Rights advocates fear rollback of women’s gains in Afghanistan

[theHandpuppet]

http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1545758/rights-advocates-fear-rollback-womens-gains-afghanistan
South China Morning Post
Rights advocates fear rollback of women’s gains in Afghanistan
Advocates fear withdrawal of most international troops and aid agencies from country will see some hard-won improvements rolled back
Thursday, 03 July, 2014, 9:01pm
Lynne O'Donnell in London

Parwan Wafa is headmistress of a school for 1,800 girls between seven and 17 years old in a rural region of Afghanistan that has been terrorised by Islamist insurgents for more than a decade.

Four years ago, Wafa's 17-year-old son was kidnapped. His captors threatened to kill him unless Wafa closed down her school, the Charbagh Village Girls' Secondary School in Qarghayi district of Laghman province, where almost half the houses have been destroyed in the war with the Taliban.

For 15 months, Wafa, 47, received a barrage of phone calls telling her that the life of her son, Homayoon, was the price she would have to pay for educating girls. Then the boy was murdered. His body was thrown in a river, and when it washed up, his arms were tied behind his back and he had clearly been tortured...

..."There was no question about why he was killed. The phone calls would tell me to stop my work, close the school, stop educating girls. The only reason my son was killed was because I was involved in promoting girls' education and the welfare of women in general," she said....

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