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


  • March 3, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Malalai Joya: Canada should change its policy on Afghanistan
    Rabble.ca's Derrick O'Keefe recently gathered a significant statement by Malalai Joya, one of the more courageous and heroic political figures in Afghanistan today. She makes the memorable statement below about the billions of dollars in military spending and aid money which has effectively been squandered in Afghanistan by the run-away corruption of the Karzai government.      Full news...



  • February 25, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghanistan: Women's lives worse than ever
    The Independent: Girls as young as six are being married into a life of slavery and rape, often by multiple members of their new relatives. Banned from seeing their own parents or siblings, they are also prohibited from going to school. With little recognition of the illegality of the situation or any effective recourse, many of the victims are driven to self-immolation – burning themselves to death – or severe self-harm.      Full news...


  • February 21, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Gang-rape of young girls in Northern Afghanistan
    RAWA News: A young girl was gang-raped, yet again, in Northern Afghanistan by three men. Bashira, a fourteen year old student of the sixth grade who had come to the city on Feb.18, 2008 to get the aid which was being distributed, was gang raped by three men in Sarpul province.      Full news...

  • February 20, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Pajamas Media Inc.: I lived in Kabul nearly fifty years ago. It was enchanting and dangerous. I lived on a wide and gracious street lined with trees. We had electricity, phones, hot and cold running water, and marble bathrooms. There was a movie theatre and an American-style cafeteria restaurant. Bazaars flourished, mosques shimmered, a thousand (all male) tea-houses thrived. Barefoot boys scurried bearing tea for businessmen all day long.      Full news...

  • February 18, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    RAWA: On February 12, 2008, Amina the daughter of Said Gul of Khushk Aaba Village in Khaksafed District of Farah province was sentenced to death in a field trial by the local clerics Scholars Council of the village for running away from her home with a stranger. Her husband and other close relatives approved of the punishment.      Full news...


  • February 15, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Nose and ear of Nafisa was cut off by her husband (with photos)
    RAWA: Nafisa is hospitalized with her child in a local hospital in Herat province in Western Afghanistan. She says her husband attacked her like a hungry tiger and bat her nose and then cut off her ear by a knife. She showed her child who is also burnt by her husband. Nafisa says: “I’ve lived ten painful years with my husband and he always beats me…. My husband also poured hot water over my child and she is also seriously injured.”      Full news...

  • February 10, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    PAN: At least 30 women lost their lives by committing self-immolation in Farah province this year. The figure is double as compared to last year. Lailuma Sediqi, head of women affairs department in the province told Pajhwok Afghan News during last two months 64 cases of women burnings, half of them were self immolation were registered in the department.      Full news...




  • January 28, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Pajhwok Afghan News: Reportedly dejected with her engagement to a young man by her parents, an 18-year-old girl ended her life by shooting herself to death in Jabul-Saraj district of central Parwan province, security officials said on Sunday.      Full news...


  • January 23, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The Deccan Herald: Unicef’s winner of the best picture in 2007 is a chilling reminder of the condition of the region’s child brides. Poverty may have made women and young girls more vulnerable, but the methods of exploitation they suffer take on an altogether different proportion in a country wracked by 30 years of unending conflict.      Full news...

  • January 16, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    IWPR: “I do not enjoy being with men. I hate them. But to keep them as loyal customers, I pretend,” said the young Afghan woman. Dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt, with shoulder-length black hair and wearing no makeup, 21-year-old Saida (not her real name) looked ordinary enough. But in this highly conservative society, she has sex with men for money, sometimes several times a night.      Full news...


  • December 26, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Nazia: “My husband cut off my ears and nose and broke my teeth”
    IRIN News: A man named Mumtaz in southern Zabul province of Afghanistan first shaved wife, Nazia’s head and then cut off her ears, and nose and damaged her teeth on the first day of Eid ul Adha, an Islamic ritual of sacrifice. “One night he hit me so much that I fainted. When I regained consciousness I found my head had been shaved. I cried so much, but he did not care.”      Full news...

  • December 22, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    UNICEF: The American photographer Stephanie Sinclair is the winner of the international photo competition "UNICEF Photo of the Year". Her photo shows a wedding couple in Afghanistan who could not be more opposite. The groom, Mohammed, looks much older than his 40 years. The bride, Ghulam, is still a child; she just turned 11. "The UNICEF Photo of the Year 2007 raises awareness about a worldwide problem. Millions of girls are married while they are still under age.      Full news...

  • December 20, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    SPIEGEL ONLINE: An 11-year-old child bride sits next to her 40-year-old fiance. For UNICEF, this was the Photo of the Year. Dutch writer Leon de Winter laments the perversity of this wedding picture and the frightening relativism of the West.      Full news...

