Remember
September 11 
NEA’s Statements
on Afghanistan
and the Taliban
Taliban
Rule in Afghanistan
NEA
will take these actions condemning Taliban rule
in Afghanistan:
Educate our members on the crimes committed
against the human and civil rights of Afghan
women, children, non-Muslim religious groups
and individuals, and the Muslim community at
large in all avenues of NEA media and at appropriate
NEA conferences. (2001-48)
For
Afghanistan to really recover and thrive as a
society, children must be an immediate priority
– children’s present and children’s future.
Carole Bellamy, UNICEF Executive Director(1)
Background
The 2001 Representative Assembly of the National
Education Association adopted New Business Item
48, which called for the education of NEA members
about the human rights violations in Afghanistan
under Taliban rule. This paper seeks to supplement
information about Afghanistan which NEA members
have received through the media since September
2001.
Afghanistan has suffered extreme hardships under
26 years of warfare and three years of drought.
In 1999, the Gross National Product (GNP) in Afghanistan
was estimated at $250 per capita compared to $30,600
for the United States. All indicators including
health and education dramatically demonstrate
the severe living conditions in the country.
Afghanistan is a former British colony, which
won full independence in 1919. The country experienced
a civil war in 1928. In 1979, Soviet troops invaded
the country; in response, Islamic soldiers from
across the Middle East were drawn into the war
in Afghanistan. During this period, the United
States helped arm and train the resistance army,
the roots of which developed into the Taliban.
The Soviet Union withdrew in 1989 in accordance
with a United Nations-sponsored peace accord.
In 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union
agreed to stop arming the Afghan factions. The
Taliban came to power in 1996.
Prior to the Taliban rule, women composed 70%
of the nation’s teachers, 50% of the government
employees, and 40% of the physicians. The Taliban’s
misogyny transformed the role of women, who were
generally not held in high esteem prior to Taliban
rule, to sub-human status. Taliban dictates denied
many basic human rights to women and girls, including
the right to liberty, health, and education. The
most visible sign of this was requiring women
to wear the burqa. Psychologically, the most striking
evidence of the Taliban’s impact is reported
in a study that found that 16% of Afghan women
have attempted suicide, while 70% of women have
said they wish they were dead.(2) The Taliban’s
disdain for human rights was reflected in all
aspects of life, also impinging on the human rights
of men, children and non-Muslims.
The National Education Association supports efforts
in Afghanistan to ensure that political decisions
regarding resource allocation be made with full
respect for the human rights of all Afghans. A
broad spectrum of Afghan women needs to be included
in the rebuilding of the country. If the new Afghan
government, donor governments, and non-governmental
organizations neglect human rights and the unique
expertise of Afghan women, it is possible that
the extreme hardships faced by women will be compounded.
Arms
and Child Soldiers
Afghanistan is one of the most densely land mined
countries in the world, including residential,
commercial, and agricultural areas. Children make
up one-half of all landmine victims in Afghanistan.
In 2000, 571 Afghan children were reported killed
or wounded by landmines.(3)
Afghanistan is also the world’s center for
unaccounted weapons; thus, there is no exact count
on the number of weapons in circulation. Arms
experts have estimated that here are at least
10 million small arms in the country. The arms
flow has included Soviet weapons funneled into
the country during the 1979 invasion, arms from
Pakistan supplied to the Taliban, and arms from
Tajikistan that equipped the Northern Alliance.
(4)
In a 1999 report to the United Nations (UN) Security
Council, Secretary-General Kofi Annan noted, “[The]
Taliban offensive was reinforced by 2000 –
5000 recruits, mostly emanating from religious
schools within Pakistan, many of them non-Afghans
and some below the age of 14.” Often, the
Pakistani madrasas, Islamic boarding schools for
boys, sent students to Afghanistan to fight during
school holidays. At the completion of schooling
within the madrasas, many boys could not find
sustainable employment due to lack of training
and massive unemployment. As a result, these young
graduates fueled the battlefront. The military
recruitment of children in Afghanistan has been
cyclical, as fighting intensified, the more often
boys were recruited.(5)
Child soldiers (those under 18) have been used
by all warring factions in Afghanistan over the
past 20 years. The culture of violence has become
embedded in education and everyday language; the
Soviet kalashnikov semiautomatic rifle has shaped
the description of popular culture. “Two
generations of children have been raised in a
highly militarized ‘kalashnikov culture’:
in schools both inside the country and refugee
camps, textbooks and teaching methods have used
images of tanks, guns, and bullets in mathematics
and reading classes.”(6)
The
Toll of War on Children
95%
of Afghan children witnessed violence first-hand
7 of every 10 Afghan children lost a family
member to war
90% of children believed they would die in the
fighting.
