Afghanistan are under threat after 10 years of progress, two leading British aid agencies have said.

Oxfam and Action Aid said many Afghan women were worried that improvements could be sacrificed to secure a political deal with the Taliban.

An Action Aid survey of 1,000 Afghan women found that 86% were worried about a return to a Taliban-style government.

The UK government said it was working hard to support Afghan women's empowerment "through transition".

Outlet For Afghan Women Online

Article on the Afghan Women's Writing Project from the New York Times:

For the first year or so after its inception, the project was “flying under the radar,” its founder, Masha Hamilton, an American journalist and novelist, said by phone. The initial contributors were recruited through friends in Kabul; these women in turn referred others from farther afield, in Herat, Fargana, Kandahar and elsewhere.

As the women began offering anecdotes about their lives, political commentary and even poems to this online magazine, Ms. Hamilton brought together a loose coalition of activists and fellow writers to act as mentors. To remain part of the workshop, the women must reside in Afghanistan and file at least once a month. In August, the project went a little more public with a campaign called Freedom to Tell Your Story.

Still, the project maintains a certain level of secrecy to protect its writers, women who may fear reprisals from family or the local authorities when they discuss arranged marriages or the disappearance of relatives. The Internet center in Kabul that serves as a hub for many of the women is at an undisclosed location. Most of the women are identified only by first name, or by pseudonyms. Two of the 75 have insisted on complete anonymity.

Visit the Afghan Women's Writing Project

Female Afghan Police Officers

From Bloomberg:

The U.S. is helping recruit and train thousands of women for Afghanistan’s police and army, even as officials seek a peace agreement that might return some power to their former tormentors, the Taliban.

Some 1,200 women serve in Afghanistan’s national police and 320 in the army. More than 50 have graduated from the military’s officer candidate school and another course is under way. Four female second lieutenants from the army arrived in the U.S. last month to train as helicopter pilots.

This increasing return of women into Afghanistan’s leadership and security forces is at risk as the Obama administration steps up its drive for a peace agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban to speed the U.S. military exit.

Politics & Afghan Olympian Robina Jalali

From the Washington Post:

Amid the warlords, ex-mujahideen fighters, hard-line clerics and shady businessmen running for a seat in the Afghan parliament, Robina Jalali, a 25-year-old candidate from Kabul, offers a more inspiring biography.

Raised during a Taliban regime that was brutal toward women, Jalali nevertheless trained as a sprinter and, after the Taliban fell, followed her passion to the Olympics. No matter that she finished second-to-last in the 100 meters in Athens in 2004 and last in Beijing in 2008. In Afghanistan, a conservative Muslim nation where many women still wear the identity-shielding burqa, Jalali's story is like a fairy tale.

Now comes the sequel: Jalali is running again - for a seat in the Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of the Afghan parliament. Though interest among women was initially sparse, a recruitment drive from the Independent Election Committee has resulted in a record 406 female candidates standing in the Sept. 18 elections for at least 64 seats reserved for women under the Afghan constitution, which guarantees them 25 percent of the 249 seats. (More than 2,000 men are running.)

Afghanistan: More Teachers Needed

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

An Afghani woman whose schools for girls were forced "underground" during the height of the Taliban government has spoken of the positive signs emerging in her troubled country.

Sakena Yacoobi founded the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) in 1995, a non-governmental organisation that provides education, health and medical services.

Dr Yacoobi says she believes "education is the key infrastructure that Afghanistan needs" although the security situation continues to get in the way of delivering it.

Afghanistan: Couple Stoned for Adultery

From Dawn:

A man and woman have been stoned to death in northern Afghanistan after being accused by the Taliban of having an affair, a witness and an official said Monday.

The 23-year-old woman and 28-year-old man were killed because “they had an affair,” said Mohammad Ayob, the governor of Imam Sahib district in Kunduz province.

“Two people were stoned to death by Taliban in Mullah Quli village late yesterday,” he said. The village is under the control of the Taliban.

Mullah Quli resident Abdul Satar said about 100 people, most of them Taliban insurgents, gathered in the village on Sunday evening as a statement was read out saying the pair had confessed to their affair.

He said the man was married to someone else, and the woman was engaged.

“The Taliban convicted both to stoning to death, some from the crowd started throwing stones at the couple until they died,” Satar said.

The couple had their hands bound behind their backs and were forced to stand in an empty field as their sentence was carried out, he said.

Under Islamic Sharia law, sex between unmarried people is punishable by public beatings, while punishment for those caught in extra-marital affairs is death by stoning.

