Afghan Women under the tyranny of the misogynist fundamentalists


Medieval restrictions imposed by Taliban on Afghan women since Aug.2021

An overview on the situation of Afghan Women
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Some of the restrictions imposed by Taliban on women (1996-2001)
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Afghan women in chains of the brutal fundamentalists
  • August 6, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Don’t exploit women to justify war, says Afghan activist
    RFI: The war in Afghanistan is not going well for the US and its allies, as the recent WikiLeaks revelations have shown. So should US President Barack Obama keep his commitment to start withdrawal next year? Some American media are asking if that means leaving Afghan women to the mercies of the Taliban. One Afghan woman activist tells RFI that she is suspicious of such claims.      Full news...

  • August 5, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The Afghan girl is back
    The Dawn Blog: While Sharbat Gul’s eyes powerfully transfixed the world from the cover of National Geographic in 1985, Aisha’s ordeal depicted on the cover of Time this week fixates our attention on where her nose would be. The metaphoric pain in the eyes has given way to the figurative – in this case, the disfigurative.      Full news...

  • July 31, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    2300 Women and Girls Commit Suicide in Afghanistan Each Year
    BBC Persian (Translated by RAWA): A recent research in Afghanistan shows that the number of women committing suicide in the country has been increasing. Faiz Mohammad Kakkar, the advisor of the president of Afghanistan in healthcare matters who took part in this research said that the reason for 90% of the suicides were acute depression or mental illnesses.      Full news...

  • July 28, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Taliban publicly flog couple for having illicit relations
    PAN: The Taliban militant publicly flogged a man and a woman on the charge of having illicit relations in the southern province of Ghazni, an eyewitness said on Tuesday. Watched by a number of people, the flogging happened in the Khuzayee area of Moqur district on Sunday. "The militants knocked them down and awarded each of them 60 lashes," an eyewitness, who did not want to be named, told Pajhwok Afghan News.      Full news...

  • July 22, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Women in northern Afghanistan face Taliban revival
    AFP: Women living in Afghanistan's safest region are retreating behind the veil amid fears they are being stalked by a resurgent Taliban determined to trample their rights. Human rights groups are concerned that plans by the Afghan government to make peace with the Taliban could lead to an erosion of women's liberties. But as attacks escalate across the previously peaceful north, and the insurgency's footprint expands, women are losing confidence that their hard-won rights are inviolable.      Full news...

  • July 17, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    “Leave your job or we will cut your head off your body...”
    The Independent: Women in Taliban-held areas of Afghanistan say they are once again being threatened, attacked and forced out of jobs and education as fears rise that their rights will be sacrificed as part of any deal with insurgents to end the war in Afghanistan. Women have reported attacks and received letters warning of violence if they continue to work or even contact radio stations to request songs.      Full news...

  • July 14, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The Taliban War on Women Continues
    The Wall Street Journal: Beware Taliban revisionism. You’re going to hear much more of it in the coming months as policy makers from Kabul to Washington seeking to reintegrate Taliban fighters try to explain why the enemy isn’t so bad after all. Bombs that slaughter civilians, acid attacks that disfigure school girls, assassinations of women in public life-all of this will be swept under the carpet.      Full news...

  • July 12, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghan Women Set Themselves On Fire To Escape Abusive Marriages
    Care2.com: An article from Time poignantly describes the conditions inside the women's ward of the Istiqlal Hospital burn unit in Kabul, where young women who have attempted to commit suicide by self-immolation lie unconscious or in serious pain. According to the Ministry of Women's Affairs, 103 women who set themselves on fire between March 2009 and March 2010...      Full news...

  • July 9, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The Afghan love story with a happy ending
    The Independent: Samia is a rape victim, but now it's the morning of her wedding. By late afternoon, she will be married in a private ceremony in Karte Se, Kabul. One of the 150 guests at this extraordinary marriage ceremony will be the activist and suspended MP Malalai Joya: Samia's handsome husband-to-be, Faramarz, has been one of Ms Joya's bodyguards for more than four years.      Full news...

