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.

Canada - Honour Killing

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

An Afghan immigrant couple and their son have been found guilty in a Canadian court of first degree murder over the "honour killings" of four female family members, and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The Shafia family had come to Canada in 2007, after living in Australia, Pakistan and Dubai over the previous 15 years.

The jury in Kingston, Ontario, deliberated for two days before pronouncing a guilty sentence against Mohammad Shafia, 58, his 42-year-old wife Tooba Mahommad Yahya and their 21-year-old son Hamed.

Their defence lawyers said on Sunday they would appeal the convictions.

Judge Robert Maranger called the crimes "heinous" as he sentenced the accused to 25 years in prison, and said the evidence clearly supported the charges.

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.

Female Afghan Pilots In US

From Reuters:

Afghanistan's first crop of female military pilots arrived for training this week, where they will first study English at the Defense Language Institute at Lackland. Dozens of male Afghan pilots have gone through similar training in the United States.

After six to eight months of language study, they will travel to Fort Rucker in Alabama for helicopter pilot training in the U.S. Army "Thunder Lab" program.

The women pilots will among about 1,200 students at the Institute, where students from around the world learn English - the global vernacular of aviation.

Axelbank said the Afghan women will undergo the same course of study in the United States as have male Afghan pilots, along with thousands of other military personnel who have trained at Lackland over the decades.

Masouda Jalal: Harbinger of Equality

From Gulf News:

Afghanistan's first woman presidential candidate, Dr Masouda Jalal, helps women stand up to the male-dominated society.

Dr Masouda Jalal belongs to a growing number of women who dare to oppose deep-rooted derogatory traditions in Afghan society.

A paediatrician, along with being Afghanistan's first woman presidential candidate and the former minister of women's affairs, Dr Jalal has been working towards improving the status of women in her country. Through her organisation, the Jalal Foundation, she has empowered several women and is a beacon of hope. Her work earned her global recognition, including the UN Watch Human Rights award in 2010.

In an exclusive interview with Weekend Review, Dr Jalal talks about her organisation and life in Afghanistan.

State of Women - Two Views

The Women - amazing blog about women in India - past and present.

At the time when the West voting laws in favor of gender equality, the position of the Hindu woman in India today remains precarious.

Afghan Women: A History of Struggle - blog from Times Union.

The film is first and foremost a summary of Afghanistan’s struggle and how that struggle was perpetuated by outside influences, notably the United States and the Soviet Union. It is a powerful documentary that I would encourage anyone to watch.

Afghan Women Commissioned Into Army

From BBC News:

The first female Afghan officers since the early 1990s have been commissioned into the army.

Twenty-nine women passed out from a class of new recruits who hope to take the lead role in security from foreign forces by 2014.

Their recruitment is part of a huge US-funded training programme. Women were forbidden from serving by the Taliban.

The aim is to strengthen army and police ranks so that 150,000 foreign forces can begin to withdraw.

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: Brutality Creates Fear

From NRP:

The Taliban has denied that its militants tortured, hanged and shot a widow in Afghanistan's western Baghdis province for adultery.

It's not the principle the Taliban disagrees with — in a lengthy press release, a Taliban spokesman said that the woman should have been stoned to death instead.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the stoning in a separate case of a couple put to death in Kunduz province. But he has also been careful in public statements to avoid mentioning topics like women's rights.

Human-rights advocates say the U.S.-supported government of Afghanistan has not done enough and that the government's reaction raises questions about plans to reconcile with the Taliban

.

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.

Rise in Female Suicides

Two rather disturbing reports on women driven to the edge.

From ABC News:

Government statistics in Afghanistan have raised concerns that a growing number of Afghan women are attempting suicide.

The government says every year about 2,300 women or girls attempt to kill themselves, mainly due to mental illness, domestic violence and poverty.

Rachel Reid, Afghan analyst from Human Rights Watch, has told Radio Australia's Connect Asia program there are a range of issues facing women in Afghanistan.

The report shows a several-fold increase in suicide attempt compared to 30 years ago, including more than 100 cases of self-immolation at Herat City Hospital in the past year, and an increase in the number of women using pharmaceuticals to kill themselves.

And from the Indian Express:

Three married women have committed suicide, in separate incidents, following alleged mental and physical harassment by their husbands and in laws over the last two days.

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.

Afghanistan: Rise in Suicide of Women & Girls

From RAWA News:

The advisor of the president of Afghanistan in health matters estimates that each year 2300 Afghan women and girls, aged between 15 to 40 years who suffer from depression, commit suicide.

Mr. Kakkar said that on the basis of the above information the rate of suicide among women is 5 out of every 100,000. Mr. Kakkar said that the continuation of civil wars and violence in Afghanistan, immigration, early and forced marriages, rape, domestic violence and widespread poverty in families are viewed as the main reasons for mental illnesses and depression in Afghanistan.

The report Mr. Kakkar gave to the media also included the effects of drugs on Afghan women and depression among them.

In 2008 the Ministry of Public Health of Afghanistan had estimated that two-thirds of the Afghan population suffered from mental illnesses. But the officials of this ministry said that all the people suffering from mental illnesses included in this research don’t need treatment.

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.