Mar 09, 2001 05:06 AM
1952 Views
Today (8th March) is International Woman’s Day and lets pray that the basic human rights
are restored back to the Afghan women and that their lives and souls are retrieved from the
dark and heinous clutches of the Taliban
Afghanistan was invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union in 1979. The USSR was forced to withdraw 10 years later by mujahidin forces supplied and trained by the US, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and others. But the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban movement has been able to seize most of the country and plunged Afghanistan into a brutal state of gender apartheid in which women and girls have been stripped of their basic human rights.
The Taliban imposed strict edicts that:
·Banished women from the work force
·Closed schools to girls in cities and expelled women from universities
·Prohibited women from leaving their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative
·Ordered the publicly visible windows of women's houses painted black and forced women to wear the burqa which completely shrouds the body, leaving only a small mesh-covered opening through which to see
·Prohibited women and girls from being examined by male physicians while at the same time, prohibited most female doctors and nurses from working. (Currently there are a few, selected female doctors allowed to operate in segregated wards.)
Women have been brutally beaten, flogged and even killed for disobeying Taliban edicts
The Taliban support Islamic militants worldwide and since they came to power Afghanistan has become world’s largest illicit opium producer and a major source of hashish; increasing number of heroin-processing laboratories have been set up in the country profiting from drug trade