Earlier this month, the Taliban publicly flogged and then killed a pregnant widow for alleged “adultery” in western Badghis province.

The killings are a grim reminder of the Taliban's harsh 1996-2001 rule, when apparent crimes were brutally punished after summary trials.

Afghanistan: Women of the New Army

From the Telegraph:

For the first time since the dark days of the Taliban, 29 women have been recruited to serve in the Afghan army.

Once qualified, they will work in combat support units alongside male soldiers. Although many of the women hope, eventually, to be deployed on the front line, their initial roles will be office-based. They will be assigned key duties in the running of military bases, particulary relation to equipment procurement and supply.

Although women have served in the Afghan army in the past this is the first time that officer training has been available to them – part of a plan to make the number of female soldiers 10 per cent of the total.

Jezebel Misses the Big Picture

From Registan:

TIME magazine’s current cover features the mutilated but still beautiful face of Aisha, an 18 year old Afghan woman whose Taliban husband, a man who literally bought her as a slave when she was just 10 years old, cut off her nose and ears as punishment for fleeing his abuse. Overlaid on Aisha’s striking picture is the headline: ‘What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan.’ Inside, journalist Aryn Baker writes about what has changed for women in Afghanistan since 2001, and what has not. The professional women she interviews, and survivors like Aisha, express alarm at the prospect of the Taliban returning.

There’s nothing untrue in the article, and, unlike so many other journalists, Baker doesn’t condescend to the Afghan women she interviews. Yet, the cover photo and the article have generated a storm of controversy in the blogosphere, with Irin Carmon of Jezebel and Derrick Crowe of Return Good for Evil leading the criticism with long arguments against the TIME’s choices.

Kabul: Women's Prison - An Inside Look

From the Takeaway:

Western countries celebrated the liberation of women in Afghanistan from the Taliban-controlled government when the U.S. invaded in 2001. However, as the war in the country continues in the post-Taliban era, women's rights are not secure. Badam Bagh, Kabul's only prison for women is filled with stories about the violation of women's rights.

In one instance, a 16-year-old girl was sentenced to 18 months in prison after a boy came to her home to propose without sending his parents first; another was arrested when her husband accused her of adultery. The women's prison is an improvement of sorts, before it existed, female prisoners were incarcerated alongside men, and there were reports of rape. But even at Badam Bagh, "The Almond Garden," it becomes clear that Afghan women are still struggling without rights.

The BBC's Lyse Doucet was given rare access to Badam Bagh, Kabul's only prison for women. She found that both the crimes and the punishments are very different for Afghan women than men.

Afghanistan: Rise In Female Candidates

From Bloomberg Businessweek:

The number of Afghan women candidates for September’s parliamentary elections has risen 22 percent over the tally for the vote five years ago, according to a United Nations Security Council report released today.

The number of women pursuing legislative seats increased to 400 out of 2,635 candidates. That compares with 328 women out of 2,707 candidates in the 2005 elections, the UN said.

“This number ensues that, at a minimum, women candidates will fill all of the 68 allocated seats and are likely to get additional ones,” the world body said in the study. There are 249 seats in the Afghan National Assembly’s Wolesi Jirga or House of People, according to the parliament’s website.

Afghan Women Speak Out

From NPR:

In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai wants to talk with Taliban fighters who choose to denounce violence as way to end the eight-year war in his country. But Afghan women activists say engaging the Taliban would be a setback for women's rights. Guest host Tony Cox speaks with Afghan lawyer and prominent woman's rights activist Najla Ayubi. Ms. Ayubi is visiting from Kabul where she is in charge of a program on governance and women's rights.

Fary Moini

From VOA News:

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States and the subsequent allied war in Afghanistan, a registered nurse from California wanted to help innocent people in the Muslim world who were caught in the violence.

In this week's edition of our series Making a Difference, we meet an Iranian-born woman who says education is the best way to help the people of Afghanistan, especially women and children.

In 2001, Fary Moini traveled to Pakistan where she volunteered in a refugee clinic, helping to deliver babies. She says the lack of supplies was shocking.

"There were no bed sheets, no hot water, no heater at all. During delivery, electricity was gone and we had to use a flashlight, and doctors were using food gloves. Without any anesthesia or anything, we delivered the baby with a flashlight," she explains, "I'll never forget I went back, and I sat in a chair, and I felt sick. And tears were running down my face, and they said, 'What is wrong with you?' And I said, 'What is wrong with me!? What is this?' I mean, it was so inhumane!"

