WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2009
Afghan Women's Freedom In Jeopardy
The Road Ahead: Lara Logan Reports on One Group that Absolutely Dreads a Taliban Resurgence
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Play CBS Video Video Women's Rights in Afghanistan In Afghanistan, women are enjoying more freedom than ever since the U.S. ousted the Taliban. However, as Lara Logan reports, a Taliban victory could change things for Afghan women.
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(CBS)
Others can now enjoy the simple feminine pleasures they were denied. In the cities, a growing number of women cover only their heads - instead of their whole bodies. All of this would have been unthinkable under the Taliban.
CBS News Special Report: The Road Ahead
"Women couldn't move out of their houses, couldn't move around freely, and alone," said Dr. Massouda Jalal.
Jalal was jailed by the Taliban for her work helping women and children. She remembers their cruelty - women being publicly executed during the height of Taliban power.
After their defeat, Jalal became a symbol of how much had changed for Afghan women. In 2004, she was the first woman to run for president, finishing well ahead of most male candidates.
She was appointed Minister of Women's Affairs - then removed for pushing too aggressively for women's rights.
"We have provisions protecting women's rights and promoting women's rights within the constitution," said Jalal. "But, it's not translated into action."
Female prisoners in Kabul today seem to have no rights at all.
Kamela, is just 29 years old. A mother of two, she left her life in Canada to return to her homeland when the Taliban fell. All it took to put her behind bars for 3 years was her husband's word - he accused her of stealing from him.
"After I was imprisoned he got married to another woman," she says, "I think he wanted to get married so he put me here."
Even more disturbing: violent attacks against women and girls continue today.
Atifa Bibi lies in a hospital, her face badly burned. She and a friend were victims of an acid attack late last year as they walked to school.
Her wounds have healed - but she no longer goes to school. She told us she has nightmares almost every night.
"It cannot go away, every minute, it is with me," she said.
Rates of violence against Afghan women are among the highest in the world.
So is the maternal mortality rate. Three years ago we traveled to the remote province of Badakhshan because it has the highest maternal mortality rate ever recorded - that remains true today. 6,500 deaths per 100,000 births, compared to just 13 deaths per 100,000 in the United States.
The medical staff told us most of the women here are forbidden by their husbands from coming to this clinic or from seeing male doctors.
In spite of these barriers, there has been progress. The number of Afghan women with access to newly built clinics has risen in recent years. But so has the influence of the Taliban. As the fight for control of this country intensifies, the small, fragile gains achieved by women and their most basic human rights - are threatened.
More special coverage on CBSNews.com:
Medevac Helicopter Crews Saving Lives in Afghanistan
Marines in Afghanistan: A Day in the Life
Taliban Gaining Firepower and Confidence
Battle of Wanat - Inside the Ambush
Afghanistan, 8 Years In: How We Got Here
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Add a Comment See all 56 Comments
- by superdem1 October 16, 2009 4:21 PM EDT
... I can't understand how a Muslim woman can raise a male child to believe all the things Muslim men believe, or raise their daughters to accept subjugation. ...
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Fear and guilt are the glue that holds religion together. Take them away and every religion on Earth would collapse overnight.
And isn't it ironic, fear of Hell never saved anyone. - Reply to this comment
- I agree that religion is the problem - if you can believe in the big Santa in the Sky, you can believe anything. But I'll never win that fight, and I know it. on the earthly level, I can't understand how a Muslim woman can raise a male child to believe all the things Muslim men believe, or raise their daughters to accept subjugation. Can't Muslim women teach their sons from birth that women and men are equal, that sisters and brothers get equal treatment ? Are sons removed from the mother's teachings ? I really can't understand how a culture survives that so actively discriminates against its own members. Don't tell me Islam is NOT the problem - it's the Koran being waved about by everybody over there. They pray five times a day - these crazy ideas come from somewhere. When I see a woman in a headscarf here in America, I feel sad.
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- by Void_Master October 15, 2009 6:38 AM EDT
Here's an idea. The U. S. should just withdraw from Afghanistan; abandon the place, but take with it all the Afghani women who don't want to live under oppression. Let's see how well the Taliban do building a society then.
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by docpeter1953 October 15, 2009 12:48 PM EDT
What would we do with all those extra women?
Raffle them off?
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Do with them? Raffle them off? Geez. You're still seeing them as property rather than as people. - Reply to this comment
- The problem all over the world is men that are using religion as a way to justify their unsaitable need for power & violence. The "God" of choice for them is "Satan". There is no exuse for the torture,raping & other horrific deeds of babies, women & childen going on in these countries. They could not continue to do these things if the government did not allow it. The women need to unite & start eliminating these men from the face of the earth, they need to be in charge of their lives or they will not have any reason to be on earth.
