Acid attacks and rape: growing threat to women who oppose traditional order
Female MPs speak out as conditions worsen and Islamists gain respectability
Guardian

They were walking to school in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, a group of teenage girls discussing a test they had coming up, when two men on a motorcycle sprayed them with a strange liquid. Within seconds a painful tingling began, and there was an unusual smell as the skin of 16-year-old Atifa Biba began to burn.

Her friend rushed over to help her, struggling to wipe the liquid away, when she too was showered with acid. She covered her face, crying out for help as they sprayed her again, trying to aim the acid into her face. The weapon was a water bottle containing battery acid; the result was at least one girl blinded and two others permanently disfigured. Their only crime was attending school.

It was not an isolated incident. For women and girls across Afghanistan, conditions are worsening - and those women who dare to publicly oppose the traditional order now live in fear for their lives.

The Afghan MP Shukria Barakzai receives regular death threats for speaking out on women's issues. Talking at her home in central Kabul, she closed the living room door as her three young daughters played in the hall. "You can't imagine what it feels like as a mother to leave the house each day and not know if you will come back again," she said, her eyes welling up as she spoke.

"But there is no choice. I would rather die for the dignity of women than die for nothing. Should I stop my work because there is a chance I might be killed? I must go on, and if it happens it happens."

Barakzai receives frequent but cryptic warnings about planned suicide attacks on her car, but no help from the government. Officials advise her to stay at home and not go to work, but offer nothing in the way of security assistance, despite her requests. She said warlords in parliament who received similar threats were immediately provided with armoured vehicles, armed guards and a safe house by the government.

Afghan women are feeling increasingly vulnerable as the security situation worsens and a growing number of western and Afghan officials call for the Taliban to join the government.

"We are very worried that, now the government is talking with the Taliban, our rights will be compromised," said Shinkai Karokhail, an outspoken MP for Kabul. "We must not be the sacrifice by which peace with the Taliban is made."

Under Taliban rule, up until 2001, women were not allowed to work and were forbidden from venturing outside the home without a male escort.

Afghan women who defy traditional gender roles and speak out against the oppression of women are routinely subject to threats, intimidation and assassination. An increasingly powerful Taliban regularly attacks projects, schools and businesses run by women.

Six weeks ago, Lieutenant-Colonel Malalai Kakar was assassinated in her car on her way to work in Kandahar. She was Afghanistan's highest-ranking female police officer and a fierce defender of women's rights. Only five feet tall, she was known to have beaten men she found to be abusing their wives. Another senior female police officer was killed in the province of Herat in June.

Safe house

Talking to the Guardian at a safe house on the outskirts of Kabul, Mullah Zubiallah Akhond, a Taliban commander from the southern province of Uruzgan, said the group's attacks on women were always political and not based on any desire to target or punish women specifically.

He condemned the acid attack on the group of schoolgirls in Kandahar, and insisted the Taliban were not involved. "We support the education of girls, but separate from boys. We would not attack schoolgirls. We only target those working with the government."

The Taliban's regional commands have varying attitudes toward women, but all those fighting under the Taliban banner are committed to enforcing their interpretation of sharia law, which forbids women from working or leaving the house without a male escort.

The Islamist group is just one of the many threats facing Afghanistan's few outspoken female MPs. "Our parliament is a collection of lords," said Barakzai. "Warlords, drug lords, crime lords."

In parliament, she says, she is often greeted with screams of "kill her" when she stands up to speak, and she has had no shortage of personal threats from fellow MPs.

They visit her privately to tell her she will be killed if she continues to speak out on such issues as the right of a woman to have a personal passport (separate from the standard "family passport") or against compulsory virginity tests for young women, and the right of a man to have custody of a child at two years old. It is not only men who oppose women in parliament - both Barakzai and Karokhail have faced obstruction from other female MPs on key women's issues.

Karokhail said that, of the 68 women in the 249-strong parliament, only five were vocal on women's issues. The majority of women in parliament vote in favour of more traditional legislation that often rules against women's rights.

Some women now fear the parliament is becoming more conservative towards women. "Talibani ideas are natural among our people, particularly their vision about women," said Barakzai.

According to Afghan commentators, President Hamid Karzai, desperate to win next year's elections, has been bringing former mujahideen commanders into parliament in the hope they will support him at election time.

Most of these former jihadi commanders share the Taliban's ideas about women and are expected to support legislation that will once again limit women's freedom. In addition, according to the Taliban commander, the group has a growing number of MPs in parliament lobbying for their policies.

In much of the country, especially rural areas, women remain subservient to the men in their family and rarely venture out of their homes. Even in the relatively liberal capital, Kabul, it is common to see women robed in blue burkas trailing five paces behind their husbands.

It is difficult to gauge how the worsening situation in the country is affecting women, but according to a recent study by the UN, some 87% of them suffer abuse in the home. Afghan human rights groups are documenting cases of "honour" killings, forced abortions and rape, and a database is now being constructed by the UN.