Moini's experience in the clinic got her thinking about what she could do to help the people of Afghanistan over the long term.

With help from the service organization Rotary International, she raised nearly a quarter-of-a-million dollars to build a school in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. The school opened in 2004.

During eight years and 11 trips to Afghanistan, Fary Moini says she has encountered some criticism from local men. But for the most part, she says they seem to accept her and her efforts.

Moini says that the best way to educate women in Afghanistan is to educate men as well -- convincing them that schooling their sisters and daughters will benefit them and their society.

Afghanistan: Womens' Rights Legislation

From Associated Press:

Now, Afghanistan is poised to enact legislation that would allow her to prosecute her husband for abuse. Courts hold little sway in Afghanistan, but activists call the law a necessary step in the slow struggle for real rights for women here.

The Elimination of Violence Against Women Act comes on the heels of a marriage law for the minority Shiite Muslim community that sparked an international uproar in March because of wording that appeared to legalize marital rape.

The government changed the Shiite law to remove the most controversial phrases, but the revised version now in effect still allows a husband to withhold financial support from his wife if she refuses to have sex with him and limits women's ability to leave the home.

The debate over the Shiite law soured Afghanistan's reputation abroad just as the country headed into an August presidential election, and it appears to have propelled the latest legislation to the president's desk.

Sunni Muslims make up about 80 percent of the population, with Shiites comprising at least 15 percent.

Afghan National Police - Female Recruits

From the GOV Monitor:

Thirteen extraordinary women are quietly making history in the most conservative corner of Afghanistan.Fearlessly, the first thirteen female Afghan National Police recruits in Helmand Province now stand shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts in their fight against crime and the Taliban insurgency.

Fighting the Taliban on a daily basis is a dangerous job, but these women have the added burden of having to work undercover, terrified that their neighbours and, in some cases, their families might find out what they do with potentially lethal consequences.

The Plight of Afghan Women

From Katherine Butler @ the Independent:

One reason for the widespread public support for the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was genuine revulsion at the treatment of Afghan women under the Taliban. Shocking videos of women being flogged or executed by firing squads in football stadiums for "adultery" had been smuggled out by campaigners in the late 1990s. Many people assumed that with the disappearance of Mullah Omar and his extremist followers, women would no longer be regarded as lower in status than farm animals, fit only for household drudgery or reproduction.

Girls would be able to go to school, and their mothers or sisters allowed to work, or even just enjoy ordinary pleasures such as travelling in a taxi, singing, laughing in public, or venturing out of the home without a male relative or a heavy blue cloak covering every inch. Western leaders were eager too to play up the "liberation of the women" as one of the noble aims of the military engagement in Afghanistan.

Pervez Kambaksh has now benefited from a behind-closed-doors act of clemency from the Afghan president. But the fact that the student must flee in fear of his life because he circulated an article questioning attitudes to women in Islam suggests that the supposed introduction of democracy and eight years of war have delivered scant progress.

Afghan Marriage Law Furor

Article from Heidi Vogt, Associated Press @ Boston.com:

Activists yesterday rejected proposed revisions to Afghanistan’s marriage law, calling the new version just as oppressive as the original, which critics say legalized marital rape.

President Hamid Karzai signed the law in March but quickly suspended enforcement after governments around the world condemned it.

Though the law applied only to minority Shi’ites, critics saw it as a return to Taliban-style oppression of women by a government that was supposed to be promoting democracy and human rights.

The changes, which are not yet approved by Parliament, would delete sections that said a woman needs her husband’s permission to leave the house and must be ready for sex at least every four days. In a letter to the president, activists said other parts would change so little that the law is still unacceptable.

Issues such as polygamy and a woman’s right to work and to refuse sex have been addressed only with “slight changes in the wordings of the law, rather than changes in content,’’ the letter states.

The section about submitting to sex every four days was deleted, but other sections let a husband order sex, said Shinkai Kharokhel, a lawmaker involved in attempts to change the legislation.

A section explaining a husband must provide financially for his wife also says he can withhold support if she refuses to “submit to her husband’s reasonable sexual enjoyment,’’ according to Human Rights Watch.

That’s equivalent to saying a husband can starve his wife if she refuses to have sex, Kharokhel said.

Most Afghan women “are illiterate and they don’t have financial security and no one will give her money . . . shelter, medical, food, all these expenses belong to the man, and he can hold that back,’’ she said.

The revised law would also restrict a woman’s right to leave the house and to work, she said.

Even so, Kharokhel said, deletion of some of the most controversial articles showed the government was trying to address women’s rights.