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- Until Afghanis grow a backbone and defend themselves against RELIGIOUS TYRANNY, no amount of help from egalitarian societies will help them.
The US and others are wasting time, money and lives on people unwilling to stand up for themselves. - Reply to this comment
- These women don't need soldiers they need for us to send feminists there to solve their problem(s).
- Reply to this comment
- Here's an idea. The U. S. should just withdraw from Afghanistan; abandon the place, but take with it all the Afghani women who don't want to live under oppression. Let's see how well the Taliban do building a society then.
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- We have rights because we fought for them. We have freedom because we will kick the crap out of anyone that tries to take it away. Even out own government.
They on the other hand haven't established a free society yet. They are far from having "womens rights" established. They're still a long way off from living like animals to becoming a modern society with human rights established by law and enforced by there legal system. - Reply to this comment
- Didn't Lara Logan notice this (see below) a couple months back, from the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan?
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai Passes Controversial Law Limiting Women's Rights
ABC News
Aug. 14, 2009
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=8327666
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A controversial bill that Afghan President Hamid Karzai promised to review before implementing quietly became law last month, allowing police to enforce language that stipulates a wife's sexual duties and restricts a woman's ability to leave her own home.
Karzai had promised to send the bill to parliament before it was published, but this week women's rights advocates learned it had already become an enforceable law despite heavy international and national criticism.
The Shiite Personal Status Law, which applies to the country's minority Shiite women, was originally even more pernicious than the final version. In March a western embassy translated a portion of the law as defining a woman's role as "readiness for sex and not leaving the house without the husband's permission."
Instead, the final language requires Shiite women to give their husband "their sharia rights" when it comes to sex, a reference to Islamic law. And it allows women to leave their own homes "according to local customs."
But human rights advocates say the new language is just legal cover for husbands to subjugate their wives...
(snip) - Reply to this comment
- I agree that the women have to take a stronger stance against stuipity. THEY have to stand up and say "ENOUGH"! Maybe arming those girls over t here wouldn't be such a bad idea. And TAKE OFF the tents and head covers.... by wearing them they are just encouraging more abuse and stupid rules against them. I am not ashamed of being female and neither should they. Hmmm.... maybe they should form roaming gangs and go around beating men with sticks....
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- PURE PROPOGANDA FROM THE WESTERN PRESS AS USUAL. HOW ABOUT GIVING THE TALIBAN THERE POINT OF VIEW. THE DEFEAT OF THE WESTERN OCCUPIERS WILL LEAD TO MORE LIES BEING LEVELLED AGAINST ISLAM AND MUSLIMS.
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- What bothers me is that there is no criticism from the Muslim world for the barbaric actions of the Taliban and Al Queda. We hear nothing from Muslim communities or countries. By their silence they are helping to perpetuate the evil side of Islam. They field no soldiers to defend their faith against those who make a mockery of it. They provide no money or assistance to help defeat them. In fact, a lot of the money that supports the Taliban and Al Queda comes from the mid-east Caliphates, several of whom America provides assistance. Islam itself is the root of the problem, and until the moderate Muslims take a stand against terror and persecution done in the name of Allah, they deserve no respect as a religion or a people.
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- I don't hear about the Chinese getting involved in issues like this, so why is it such a concern to the United States. The United States is a nosey country, we go around the world putting our noses in other peoples business, I don't see China or India doing this. And as for the DOW, this country has been in nothing but trouble since it went up, so it seems like it needs to go down to get better!
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- People all over the world suffer indignities that we don't have to here. I'm sorry about the plight of Afghan women but don't see that as any of our business. I think that before people tried to turn the war against terror into a general human rights issue or even a women's right's issue BUT THAT AIN'T WHY WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN. Looks like they are making the same argument again. Children in other countries are killed if they are considered worthless and, as horrible as that is, we as a country should not take that as a right to invade a country by force.
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- They sure are trying to push the Afghan war this week. I expect to see little puppies and kittens being slaughtered in Afghanistan by the evil Taliban next week. Maybe C B S will show the Talibad throwing live babies in McDonald's dumpsters next. Oh wait...That's what we do in america.
- It may not be "the reason" that we are there, but my god, are you truly that heartless? These women are among the bravest people that I can imagine when you consider the consequences that they may suffer.
