After the Taliban, women still suffer

[kskiska]

Kidnappings and wife beatings go on, three years after the liberation of Afghans from the Taliban regime

Eyes darting back and forth, crouching against a wall, Anar Gul has the distressed look of a chained animal. That's because, until recently, she lived like one.

Pulling back her burqa, the nervous mother told how she had been tortured for 20 days by her opium-addicted former husband in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan.
Humiliated by their recent divorce, he lured Anar to their one-room house, bound her in rusty chains and flung her into a dark alcove. For almost three weeks she cowered in the gloom, unable to move, eating scraps from a dog bowl and enduring relentless beatings.

(snip)

Much has changed for many Afghan women since the fall of the Taliban regime three years ago. In theory they now have the same rights as men to work and go to school. Last month's election was vaunted as a leap forward. Women accounted for 40 per cent of voters and the first ballot was cast by a 19-year-old woman.

'Freedom is powerful,' boasted President George Bush afterwards. 'Think about a society in which young girls couldn't go to school and their mothers were whipped in the public square.'

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1345482,00.html

[NMDemDist2]

1. religious run governments ain't it grand? gives us something to look

forward to, doesn't it?

[Erika]

2. Falwell & Robertson Love Bush

Form a theocracy where women have no say to their reproductive rights and Christianity will be legislated as the law of the land. Bush is their boy.

That's why I hope many will join in hurting these fundamentalists in the pocketbook by boycotting GOP businesses.

[AmyDeLune]

3. Night Kick! n/t