  • July 7, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Women barred from venturing out of homes
    PAN: Clerics in northern Badakhshan province Wednesday issued a resolution, asking women to refrain from venturing out of home without an immediate male relative. The resolution was issued by members of the provincial ulema council members, who met in the Juram district two weeks after unidentified gunmen shot dead two women allegedly involved in prostitution.      Full news...

  • June 11, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    14 killed in Afghanistan attacks
    AFP: Nine civilians, including four women and three children, died when a bomb ripped through a minibus travelling along the main road leading to the capital of Kandahar province. Eight other civilians were wounded in the attack, which took place in the Maywand area, provincial government spokesman Zalmai Ayobi said.      Full news...

  • June 10, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Abuse drives some Afghan women to suicide
    IWPR: Only someone living in Afghanistan would consider Iran a bastion of freedom and independence for women. But authorities here say such a perception may be what's behind a soaring number of suicides in this western province. Once exposed to Iran's relatively more sophisticated society, women who return to Afghanistan are unable to survive in this restrictive society.      Full news...

  • June 9, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    AFGHANISTAN: Maternal health needs more than healthcare
    IRIN: Nowhere in the world are as many mothers dying from pregnancy and birth-related complications as in Badakhshan Province, northeastern Afghanistan, where maternal mortality figures are estimated at 6,000 per 100,000 live births, say agencies. Yet, the relatively peaceful province has more maternal healthcare facilities than Helmand, Zabul, Uruzgan and several others.      Full news...

  • June 5, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghan girls brave Taliban threats
    Al Jazeera: The Taliban has waged a violent campaign against girls who go to schools in their Afghan strongholds. A series of attacks against schools and female students have driven many girls to go underground to receive an education. In 2008 around 15 schoolgirls and teachers were sprayed with acid by men on motorbikes.      Full news...

  • May 27, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Amnesty International Report 2010 Draws Bleak Picture of Human Rights in Afghanistan
    Amnesty International: Afghan people continued to suffer widespread human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law more than seven years after the USA and its allies ousted the Taliban. Access to health care, education and humanitarian aid deteriorated, particularly in the south and south-east of the country, due to escalating armed conflict between Afghan and international forces and the Taliban and other armed groups. Conflict-related violations increased in northern and western Afghanistan, areas previously considered relatively safe.      Full news...

  • May 27, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghan Clerics impose Taliban-style restrictions on women’s travel
    PAN: A council of Afghan clerics has issued a fatwa, banning women from traveling without a father, brother or other approved escort, even during the Hajj. The ruling by the Herat Religious Council also said Islam prohibited women, engaged in activities out of home, from wearing makeup. Announcing the fatwa, tens of religious scholars asked the government to implement their advice. The clerics said they could not shut their eyes to the current situation.      Full news...

  • May 24, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Want to know why we should get out of Afghanistan?
    philobiblon.co.uk: When I was running for the Green Party in the recent British general election, there was one issue on which I had no doubt how audiences at hustings and meetings would react positively – our call to withdraw British (and NATO) troops from Afghanistan. Surveys show around 70% of the public back that stance, and it was close to 100% of the audiences at hustings.      Full news...

  • May 15, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Hillary lies again to Afghan women
    Daily Mail Times: Secretary of State Mrs. Hillary Rodham-Clinton has once again lied to Afghan women. She said that America will not abandon Afghan women. It already has. America has not kept its promises to the women of Afghanistan. The youngest woman in the Afghan parliament has used International Women’s Day to slam the “disastrous conditions” for women in her country and ask Australians to help bring change.      Full news...

  • May 9, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Eight civilians killed in Afghanistan
    DPA: Seven civilians were killed in two explosions in central and northern Afghanistan, while one other was shot by a private security guard near the capital, officials said Saturday. Two women, two children and two men were killed in Charkh district of the central province of Logar after their vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb, a spokesman for Logar's governor said.      Full news...