So nice for you to dismiss them in your nice little comfortable life!
It has very little to do with how you feel about our wars there. These women still deserve your respect and have more courage and dignity than you could ever imagine. So please ****!
- Why is this news Afghanistan has been like this for ages how about something more important like tentative inspection programs allowing Russia to visit U.S. nuclear sites by this administration that CBS CNN & MSNBC won't report.
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- Who really cares anyway. We've got problems with our freedom right here.
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- What a self-centered attitude. You have no comparison in your life to what these women have had to deal with. People like you just simply make me sick!
- Give me a good reason why we are the World Police and if we are the World police then why can we bomb any body we want to take care the terorrist eh.
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- when are we going to quit letting 9/11 be an excuse for our own deranged and pointless behavior?
Dont forget the Alamo. Lets go kill some more Mexicans.
- by aintfakin October 15, 2009 12:08 AM EDT
when are we going to quit letting 9/11 be an excuse for our own deranged and pointless behavior?
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"deranged and pointless"?
In terms of Afghanistan, the Taliban and Al Qaeda, I would say that that would be when they resolve to stop sending planes into our buildings.
I am what most people here would call a liberal, but I have not forgotten 9/11. I would have been in NYC myself that day had it not been for a Dr appt. and I will never forget the horror of that day!
I was disgusted that after saying "dead or alive", that GWB decided that Bin Laden wasn't worth the effort and decided to divert our force and focus to Iraq (where it wasn't needed).
This is not to mention that your comment shows extreme disrespect to the subject of the story--the courageous women who are fighting the Taliban!
Where are your lazy sympathies THERE!?
- when are we going to quit letting 9/11 be an excuse for our own deranged and pointless behavior?
- I?m just a decadent Western ?guy,? but doesn?t anybody in your industry get it? If we have to send someone into the Middle East does it have to be a woman who represents everything our enemies hate about decadent Western Civilization? Or maybe I just didn?t see the memo that went out about keeping Lara Logan away from any Afghan soccer stadiums.
Maybe the poor sexually un-liberated Afghani, Iraqi and Pakistani women can't wait until they too can use the rights so easily flaunted by Lara Logan -- like abusing the institution of marriage for an address in the U.S., or exploiting her sexuality with a competing news journalist over at CNN, while having serial affairs when she was a married woman, and even having time to contribute to the destruction of another married woman's marriage by having an affair with that poor woman's husband -- all while supposedly reporting the war in Iraq so expertly -- and then watching as Lara Logan got herself knocked-up by the poor woman's husband. I know there is crying need to scream out about how "The West is the Best" and all that, but after all this does CBS really have to stick it to all these poor Middle Eastern men by having Lara Logan reporting on their failings? I just don't get it.
This is becoming an old saw but once again I have to ask what happened to the principals of morality, professionalism, decency, fair play, patriotism, honesty, integrity, and others -- like discretion -- in our journalists? This thing is just so awful, on so many levels. Maybe Lara Logan can do a report on this, and another about the problem facing all Americans these days, like being just another foreigner behaving badly in my country.
Am I asking too much of our journalists? Would we have heard this type of nonsense about Walter Cronkite, or Mike Wallace, or David Brinkley, or Chet Huntley, or John Chancellor, or Tom Brokaw? How about your great god Edward R. Murrow? Oh yeah, you folks gave Lara Logan the award. Well, then let?s not ask what these pillars of the news industry and womanhood would say? Oh yeah, Glamour Magazine gave Lara Logan the "Woman of the Year" award. Well, I must be just completely missing the point. - Reply to this comment
- Where people cry for freedom should always be our problem.
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- America's lack of ideals should not be inflicted on the rest of the world. The real america is women throwing their babies in garbage cans, one out of every 100 citizens in prison just to line the capitalist's pockets, racial hatred, excessive drug abuse, kids killing their classmates like it's a video game, banker's hoarding all they can, insurance companies and pharmeceuticals lining their pockets with billions while millions are dying, the slaughter of innocent people for the upper hand in the oil market. Is the american way really what you wish to present to other nations? Let them follow their own paths and fight their own battles.
- by missme4 October 14, 2009 9:45 PM EDT
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We are far from perfect, but we are over there due to 9//11. If we can help these courageous women in the meantime, is that an effort lost?
- That is a wonderful sentiment but completely impractical nor possible. How about the UN (sans US involvement)?
- CBS flipped our entries....
The first is last and the last is first. - Reply to this comment
The road ahead in Afghanistan, and the crucial decision Obama faces.