– UNICEF Study, 1997
Education
The
education of boys, along with the education
of girls, is essential
for the future of human rights, women’s
rights, and peace in Afghanistan.
Dr. Sima Samar, Minister of Women’s Affairs(7)
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP)
reports that the literacy rate in Afghanistan
is the sixth lowest in the world. Just 4.7%
of females over 15 years old in Afghanistan
are able to read.
Due to years of war and the Taliban’s ban
on female education, 65% of boys and over 90%
of girls were not attending school in 1996,
which is the year of the most recent records.
Afghanistan has been the only nation in the
world that has forbidden the education of girls.
Officially, education has been free and compulsory
for both girls and boys in Afghanistan since
1935.
Throughout the Taliban rule, underground schools
were run by women educators; some were girls’
schools while others were co-educational. Female
teachers, as with practically every other female
in Afghanistan, were forbidden to work during
the Taliban rule. Kamalea Yaftaly, a former
primary school principal, taught clandestinely
in her father’s home. She began by teaching
two girls and two boys. She described her situation:
“I didn’t want to stop teaching….
Day by day, more children came, and soon I had
180 students from the ages of 4 to 17. We held
classes from morning to night.” Yaftaly’s
student, Mursal, speaks of wearing the burqa,
“We used to hide our books under them.
If they [the Taliban] had caught us with books,
they would have tortured and beaten us.”(8)
Since 1999, specific international relief agencies
were permitted by the Taliban to provide separate
education for girls and boys. Some agencies,
such as UNICEF, also supported home-based schools
in coordination with Afghan aid organizations.
Due to the civil war, many former schools were
destroyed or taken by Taliban forces. School
principal, Manja Jan, went into hiding after
the Taliban occupied her school. She could barely
recognize her school upon return – no roof,
demolished brick walls and broken windows. Recalling
pre-Taliban days, Jan says, “I have this
memory, hundreds of students gathered beneath
the trees, studying, reading, and laughing.
I wish to see this scene again.”(9) The
rebuilding of education in Afghanistan will
be a challenging and multifaceted process.
Dr. Sima Samar, the Minister of Women’s
Affairs in the transitional Afghan government,
stated, “Very little has been devoted to
girls’ education, and most of that only
to primary education. Secondary and higher education
are also desperately needed if we are ever to
rebuild civil society in Afghanistan. We must
also provide education for the boys. Unless
real education opportunities are provided for
the boys, the madrasas will continue to create
generations of boys that know only the war mentality
and the mentality of the oppression of women.”(10)
Trafficking,
Sexual Violence and Exploitation
Sexual trafficking has thrived in Afghanistan.
Girls have been purchased in Afghanistan, trafficked
through Pakistan, and sold into prostitution
or marriage in the Persian Gulf countries. There
is evidence that boys have been trafficked across
borders also. A portion of those children trafficked
from Afghanistan to Pakistan labor in brothels
serving Afghans. The children most likely to
be trafficked are members of ethnic minorities,
stateless refugees, and/or those living in extreme
poverty.(11)
The Taliban, through its inhumane dictates on
women, brought world attention to human rights
in Afghanistan. During the 26 years of war in
Afghanistan, the brutalization of women and
sexual violence were common aspects of women’s
lives. In a CNN interview, Afghan women’s
advocate Sahar Saba reported that prior to the
Taliban rule, the Northern Alliance army had
a worse record of rape and kidnap of women than
the Taliban in recent years.(12) In parts of
Afghanistan, rape is called “lying down,”
indicating women’s survival strategy to
the violence. (13) As the world has viewed the
hesitancy of some Afghan women to remove the
burqa after the fall of the Taliban, the restoration
of full human rights to women – in practice
and in law – may be a slow process due
to the historic and deep degradation of women.
Health
and Nutrition
The health and nutrition indicators for Afghanistan
testify to the extreme living conditions, war,
and drought that Afghans have faced. Life expectancy
in Afghanistan is 40 years; this is the seventh
lowest in the world. At the same time, 26% of
the population is under five years old. Afghanistan
has the fourth highest child mortality rate
in the world. For each 1000 children born, 257
die before the age of five; one child in every
four does not survive her or his fifth birthday.
