Focus Must Return to Afghan Women -- Before It's Too Late

September 11, 2006

Focus Must Return to Afghan Women -- Before It's Too Late

Afghan women's rights are slipping away. With increased violence, “[t]he Taliban are showing that they can operate anywhere at will, even in very high security areas” said Joanna Nathan with the International Crisis Group in Kabul, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

Taliban attacks on girls’ schools are increasing. Experts estimate that a girls’ schools is bombed or a teacher murdered every day. According to Human Rights Watch, attacks have closed schools in several entire districts in Afghanistan, and nearly one-third of all districts have no schools for girls.

Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation/Feminist Majority, which conducts the Campaign to Help Afghan Women and Girls, said, “We must step up security and funding for programs for Afghan women and girls. The Afghan Women’s Empowerment Act to provide increased funding is yet to find one Republican cosponsor. We can’t say we have freed the women of Afghanistan as we watch their rights slip away.”