  • May 5, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghanistan ‘Worst Country’ for Mothers
    The Media Line: Afghanistan is the worst county in the world for a woman to be a mother, a new report says. The Mothers’ Index in Save the Children’s report, State of the World’s Mothers 2010, compares the well-being of mothers and children in 173 countries and concludes that the well-being of mothers and children is at the highest risk in Afghanistan.      Full news...

  • May 4, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    An Afghan Woman Beheaded in Zabul
    PAN (Translated by RAWA): A woman in Qalat city of Zabul was killed in a mysterious manner. A police source who refused to name himself, told PAN on May 3rd that this incident had occurred in the Kharwarian area of Qalat. According to him the woman killed was called Zakira and her body had been found this morning by the security forces near the Kabul-Kandahar Highway.      Full news...

  • April 30, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Foreign forces kill 3 civilians
    AFP: INTERNATIONAL troops opened fire on a car in southern Afghanistan on Friday, killing two women and a girl after mistaking them for Taleban, the Afghan interior ministry said. The victims were among five civilians who were travelling on a highway in Zabul province when they came under fire, ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.      Full news...

  • April 27, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    37 children die every hour in Afghanistan
    PAN (Translated by RAWA): 22 children under the age of five and 15 children below the age of one die every hour. And every 30 minutes, a mother dies during childbirth. These statistics were announced by Dr. Suraya Dalil, Deputy Minister for Policy and Planning and Acting Minister of Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) in a press conference in Kabul with Dr. Eric Laroche, Assistant Director-General Health Action in Crises, World Health Organization (WHO).      Full news...

  • April 18, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    “In My Father’s House They Gathered All the Women into One Room”
    In late 2001, after helping kick the Taliban out of northern Afghanistan, two militias allied with the United States raped and plundered their way through your villages. One was the ethnic Uzbek militia of General Abdul Rashid Dostum; the other was made up of ethnic Hazara followers of the warlord Muhammad Mohaqiq. They killed your men, slaughtered and stole your livestock, pillaged your homes, and violated your sisters, mothers, and daughters. Some of them took the time to explain why they had picked you as their victims: Because you are Pashtun, the ethnic group that made up most of the Taliban.      Full news...

  • April 14, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    18-year-old Afghan woman slain in campaign of fear
    AP: A gunman lying in wait shot and killed an 18-year-old woman as she left her job at a U.S.-based development company Tuesday, casting a spotlight on a stepped-up campaign of Taliban intimidation against women .... Eight years after the U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power, fear again dominates the lives of many young women and girls in the violent south...      Full news...

  • April 14, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Women Self-Immolation Surges in Paktia
    Quqnoos: Human rights bodies are concerned about the rise of women self-burnings in Paktia province. Daud Afzali, the head of the Human Rights Independent Commission, said during a session in southeast Afghanistan on ways how to reduce violence against women that several factors have boosted the self-burnings.      Full news...

  • April 8, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Family violence leads woman to commit suicide in Herat
    PAN: An Afghan woman in an attempt to commit suicide has burned herself in the western Herat province, an official said. Domestic violence has led Shabnam, 25, to commit suicide, her relatives said, as she was in a critical health condition at Herat provincial hospital. Shabnam was brought to the hospital "long after the incident", a doctor at the state-run medical facility, Mohammad Arif Jalali, told Pajhwok Afghan News on Thursday.      Full news...

  • April 5, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    US special forces ‘tried to cover-up’ botched Khataba raid in Afghanistan
    The Times: US special forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened, Afghan investigators have told The Times. Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother were shot on February 12 when US and Afghan special forces stormed their home in Khataba village, outside Gardez in eastern Afghanistan.      Full news...

