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Afghanistan: Women's Rights
Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton
Co-authors, Human Rights Watch
Thursday, Dec. 19, 2002; 3 p.m. ET
The recent Human Rights Watch report, "We Want to Live As Humans: Repression of Women and Girls in Western Afghanistan," focuses on the treatment of women by the post-Taliban Afghan government. Despite U.S. and international efforts to rebuild Afghanistan's government and promote equal rights for women, the report contends that much of the religious views have not changed the treatment of women. Some extreme examples cited in the report include women who are caught talking with men on the streets of Herat being forced to undergo an exam to determine if they have had sex.
Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton, co-authors to the Human Rights Watch
report were online to talk about women's rights in Afghanistan.
Coursen-Neff is counsel to the Children's Rights Division of Human
Rights Watch. She has conducted research missions for the organization
to Malaysia, Israel, India, and Afghanistan and has investigated and
written about refugee protection, discrimination in education, the worst
forms of child labor, and discrimination against women and girls.
Sifton is a human rights attorney who works at Human Rights Watch
as a researcher on Afghanistan. He has conducted several missions in
Afghanistan throughout 2002, and previously worked for an aid organization in Afghanistan and Pakistan before the Taliban's fall. He is also the co-author of various reports on Afghanistan.
The transcript follows.
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Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton: Welcome. We would like to thank the Washington Post for giving us this opportunity to answer questions about Afghanistan and our recent reports on human rights conditions there. More information on our recent research in Afghanistan can be found online at http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/12/herat1217.htm
More information on Human Rights Watch and its work worldwide can be found at www.hrw.org
Mt. Rainier, Md.:
How can our government encourage Afghanistan to liberalize its treatment of women? And how can NGOs implement teaching/training/empowering of women in Afghanistan? We can't afford to create a cultural backlash, but surely there are incremental steps that would help the conservatives to see that the whole society benefits when women are not brutalized and enslaved. washingtonpost.com:
Afghan Women Are Still Policed (Post, Dec. 17)
Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton: People in Afghanistan have a great diversity of views on women’s rights.
But problems with women’s rights in Afghanistan are not so much the result of cultural attitudes, as the result of a breakdown or absence of governmental protections. Many Afghans, men and women alike, want women to have a role in Afghan society, but a small minority of military commanders – Afghanistan’s warlords – are preventing this.
The U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan have an important role to play in sidelining these warlords, and supporting efforts to strengthen the central government and women's participation in it.
Philadelphia, Pa.:
We hear the reports about mistreatment, first about the Tabliban and now this. Yet, without seeing it on film (which sometimes the press does get and shows us), it is hard to understand exactly what is happening. Would you please provide some exact examples of what is happening?
Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton: In western Afghanistan, the local leader, Ismail Khan, has censored women’s groups, intimidated outspoken women leaders, and sidelined women from his administration in Herat. Restrictions on the right to work mean that many women will never be able to use their education. The Herat government has even recruited schoolboys to spy on girls and women and report on so-called un-Islamic behavior. In some instances, police under Ismail Khan’s command have questioned women and girls seen alone with men, even taxi drivers, and arrested those who are not related. Men caught in such circumstances are usually taken to jail; women are brought to a hospital, where police force doctors to conduct medical exams on the women to determine whether they have had recent sexual intercourse, or if unmarried, whether they are virgins.
Our report contains additional stories about abuses across the country that have occurred over the last year. We are concerned not only about Ismail Khan, but about many other local leaders.
Alexandria, Va.:
Some say that wearing a veil is not demeaning to women. What do you think?
Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton: The issue is about women’s freedom to decide for themselves. In Herat, many women and girls told me that they wanted to wear Islamic clothes, including a headscarf, but didn’t want to be forced to wear the all-encompassing burqa (or chadori).
Zagreb, Croatia:
The UN claims to champion international justice. What is the UN doing to help these women and children?
Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton: The U.N. is doing a lot, but it needs to do more. An increase in human rights monitors would be one helpful step. But the U.N. also needs more support from the international community. The U.S. and other nations involved in Afghanistan need to expand peacekeeping operations outside of Kabul. And the U.S. needs to stop supporting local military leaders, many of whom are the worst human rights abusers.
Virginia:
Was it better for women in Afghanistan before or after the U.S. went in?
Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton: The situation has vastly improved since the Taliban collapsed. Many women and girls are back in school and are not being beaten on the street for minor infractions of the government-prescribed dress code. But these advances are tempered by the re-imposition of some Taliban-era restrictions in several parts of the country. In Herat in western Afghanistan, things have actually gotten worse in the second half of this year. In many places outside of Kabul, troops and police are continuing to harass women and girls. The Taliban may be gone but many women still live in fear.
