LOS ANGELES - July 8 - While feminist organizations in the United States such as Feminist Majority have advocated for military escalation as a way to protect women's rights in Afghanistan the reality on the ground is a different one.

Brave New Foundation's fifth installment of its Rethink Afghanistan documentary series highlights Afghan women voices who have publicly denounced U.S. airstrikes and bombings. The video challenges several myths surrounding the US occupation of Afghanistan, specifically that the US occupation has helped liberate Afghan women from Taliban oppressors.

Watch the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7jAT0FAGBc

In today's Alternet column Sonali Kolhatkar, director of the Afghan Women's Mission, questions why leading feminist organizations are lending its name to support an Afghanistan escalation. "Waging war does not lead to the liberation of women anywhere. Women always disproportionately suffer the effects of war, and to think that women's rights can be won with bullets and bloodshed is a position dangerous in its naïveté. The Feminist Majority should know this instinctively," says Kolhatkar.

Read the full column here:

http://www.alternet.org/world/141165/why_is_a_leading_feminist_organization_lending_its_name_to_support_escalation_in_afghanistan/

The US war against the Taliban has left Afghan women more vulnerable inside their home and out on the streets. Escalating violence between the Taliban and US forced has left many Afghan women without husbands or sons. Unable to work outside the home, many Afghan women have turned to prostitution to help their families. Children as young as five years old are being forced to work in order to support their families.

Afghan women's voices resoundingly challenge Western Feminist ideas that the increase in US militarization is hurting and not helping Afghan Women. Afghan women have been faced with an increase in domestic violence and sexual violence since the US military occupation. According to the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), "currently, violence against women is worst then under the Taliban. Sexual violence has skyrocketed since the Taliban was defeated, domestic violence is also on the rise."

For more information or to host an interview or speaking engagement with Rethink Afghanistan documentary director Robert Greenwald, Afghan Women's Mission's Sonhali Kolhatkar or members of the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), please contact: Martha De Hoyos at Martha@bravenewfoundation.org 310.402.9048.