  • March 31, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Sold, raped and jailed, a girl faces Afghan justice
    Reuters: For the shy Afghan girl who sat quietly in a detention center with a pale blue headscarf, teenage rebellion had come at a heavy price: seven years in prison. Engaged to an older man who had offered $5,000 to her father but in love with a boy she spoke to on the phone, the 16-year-old girl was hauled before a court that found her guilty of running away from home, according to an account she provided.      Full news...

  • March 27, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    NATO Tries to Silence a Truth-Teller in Afghanistan After Killing Pregnant Women
    Rethink Afghanistan: recently, we spoke with Afghanistan-based journalist Jerome Starkey about his reporting on special forces raids that killed civilians and NATOs surprising–and disappointing–response. This video contains disturbing images, and an even more disturbing story of violence, and an attempt to silence a truth-teller. It shows why its absolutely essential that we keep pushing back against the Pentagon’s message machine.      Full news...

  • March 27, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Recruit Afghan women to sell war to Europeans: CIA report
    AFP: A CIA expert has called for recruiting Afghan women in a public relations bid to persuade skeptical Europeans to support the NATO-led war effort, according to a document leaked Friday. "Afghan women could serve as ideal messengers in humanizing" the mission for European audiences, particularly in France, according to the CIA analysis, posted on WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website.      Full news...

  • March 25, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    AFGHANISTAN: Human rights under pressure
    IRIN: Afghanistan’s hard-won post-Taliban human rights achievements are being eroded due to the persistent immunity from prosecution of powerful figures, the intensifying conflict, and the adoption of laws which undermine justice and human rights, a UN official warns.      Full news...


  • March 18, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Reports of Sexual Assault Involving Military Servicemembers Rose in 2009
    ABC News: Reports of sexual assault involving military servicemembers rose by 11 percent last year, but Pentagon officials said that was just what they were hoping would happen. There were 3,230 reports of sexual assault filed in Fiscal Year 2009, the Pentagon announced today. However, Pentagon officials see the rising numbers in a positive light because it has been a goal for the Defense Department to improve the reporting of cases of sexual assault....      Full news...

  • March 15, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Survivors of family killed in Afghanistan raid threaten suicide attacks
    The Times: A family whose members were killed in a botched night raid in eastern Afghanistan have rejected “blood money” from the Government and vowed to carry out suicide attacks unless the perpetrators are brought to justice. Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a policeman and his brother were shot dead on February 12 by unidentified gunmen. Eight men were arrested in the raid on the village of Khataba in Paktia province. They have all been released.      Full news...

  • March 14, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Nato ‘covered up’ botched night raid in Afghanistan that killed five
    The Times: A night raid carried out by US and Afghan gunmen led to the deaths of two pregnant women, a teenage girl and two local officials in an atrocity which Nato then tried to cover up, survivors have told The Times. In a statement after the raid titled “Joint force operating in Gardez makes gruesome discovery”, Nato claimed that the force had found the women’s bodies “tied up, gagged and killed” in a room.      Full news...

  • March 8, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    AFGHANISTAN: Women’s rights trampled despite new law
    IRIN: As the world marks International Women’s Day, ambivalence, impunity, weak law enforcement and corruption continue to undermine women’s rights in Afghanistan, despite a July 2009 law banning violence against women, rights activists say. A recent case of the public beating of a woman for alleged elopement - also shown on private TV stations in Kabul - highlights the issue.      Full news...

  • March 8, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Violence against women persists in Herat
    PAN: Despite efforts at improving their overall situation, women continue to be the target of violence in western Herat province, officials said on the International Women's Day. The Women Affairs Directorate said on Monday 633 cases of violence against females were reported in the province during the last solar year. Human rights officer at the directorate, Soraya Baleegh, told Pajhwok Afghan News the cases were linked to an increase in the number of drug addicts and growing poverty.      Full news...

