examination
to see if they have recently had sexual intercourse. Because of this
continued oppression, every month a large number of girls commit suicide -
many more than under the Taliban.
Women's rights fare no better in northern
and southern Afghanistan which are under the control of the Northern
Alliance. One international NGO worker told Amnesty International:
"During the Taliban era, if a woman went to market and showed an inch
of flesh she would have been flogged; now she's raped."
Even in Kabul, where thousands of foreign
troops are present, Afghan women do not feel safe, and many continue to
wear the burka for protection. In some areas where girls' education does
exist, parents are afraid to allow their daughters to take advantage of it
following the burning down of several girls' schools. Girls have been
abducted on the way to school and sexual assaults on children of both
sexes are now commonplace, according to Human Rights Watch.
In spite of its rhetoric, the Karzai
government actively pursues policies that are anti-women. Women cannot
find jobs, and girls' schools often lack the most basic materials, such as
books and chairs. There is no legal protection for women, and the older
legal systems prohibit them from getting help when they need it. Female
singers are not allowed on Kabul television, and women's songs are not
played, while scenes in films of women not wearing the hijab are censored.
The Karzai government has established a
women's ministry just to throw dust in the eyes of the international
community. In reality, this ministry has done nothing for women. There are
complaints that money given to the women's ministry by foreign NGOs has
been taken by powerful warlords in the Karzai cabinet.
The "war on terror" toppled the
Taliban regime, but it has not removed religious fundamentalism, which is
the main cause of misery for Afghan women. In fact, by bringing the
warlords back to power, the US has replaced one misogynist fundamentalist
regime with another.
But then the US never did fight the
Taliban to save Afghan women. As recently as 2000 the Bush administration
gave the Taliban $43m as a reward for reducing the opium harvest. Now the
US supports the Northern Alliance, which was responsible for killing more
than 50,000 civilians during its bloody rule in the 1990s. Those in power
today - men such as Karim Khalili, Rabbani, Sayyaf, Fahim, Yunus Qanooni,
Mohaqiq and Abdullah - were those who imposed anti-women restrictions as
soon as they took control in 1992 and started a reign of terror throughout
Afghanistan. Thousands of women and girls were systematically raped by
armed thugs, and many committed suicide to avoid being sexually assaulted
by them.
But lack of women's rights is not the
only problem facing Afghanistan today. Neither opium cultivation nor
warlordism and terrorism have been uprooted. There is no peace, stability
or security. President Karzai is a prisoner within his own government, the
nominal head of a regime in which former Northern Alliance commanders hold
the real power. In such a climate, the results of the forthcoming
elections in June can easily be predicted:the Northern Alliance will once again hijack
the results to give legitimacy to its bloody rule.
In November 2001 Colin Powell, the US
secretary of state, said: "The rights of women in Afghanistan will
not be negotiable." But the women of Afghanistan have felt with their
whole bodies the dishonesty of such statements from US and British leaders
- we know that they have already negotiated away women's rights in
Afghanistan by imposing the most treacherous warlords on the people. Their
pretty speeches are made out of political expediency rather than genuine
concern.
From 1992 to 2001 Afghan women were
treated as cattle by all brands of fundamentalists, from jihadis to the
Taliban. Some western writers have tried to suggest that this oppression
has its roots in Afghan traditions and that it is disrespectful of
"cultural difference" to criticize it. Yet Afghan women
themselves are not silent victims. There is resistance, but you have to
look for it, as any serious anti-fundamentalist group has to work
semi-underground. The Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan
(Rawa), which was outlawed under the Taliban, still can't open an office
in Kabul. We still can't distribute our magazine Payam-e-Zan (Women's
Message) openly. Shopkeepers are still threatened with death for stocking
our publications, and Rawa supporters have been tortured and imprisoned
for distributing them. People who are caught reading our literature are
still in danger.
Feminism does not need to be imported; it
has already taken root in Afghanistan. Long before the US bombing,
progressive organizations were trying to establish freedom, democracy,
secularism and women's rights. Then, western governments and media showed
little interest in the plight of Afghan women. When, before September 11
2001, Rawa gave footage of the execution of its leader, Zarmeena, to the
BBC, CNN, ABC and others, it was told that the footage was too
shocking to broadcast. However, after September 11 these same media organizations
aired the footage repeatedly.
Similarly, some of Rawa's photographs
documenting the Taliban's abuses of women were also used - without our
permission. They were reproduced as flyers and dropped by American
warplanes as they flew over Afghanistan.
[Mariam Rawi, a member of the
Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan, is writing under a
pseudonym www.rawa.org]