  • November 8, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Warlords no better than Taliban, says Afghan MP
    CTV: As Afghan police scrambled to the scene of a bomb blast Tuesday that killed five lawmakers and dozens of children, Malalai Joya, haunted by death threats and assassination attempts in Afghanistan, sat on the other side of the world, clutching a cup of tea with her eyes cast downward.      Full news...

  • October 30, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    IRIN News: The Safi fur and wool factory, in Herat city, western Afghanistan, has more than 350 female and 300 male workers who earn only 300 Afghanis (US$6) for their 48-hour, six-day week. The factory produces coats, jackets, hats and other garments for the European and North American markets. There are more than 1,500 women working in four such factories in Herat city.      Full news...

  • October 17, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The West Georgian: It is hard to fathom that in the year 2007 there are women who are being thrown into prison for violating the mere freedoms that are taken for granted by so many. However, it is a very real situation that is occurring every day in Afghanistan. When a woman is safer in prison, there is something very wrong with her society.      Full news...


  • September 26, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    IRIN News: Fatima (not her real name) lives with her mother and a younger brother in Pul-e Charkhi prison, in the eastern outskirts of Kabul. The 12-year-old was first brought to the prison four years ago, after a court sentenced her mother to 11 years for murdering her husband. "There are six women and seven children living with us in a single cell," complained Fatima, who added that she finds it annoying living with "those naughty kids".      Full news...

  • September 22, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Toronto Star: Wira Darwishi's sad brown eyes betray decades of worry and questions. More than 20 years ago, three members of her family – a brother, uncle and cousin – vanished. For years, Darwishi wondered silently about their fate.      Full news...

  • September 13, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    PressGazette.co.uk: Award-winning journalist Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy talks to Colin Crummy about her latest film charting the experiences of women in AfghanistanSix years after Hardcash Productions' Beneath The Veil, which examined the plight of women in Afghanistan, broadcast journalist Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy returned to the country. The resulting film, Afghan?istan – Lifting The Veil, offers a bleak insight into life in the country post-Taliban rule, as Obaid Chinoy meets women forced into marriage and living in poverty, but desperate to escape.      Full news...

  • September 11, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The Ottawa Citizen: It's a growing debate: Six years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, as 9/11's anniversary falls for the first time on a Tuesday -- the day of the week it happened -- how much tribute is too much? How much is enough, and how much is not enough? In an indirect and yet profound way, tonight's season finale of PBS's Wide Angle provides the perfect answer.      Full news...


  • September 2, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Pajhwok Afghan News: The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Sunday voiced concern over the predicament of women prisoners in Afghanistan. Dr. Shukria Nuri, head of the UNODC, told a day-long conference on the issue that women were held in Afghan jails in inappropriate conditions that were contrary to the concept of human rights and other international norms.      Full news...

  • August 27, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    IRIN News: Thirty one-year-old Benazir - not her real name - was 12 when she was wedded to a 24-year-old man in Shinwaar District of Nangarhar Province, eastern Afghanistan. Benazir has been sold four times by men whom she considers her husbands - in a formally proscribed tradition known as women selling. She told IRIN of her extraordinary experiences.      Full news...

  • August 23, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The Guardian: The family of a 7-year-old Afghan girl raped by two men has come forward to demand justice, defying social customs that view such attacks as a stain on the victim's honor. Two months after the rape, the girl is still in pain, rarely speaks and looks no one in the eye.      Full news...

  • August 21, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    IRIN News: Jamila - not her real name - was 14 when she was married to Habibullah, 31, a match arranged by her father. Habibullah left her just three months into their marriage to go and work in Iran and has not reappeared in 10 years. Jamila now lives with her in-laws but feels cheated as she cannot get remarried and has not sought a divorce because of the social stigma attached to such a move. She feels trapped: "I have no future," she said.      Full news...

  • August 20, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Pajhwok Afghan News: Because of difference forms of violence against women and girls, the number of women escaping home has gone up in Parwan province. Sayed Qasim Hashimi, director of Women Affairs Human Rights Branch in Parwan, told Pajhwok that last year only 10 incidents of escape of girls from their homes were registered but from the beginning of this year in almost 6 months, 29 cases had been registers with us.      Full news...

  • August 11, 2007 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    OhmyNews: Decades of civil and social upheaval has intensified traditional social pressures on Afghan women who were already suffering at the hands of poverty and decadent social traditions. All this was coupled by the economic dislocation of a large section of Afghanistan society. In such a situation, Afghan women found an easy escape in suicides. The trend of suicide, which started in the early years of this decade, is now practiced by desperate Afghan women throughout most parts of Afghanistan.      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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