Afghanistan

Afghanistan/United States: Call for papers on cultural factors that shape lives of Afghan children

As a sequel to their edited volume, Land of the Unconquerable: The Lives of Contemporary Afghan Women (University of California Press, March 2011), Jennifer Heath, independent scholar, author and editor of nine books, and Ashraf Zahedi, a University of California, Berkley scholar, are assembling an edited book about the children of Afghanistan. The first of its kind, this comprehensive collection will examine the impact of socio-economic, political, and cultural factors that shape the lives of Afghan children from birth to the legal marriage ages of 16 and 18 and that contextualizes their experiences in diverse social settings. Articles (no longer than 5,000 words) will be due on May 1st, 2011.

Afghanistan: Les talibans en faveur de l'éducation des filles?

Les talibans ne sont plus opposés à l'idée que les filles fréquentent l'école, affirme le ministre de l'Éducation afghan, Farooq Wardak, dans une entrevue accordée au Times Educational Supplement de Londres. L'information n'a pas été confirmée par les talibans.

« Ce que j'entends au plus haut niveau politique chez les talibans, c'est qu'ils ne sont plus opposés à l'éducation ni à l'éducation des filles », affirme M. Wardak. « C'est un changement d'attitude, un changement comportemental, un changement culturel. »

أفغانستان: طالبان تتخلى عن معارضتها لتعليم البنات

قال وزير التربية الأفغاني، فاروق وردك، إن حركة طالبان قد تخلَّت عن معارضتها لتعليم الفتيات في البلاد.

ففي مقابلة نُشرت تفاصيلها في الملحق التربوي لصحيفة التايمز البريطانية، قال وردك: "إن "التبدل الثقافي يعني أن طالبان لم تعد تعارض تعليم الفتيات".

يُشار إلى أنه لم يكن يُسمح للنساء في ظل حكم حركة طالبان بالعمل أو الحصول على التعليم.

Afghanistan: Taliban ready to lift ban on girls' schools, says minister

The Taliban's leadership is prepared to drop its ban on girls' schools, one of Afghanistan's most influential cabinet ministers has claimed. According to Farooq Wardak, the country's education minister, the movement has decided to scrap the ban on female education that helped earn the movement worldwide infamy in the 1990s. Wardak said the Taliban's leadership had undergone a profound change since losing power after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Afghanistan: Harmful practices against women pervasive

Harmful traditional practices violating women’s rights, including honour killings, child marriage and giving away girls to settle disputes, are pervasive in Afghanistan, says a United Nations report released today that calls on the Government to implement a new law aimed at ending the scourge. Based on research and interviews in nearly all 34 provinces with women, men, Government authorities, religious leaders and community groups, the human rights unit of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) found that the practices occur among all ethnic groups, in rural and urban areas, and that the most harmful among them violate not only Afghan law but also Islamic Sharia law.

Afghanistan: Female prisoners not released in absence of male relative

Zarghoona* has completed her three-month sentence at a prison in Kandahar Province, southern Afghanistan, but she is not allowed home because no male relative has shown up to guarantee that she will not run away from home again. “All my family has abandoned me. I am dead for them but they [prison authorities] say they will only release me to a man from my family,” the woman told IRIN in a phone interview facilitated by an official who preferred anonymity.

Afghanistan: Mr. President, we women are more tired than ever of fundamentalism

Open letter to President of Afghanistan: H.E. President of Afghanistan, The last decade in the history of our country, despite all the shortcomings, was full of hope for the women of Afghanistan. In the first few years of the decade, we witnessed positive developments toward freedom of women from yokes of captivity, fanaticism and fundamentalism. These hopes opened a new page in history for women and we may dare say that the newly founded democratic government of Afghanistan became a bastion of ideals of gender equality and justice for women who were tired of the rule of fanaticism and misogynism. Those developments revived the lost dignity of Afghanistan at the international level. Alas, those hopes and achievements have been subjected to disruption and regression in recent years leading to human catastrophes such as assassinations, stoning and gender discrimination.

Afghanistan: WLUML/SKSW communiqué: Arrêter la lapidation et les autres formes de punitions cruelles par le Taliban

La Campagne mondiale «Arrêtons de tuer et de lapider les femmes» et le Réseau international de solidarité Femmes sous lois musulmanes (WLUML) condamnent les punitions violentes, commises récemment par les Talibans en Afghanistan. Dimanche dernier, les Talibans ont exécuté par lapidation un couple dans la vingtaine, dans un village contrôlé par leurs forces à Kunduz, dans le nord de l’Afghanistan. Ce couple s’était enfui au Pakistan pour se marier, même si l’on avait raconté qu'’ils avaient été fiancés à d’autres personnes. Peu de temps après, ils retournaient ensemble dans leur village de Mullah Qulli, dans la région de Archi au Kunduz. Certains rapports indiquent que leurs familles avaient accepté de les marier, tandis que d’autres affirment que le jirga avait décidé de leur pardonner, si l’homme s’acquittait d’une compensation. Les Talibans les arrêtèrent tous les deux pour crime d’adultère et les lapidèrent, dans un bazar de la quartier de Dasht-e Archi. Ce crime a été confirmé par le gouverneur de Kunduz, Mohammad Omar.

Afghanistan: SKSW/WLUML Statement: Stop stoning and other forms of cruel punishments by the Taliban

The Global Campaign to Stop Killing and Stoning Women and the Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) International Solidarity Network condemn the recent incidents of violent punishments by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan: Taliban stone couple to death for adultery

Taliban forces have stoned a couple to death for adultery in a public execution. With Nato and UN officials in Kabul poring over the latest Taliban proposal to establish a joint commission to investigate civilian casualties, officials in the north of the country were detailing a killing that Amnesty International described as the first confirmed stoning in the country since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. Militants ordered the stoning after a married man and a single woman in Dasht-e-Archi district, Kunduz province, were accused of eloping.