The Rights of Women in Afghanistan

Women in Afghanistan and their plight under the Taliban have been the
focus of Western media since the ouster, in 2001, of the Taliban
regime. However, it is worth reminding that the Afghani women have
endured nearly three decades of war and violence since the invasion of
their country by the Soviet Red Army in 1979. Since then, millions of
Afghan citizens, many of them women and children, have fled to
neighboring Pakistan and Iran in search of a better life.

Sharmini Peries of The Real News Network sits down in an interview with Mavis Leno, the
chair of the Feminist Majority
Foundation's Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan, to
discuss the organization's efforts to help women in Afghanistan and
improve their social and economic status.

Leno states that her organization's efforts started in the late 1990's
when the Taliban was still in power. Calling the treatment of women
under the Taliban "the most glaring instance of institutionalized abuse
of women", Leno describes that their current efforts revolve around
ensuring the rights of Afghan women, granted to them under the
post-Taliban constitution, are enforced properly. She goes on to say
that since women in most countries are treated and viewed as minority,
therefore women should struggle for equal rights the way minorities
struggle.

Leno points out to the existence of equal rights and access to
education and jobs by Afghan women in the past and suggests that one of
the main goals of the Obama administration should be the enforcement of
the same laws that were reinstated under
the post-Taliban constitution. She then goes on to outline the
impediments to success in
Afghanistan and describes how they can be overcome.

Watch this interview on The Real News Network:

The Rights of Women in Afghanistan