  • March 5, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    ‘Afghan women lawmakers hamstrung by warlords’
    AFP: Afghan women may hold a quarter of the seats in their country's parliament but many are mere mouthpieces for warlords, who continue to set the legislative agenda, an Afghan women's rights activist said. "Today we have 68 women in the parliament, 25 percent... We have a group of women high in quantity, but low in quality," Voice of Women director Suraya Pakzad told a meeting in the US Congress to mark International Women's Day.      Full news...

  • March 4, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghan survivors describe NATO helicopter assault
    McClatchy Newspapers: The military helicopters swooped in from behind the three-vehicle convoy as it wound through a remote road in southern Afghanistan , and survivors of last week's deadly attack said they had no idea they were in danger until the lead four-wheel drive exploded. After seeing the gruesome aftermath of that rocket strike, survivors of the NATO attack told McClatchy , women jumped from the second car and frantically waved their head scarves to try to stop the attack.      Full news...



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Gulbar in a local hospital in Badghis province
Gulbar, an Afghan woman who was burnt by her husband in Nov.2005 (details...)

Muska a victim in so-called liberated Afghanistan
Muska, a female election worker who committed suicide after rape attempt on her in Jalalabad on Oct.9, 2004 (details...)
A woman victim of family violence
A true face of Afghan women today.
"There is a huge gap between the reality on the ground and the 'remarkable progress' claimed by western diplomats who sit in fortified compounds behind guards..." (Christina Lamb, The Sunday Times, November 5, 2006)

Women crying
Women wailing with grief as they are turned away from a funeral in Kabul in late 1994. AI
Those responsible for these killings are now in possession of power in Afghanistan and strongly supported by the US government.

An Afghan women
A woman with her child recounts how her husband was killed in Afshar, west of Kabul. Hundreds of innocent people from Hazara minority were massacred by forces of Sayyaf and Ahmad Shah Massoud in this area in 1993
Zarmeena is being excuted by Taliban
Public execution of an Afghan woman by Taliban in Kabul
Photos from a video film by RAWA (click here to view more photos and movie clips)

a victim
A victim of the fundamentalists brutalities against women
More photos


A woman who was gang-raped and then killed The Jehadi fundamentalists after gang-raping Shukria, killed her in cold-blood

Shukria d/o Ali Mardan was the mother of four children and lived in Kabul. She had a tailoring-shop. On May 22, 1993 she was on her way to Shahrara when suddenly a car braked to a halt and a group of armed-jehadi jumped out and dragged her to their car and in a minute disappeared. Her ill-fated family searched every where but in vain.... Till, after fifty-five days her blood-soaked semi-naked body was found in Khairkhana, Kabul.

Today again the Northern Alliance, the rapists and murderers of thousands of Shukrias have key positions in the new Afghan government.


Nahid killed on Feb.9, 1993 Naheed another victims of the Jehadi Fundamentalists

Thirteen-year-old Nahida Hassan became a symbol for Afghan women and girls who were raped during the two decades of war. [On Feb.9, 1993] when a commander and twenty of his troops broke into her Kabul apartment, killing her 12-year-old brother and gunning down her other male relatives, Nahida understood she was the target. To avoid being sexually savaged, she leapt from the sixth-floor window to her death. Today, there is a shrine on the spot where she fell. "Everyone knew who the commander was. But no one dared touch him," said the girl's 64-year-old grandfather, Mohammed Hassan. The commander enjoyed the protection of his party, whose fundamentalist cleric leader, Burhanuddin Rabbani, headed the government at the time and, more recently, the Northern Alliance, which holds key positions in the new interim administration.

Jan Goodwin, The Nation, April 29, 2002


WOMEN IN AFGHANISTAN: A human rights catastrophe
(Amnesty International document, March 1995)


Self-immolation among Afghan Women (horrible photos)


Afghan woman, victim of terrible family violence     Victim of crime by husband     Domestic Violence against children    Self-immolations among Afghan women    Gang-rape of 12-y-old girl





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