Women's Rights In Afghanistan

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These basic rights are granted to every human in the United States by the constitution. In the 21st century, we as Americans take these basic rights for granted because we are free to pursue anything we wish for in life. We are given the opportunity to live our lives in a free society, with limited restrictions on how we conduct of lives. However, this is not the case for all the people outside of our country. The Women of Afghanistan were stripped of their basic human rights when the Taliban seized control of their country. (“Revocation of Rights”). A practice of gender apartheid was instituted against the women of Afghanistan whereby the life of women had basically no value and they were forced
During the 1980’s, the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Afghanistan. With aid from the United States, militia forces called the Mujahedeen, or soldiers of god, forced the Soviets out of Afghanistan. However, soon thereafter, there was tremendous internal fighting and a number of groups were fighting for power. A group of young men and boys of Afghan descent emerged from this fighting as a powerful group. This group did not live in afghan society. They were raised in refugee camps and trained in ultra conservative religious schools mainly in Pakistan. This group became known as the Taliban and once in power they vowed to restore order and enforce strict Islamic law in Afghanistan. (“The Taliban and Afghan Woman”). However, no one in mankind could have predicted what this group would do to the women of
She explained the situation of women as follows; “Look at my face, don’t you see the tragedy of our lives and our country marked all over it? Day by day, the situation is worsening. We have become beggars dependent on the U. N. to survive. It is not the Afghan way. Women are exhausted, depressed and devastated. We are just waiting for peace, praying for peace every minute of the day.” While waiting for this day to come, the women of Afghanistan had to make life or death decisions on things that we do so routinely today. If your child is sick, we go to the doctor. In Afghanistan, this must be carefully thought out due to all the rules imposed by the Taliban. In a report by the U.S. Department of State, they documented a story of a young Afghan woman who had a sick child that needed to see a doctor. The mother was alone and the doctor was across town. She had no male relative to escort her. She had to make a decision to either do nothing and let her child die or try to see a doctor on her own and risk flogging. She loved her child so she set out to get medical help. As she approached the town market, she saw a Taliban guard that attempted to stop her. Since she was alone, she ignored the guard and tried to get to the doctor. The guard, without asking questions, shot her and