Hoboken, N.J.:
How is health care in general for women in Herat? To the extent the government devotes resources to conducting "chastity exams" on women, does it provide essential, basic health care services?
Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton: Health care for women in Herat – and in many places in the country – is terrible for women and girls. According to a new report by Physicians for Human Rights, fewer than one percent of women and girls in Herat give birth with a trained birth attendant. Nationwide, according to UNICEF, the maternal mortality rate is one of the highest in the world outside of Africa. The use of scarce medical resources for forced medical exams in this context is unconscionable.
Wellington, New Zealand:
How can a society that claims to respect women justify such mistrust and humiliating treatment? It would appear that this type of society has no trust or respect for women.
Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton: Most of the abuses against women and girls we documented in our report are not the result of a societal problem, but a governmental one. The problem is men with guns abusing and harassing women. Many of Afghanistan’s potential leaders would like nothing more than to sideline and demobilize these sorts of troops (and their commanders), but they need international support to do it.
Westfield, N.J.:
Are women able to undertake any forms of exercise in Herat, such as running, or do the web of restrictions prevent them from engaging in basic physical fitness activities?
Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton: We asked some women and girls in Herat about this issue. Several told us that they get exercise doing housework. Women and girls are not allowed to play sports, even in school.
Many of the women of Herat are former refugees from Iran. In Iran, they were able to play sports, and many told us that they miss having these opportunities. Ismail Khan has, in fact, spoken against Afghan women who have traveled to international sporting events, for example, the Pan-Asian games.
Boston, Mass.:
While I think it is terrible what is happening to all of these women I don't know what we are supposed to do about it. I think American attempts to impose values on people have proved hopeless all over the world. Why do we try? Should we try at all? If this was really our priority why did we buy off these warlords for their help. We have financed their militias that are imposing all these hardships on the women. My basic thought is that it is hopeless trying to impose American values on everyone in the world and that it is wrong to do so. Holding a gun up to peoples heads to make them stop acting a particular way isnt' changing anything in the long run.
Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton: This is not about imposing western values on Afghan women. This is about making it possible for Afghan’s women and girls to participate in decisions that effect them and their country. Many Afghan women and men believe that women should participate in governance and civil society. But in many places, women who try to participate are being threatened and harassed by local authorities. But this is not “culture.” It is having too many men with guns – former combatants in Afghanistan’s wars – walking around and wielding arbitrary power without being held accountable.
Washington, D.C.:
Are there Afghan men who do not agree with the harsh practices and vocally advocate the rights of women? Any men protecting the woman?
Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton: There are many Afghan men who want women to enjoy greater rights and freedoms. But outside of Kabul, local leaders like Ismail Khan in the west, Daoud Khan in the northeast, Gul Agha Sherzai in the south, have created closed societies in which neither men nor women are free to publicly challenge them or their policies. In an earlier report, we documented how Ismail Khan has threatened, arrested, and even tortured political opponents and critics, most of them men.
Cleveland, Ohio:
What exactly do you want done? As sympathetic as I am to the plight of these women, what can our goverment do? The UN? The average citizen? Would peacekeepers, as you suggested, enforce the current laws, or is there a problem with the laws themselves? I am glad that you have documented the wrongs, but now how do we right them?
Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton: In the long term, Afghanistan’s institutions must be rebuilt. Afghanistan needs integrated and professional police forces and a national army, a new justice system, a strong Afghan human rights commission, and more support for its Ministry of Women’s Affairs. But in the short term, the United Nations can make a big difference by deploying additional human rights monitors. (In many places where international staff are deployed, Afghan warlords and their troops are much less likely to commit abuses.) The United States and its allies, by expanding peacekeeping, provide a sense of security and an added level of protection. In Kabul, where there are peacekeepers and a heavy U.N. presence, there are far fewer human rights problems than in the rest of the country.
Washington, D.C.:
Since the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban, have the educational opportunities for young women improved? How so?
Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton: They have improved. Many women have returned to school in many places in Afghanistan. But there are still serious problems: girls schools in five different provinces this fall were attacked with rockets or set on fire. In some provinces in the south, fathers and mothers have been threatened by troops for sending their daughters to school. In short, while there have been improvements, there is much more to be done in improving the sense of security for girls who are going to school.
Zama Coursen-Neff and John Sifton: Thanks very much for your questions.
washingtonpost.com:
That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the
discussion.
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