Lawmakers Decry Taliban Brutality Against Afghan Women

Say Afghans Are Victims of Taliban Misrule

By Steve La Rocque
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Republican and Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives rose to
speak out October 31 against the Taliban's mistreatment of women in Afghanistan.

Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (Democrat of Texas) told fellow legislators of women who
are beaten for leaving their homes dressed in full burqa, but missing the shroud that covers the
face.

Jackson-Lee, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said the beating of women
for "disciplinary" as well as "entertainment" reasons "is a routine phenomenon in Afghanistan
under the Taliban."

The Texas lawmaker told of seeing a news broadcast where an Afghan woman accused of
killing her abusive husband was ordered to be shot in the back of her head.

"Although the husband's family forgave the woman because she bore his seven children, a
Taliban fighter was still ordered to shoot her in the back of her head with an automatic rifle,"
Jackson-Lee said. The Taliban killed her because they said she was "too guilty to be forgiven,"
according to Jackson-Lee.

"How can we allow this type of treatment of women to continue?" she asked fellow lawmakers.
"With the coming to power of Islamic fundamentalists, women's right to fully participate in the
social, economic, cultural and political life of the country was drastically curtailed and later on
abruptly denied them by the Taliban."

Women's freedoms were "virtually wiped out" when the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 1996,
Jackson-Lee said.

"Women became subject to a horrific system of gender apartheid whereby they are prohibited
from working, attending school, and leaving their homes without a male relative and, as I
described earlier, without wearing the head-to-toe burqa shroud," she said.

Islamic fundamentalism, "in essence, looks upon women as subhumans, fit only for household
slavery and as a means of procreation," the Texas Democrat said.

Representative Ed Royce (Republican of California), a member of the House International
Relations Committee, condemned the Taliban for the "horrific treatment of women in
Afghanistan."

The Taliban restrict the rights of women, and try to explain it as "being in line with traditional
practices," he said.

On the contrary, Royce said, "it is clear that the Taliban is at odds with Islam and Afghan
society, especially in its treatment of women."

Prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Royce said, "women there had the right to
vote, along with other liberties enjoyed by most people around the world."

But when the Taliban swept into power, he continued, it "immediately institutionalized
widespread and systemic gender apartheid."

Women under the Taliban, he said, "have been subjected to remarkably harsh restrictions that
impede their ability to move freely, to prevent them from socializing, to prevent them from
seeking medical treatment."

Furthermore, the California lawmaker said, there is in place "a complete ban on women working
or receiving education outside the home."

Royce said that one organization that helped teach women how to read and write in the home is
now proscribed and "to be a member of that organization is to face capital punishment in
Afghanistan."

Royce described how under the Taliban male doctors may not examine women, while female
doctors are not allowed to work, leaving Afghan women with no access to health care.

According to Royce, one day a male dentist filling a woman's tooth found his office stormed by
Taliban police who "began whipping the women present because they were not accompanied
by male relatives."

Royce added that there is a ban on the use of cosmetics and that "women with painted nails
have had their fingernails pulled out by the Taliban authorities."

Women have been whipped, beaten, and verbally abused in the streets, he told fellow
lawmakers, "but I am afraid there have been many worse Taliban abuses than that."

Women who have been accused of adultery "have been stoned to death," he said.

Women accused of prostitution, he went on, "have been hanged in public."

Royce also told of women "who have defied Taliban edicts" who were taken into the soccer
stadium in Kabul, "and before audiences of men seated there publicly executed in the stadium."

Representative Juanita Millender-McDonald (Democrat of California) said women and children
in Afghanistan "have been the primary victims of the Taliban regime."

Before the Taliban took control, she said, "women were leaders in public life and politics. For
example, in Kabul, over 70 percent of teachers were women. Forty percent of the doctors and
the vast majority of the health care workers were women. In addition, over half of the university
students were women."

In 1977, she said, "women made up over 15 percent of Afghanistan's highest legislative branch.
Now, that is more than the 14 percent of women that serve here in the U.S. Congress today,"
said Millender-McDonald, the current Co-Chair of the Congressional Women's Caucus.

"Let me cite some of the horrific examples of the heinous acts of the Taliban," the California
lawmaker said. "A woman who defied Taliban orders by running a home school for girls was
killed in front of her family and friends. A woman caught trying to flee Afghanistan with a man
not related to her was stoned to death for adultery. An elderly woman was brutally beaten with a
metal cable until her leg was broken because her ankle was accidentally shown from
underneath her burqa."

"Women have died of curable ailments because male doctors are not allowed to treat them,"
she said.

Representative Carolyn Maloney (Democrat of New York) said, "millions of people in
Afghanistan are experiencing the most desperate poverty imaginable."

Besides Taliban rule, she said, "the region is suffering under the most severe drought in
decades and military incursions continue to displace hundreds of thousands of Afghans."

The New York lawmaker noted that 75 percent of refugees are women and children, and that
"the conditions in which they fight to survive are horrific."

By some counts, she went on, "every 30 minutes a woman dies in childbirth and one in four
children dies before 5 years of age."