Afghan Women in the News
Comprehensive, daily update of news stories involving women in Afghanistan. Subscribe 
Articles referenced are for informational purposes only, and do not reflect the opinion or policies of UNIFEM and the United Nations. Content is protected under international copyright laws, and should be cited from the original source.
Afghan women and the Taliban stoning
August 17, 2010 |
Salon 
By Tracy Clark-Flory
A couple's killing stirs up outrage, as well as anxiety about the country's women being used as propaganda...
How settling with the Taliban puts women at risk
August 15, 2010 |
Washington Post
By Tom Malinowski
"If you had to choose between saving a girl's life or enabling her to go to school, which would you do first?" This was Afghan President Hamid Karzai's reply when I asked him last month if the rights of Afghan women might be sacrificed for a peace settlement with the Taliban.
While real peace talks may not begin for a long time, it was clear to me on a recent trip to Kabul that the political and intellectual groundwork is being laid for "reconciliation" with insurgents. Karzai seems tired of the war's carnage and uncertain of the international community's staying power...
If we betray Afghan women, we have lost
August 15, 2010 |
The Guardian
British politicians rarely talk about victory in Afghanistan. It is no longer even clear what victory would mean.
Kabul fell in November 2001, within weeks of the US-led invasion. If the sole purpose of occupation was to dismantle al-Qaida training camps, the war was won years ago. If, however, the reason for military intervention was to build a model democratic state and a beacon of good governance in central Asia, victory is a very distant prospect...
Rights activist fears for Afghanistan's women
August 12, 2010 |
Radio Australia
By Joanna McCarthy
A human rights activist is concerned that impatience by western nations to quit Afghanistan's war will leave the country's women more exposed to fundamentalist violence.
A United Nations report says women and children are increasingly bearing the brunt of the fighting, with civilian casualties up by nearly a third this year.
At the same time, government statistics show a rising number of Afghan women are attempting suicide...
Statistics show more Afghan women attempting suicide
August 11, 2010 |
ABC Australia
By Joanna McCarthy
Government statistics in Afghanistan have raised concerns that a growing number of Afghan women are attempting suicide.
The government says every year about 2,300 women or girls attempt to kill themselves, mainly due to mental illness, domestic violence and poverty.
Rachel Reid, Afghan analyst from Human Rights Watch, has told Radio Australia's Connect Asia program there are a range of issues facing women in Afghanistan...
High rates of suicide and domestic violence against Afghan women, new reports show
August 07, 2010 |
Relief Web
Women in Afghanistan suffer "extremely high rates of domestic violence" which include forced marriages and physical attacks, Afghan and United Nations officials announced one week after a report by a top Afghan health advisor revealed that suicide among Afghan women had increased about 20 times since the 1970s.
Nearly 2,000 cases of violence against women were reported between October 2006 and mid-2009, according to an updated Violence against Women Primary Database Report launched on Thursday by the Afghan Ministry of Women's Affairs (MoWA) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), with support from the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Afghanistan Information Management System (AIMS).
The database includes information on incidences of physical attacks and emotional abuse, rape and kidnapping, forced sexual intercourse by a husband, polygamy, forced engagement and forced marriage, and restricted mobility and curtailment of women's participation in public life...
TV Host Targets Afghan Women's Shelters
August 03, 2010 |
Wall Street Journal
By MARIA ABI-HABIB
KABUL--The televised images shown earlier this year on one of Afghanistan's most popular television shows were stark: several women wailed in a bare room while the host implied that international aid workers had forced them into prostitution.
Acting on a tip from viewers, the show, "Sarzamin-E-Man," or "My Homeland," devoted a multipart series to investigating the place, which the host, 27-year-old Nasto Nadiri, said was an unauthorized women's shelter masquerading as an orphanage.
Mr. Nadiri's report didn't say for sure what was going on at the orphanage, or what the women were doing there. But the show has helped to spark a popular backlash against all shelters, including those registered with the government...
Afghan Women Fear Loss of Modest Gains
July 30, 2010 |
New York Times
By Allisa J. Rubin
MAHMUD-E RAQI, Afghanistan -- Women's precarious rights in Afghanistan have begun seeping away. Girls' schools are closing; working women are threatened; advocates are attacked; and terrified families are increasingly confining their daughters to home...
London 2012 OIympics: female boxer is Afghanistan's best medal hope
July 25, 2010 |
Telegraph
By Ben Farmer
It is a dingy, sweat-soaked boxing gym in the bowels of the shabby sports stadium where the Taliban once executed its enemies and stoned to death women accused of adultery. But only within its grubby confines, beneath the main stand of Kabul's sports arena, does Shahla Sekandari feel freedom.
Outside, women hidden by billowing burkas must still struggle for any semblance of independence in a deeply conservative country...
Women in northern Afghanistan face Taliban revival
July 21, 2010 |
Agence France-Presse (AFP)
By Lynne O'Donnell
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan -- 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.
On Tuesday, about 80 international representatives, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gathered in Kabul to endorse President Hamid Karzai's programme of reconciliation and reintegration with the Taliban leadership...
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