Najla Zewari, who works for the UN's gender and justice unit, believes violence against women is increasing, fuelled by growing frustrations caused by the economic crisis and lack of security. She said there had also been a sharp increase in rapes by men who claimed they could not afford to pay the dowry needed to marry. After the public shame of an attack, the victim is usually outcast and the rapist is then the only man who will have the woman as his wife.

It is crimes like this that make many Afghans nostalgic for the harsh justice of Taliban rule. Barakzai countered: "Women were safe, in one sense, under the Taliban - but they were kept as slaves, they were not allowed to do what they wanted even in their own home."

As the Taliban strengthen, the future for women in Afghanistan looks bleaker. Barakzai said women's rights, once heralded as the great success of post-invasion Afghanistan, had been sidelined and might suffer more in the struggle to find a solution to the fighting.

Last week, a council of 400 women politicians met in Kabul to discuss this possibility and prepare ways to counter it. Karokhail said: "Our biggest fear at the moment is that the return of Talibani ideas to government will wind back the gains we have made in these last years."


* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

I attended a conference on Islam at a university last week. There was a panel on Islam and women's rights. One of the presenters was a Muslim woman covered head to toe except for a small area of her face arguing that Islam treated women equitably.

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Ah, here we go again. When are the women of the world going to rise up and scream about this barbaric, middle ages style CRAP forced on the women in countries that have this type of belief? And, why arn't we, as a civilized world, eradicating barbarians who do this? hunt them down and snuff them out, all of them who believe this way. And, while we are at it, lets do a few selective air strikes on those Somali villages where the pirates come from. quit playing with these people: force is the only thing that will work...

maybe now that Bush is leaving, you Bush haters will open your eyes enough to realize that the fight he took us to was a just one....if this cancer spreads throughout the world, we will end up back in the dark ages, ruled by barbarians with nukes....

Two things should happen:

Perpetrators of these crimes against women should have their testicles cut off, placed in their mouths, their mouths sewn shut and then walked to the edge of town where they are summarily executed with a bullet in the back of the head. Burn the corpses and bulldoze into a pit. Repeat as necessary.

Women who are subject to these attacks should be trained in the use of firearms. A snub nosed .38 would be simple to hide under a Burka. I think the acid-toting towel head retards would get quite the surprise when they make their move. Pop goes the weasel! You've got acid and they have hollowpoints!

Misogyny masquerading as religion and "culture" should be removed from the planet with a scorched earth policy.

RT

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100%
I just hope the new administration does not fall victim to cultural relativism and allow this to go on without even saying a word.

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Well, at least they're standing up and trying. That's how change is affected. No expecting hands patiently awaiting a Godly saviour. And most importantly, they aren't willing to sacrifice freedom for security. Definitely unfortunate, for sure. However, politically, the only appropriate action is to discourage such things, not start wars or get involved in another country's affairs. Women treated poorly in no way affects US security. But it would sure be nice if Blackwater types were more interested in humanitarian issues instead of wanton murder, free of all consequence.

It doesn't happen just across the pond....most cases of spousal abuse against women in the US are report on.......Super Bowl Sunday.......I have worked with women who have been abused and it leaves one speechless. This devastating treatment against another stretches across many continents and cultures. It wasn't too long ago that in some states it was permissible to beat your wife to keep her line, those laws now are off the books. No hitting anyone wearing a skirt and or lipstick!

p.s. there is also spousal abuse against men as well but those cases are not as widely reported.

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What man would want to admit that a girl whupped his ass?

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I really don't know why most women don't shoot the bastards, poison them or kill them while they are sleeping. I've never hit a woman, never raised my hand to one nor do I expect them to do that to me.

I have a friend whos wife used to beat him severely. He only admitted it recently now that he is remarried. He couldn't bring himself to fight back. RT

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I agree that this is awful, but spousal abuse is not sanctioned by law here nor is it encouraged by our churches. We especially do not condone the throwing of battery acid in the face of a sixteen year old just because she is going to school. I also do not remember the last time a congresswoman was threatened with death just for showing up in the house.
We (the civilized countries) need to stand up to this type of criminal activity whereever it takes place in Somolia, Sudan, Afghanistan, etc. It is time we understood that this is a clash of cultures and that not all cultures are equal.

__________________
"I have no convictions ... I blow with the wind, and the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy"

Current
Monika '74 450 SL
BrownHilda '79 280SL
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Gone
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Bruno '81 300SD
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'92 Subaru
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Female genital mutilation is just another form of cultural expression.

That by far is one of the cruelist forms....

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No chance. And anyway, we (the civilized countries) have already shown that we don't have the balls for the fight.

- Peter.

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On more than one occassion, I've been told when I walk they clank....

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There is nothing that would stop me from hitting *ON* a cute female wearing a skirt and lipstick.

*IF* you could find one outside a big city. heeeeeeeeeeee

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