Just three countries in the world have a higher
child mortality rate: Angola, Niger, and Sierra
Leone. The maternal mortality rate is second
highest in the world. Only 13% of Afghans have
access to water that has been through some purification
process.
The nutritional needs of the Afghan people are
immediate. Seventy percent of the population
is undernourished while 20% of all newborns
are malnourished. In the winter of 2002, 7.5
million Afghans (30% of the population) are
expected to be dependent upon international
food relief for survival. Two-thirds of those
in need are children and women; 1.5 million
are children under 5 years old.
Refugees
and Internally Displaced People
Beginning with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
in 1979, millions of refugees have fled their
home region. Today, due to the Taliban years
and the recent war, there are approximately
3.6 million people who are refugees and 1 million
internally displaced people. The United Nations
estimates indicate that 1.5 million have fled
in the post-September 11 military action. Fifty-one
percent of the refugees and internally displaced
people are children under the age of 18. As
the transitional two-year government has come
into power, some refugees have begun to return
to Afghanistan. ®
Taliban Dictates for Women
-
Ban
on education, employment, and treatment by
male doctors.
-
Require all women to wear the burqa.
-
Ban
on all activities outside of home except when
accompanied by mahram
(father, brother or husband).
-
Ban
on cosmetics (wearing nailpolish resulted
in cutting off of fingers).
-
Ban
on laughing loudly, so that no stranger could
hear a woman’s voice.
-
Require
all windows to be painted, so women cannot
be seen.
Taliban
Dictates for All
- All
non-Muslim minorities must affix yellow cloth
to their clothes to differentiate them from
Muslims
- Ban
on all music, movies, televisions, and videos
- Ban
on use of internet by all people, Muslim and
non-Muslim
- Ban
on celebrating traditional New Year (Norwoz)
- Ban
on traditional pastimes of keeping pigeons and
flying kites
- Require
men to wear Islamic clothes and cap
- Require
men not to shave or trim beards
- Possession
of “objectionable literature” punishable
by execution.(14)
The
Future
The Afghan Women’s Summit in December 2001
brought together 40 Afghan women leaders who
defined their demands for reconstructing their
country. The Summit produced The Brussels Proclamation.
This document addresses education, media, culture,
health, human rights, refugees, internally displaced
persons, and the country’s new constitution.
The 19 recommendations for education within
The Brussels Proclamation center on education
infrastructure, equity, and cultural preservation.
The document demands that the schools be reopened
by March 2002. The women leaders call on the
government and international donors to secure
funding necessary to rebuild schools, retrain
teachers, and facilitate the transfer of girls
and boys from underground schools to government
public schools. Further, The Brussels Proclamation
emphasizes the need for conflict resolution
curriculum and the implementation of equitable
salaries for all education employees.
The Brussels Proclamation reinforces the need
for Afghan women to be actively involved in
all aspects of the new government and as advisors
to the international community as Afghanistan
is reconstructed. This includes provisions for
an equitable role for women in international
development aid, non-governmental assistance,
and the Loya Jirgah process. The Loya Jirgah
is a traditional Afghan grand assembly of elder
leaders and intellectuals; it will be the body
charged with writing the new constitution. The
Brussels Proclamation states that “the
principles of non-discrimination according to
gender, age, ethnicity, disability, religion,
and political affiliation in all aspects of
political, social, cultural, civil, and economic
rights are central to the new legal system.”
Further, equal rights for women including “the
right to vote, equal pay, and equal access to
education, health care, and employment”
are cited as critical to the new Afghanistan.(15)
There are two women ministers in the transitional
government, which will be in place for two years.
During this time frame, the Loya Jirgah will
convene and write a new constitution. The needs
facing Afghanistan and the new government are
great.
Sources
1. Bellamy, Carole, speech in Afghanistan, December
1, 2001.
2. National Public Radio, Morning Edition, “Afghan
Women in Parliament,” December 18, 2001.
3. The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women
and Children, web site www.theirc.org/wcrwc.
4. National Public Radio, Morning Edition, “Afghan
Women in Parliament,” December 18, 2001.
5. Burki, Shahid Javed, panel presentation, “Basic
Education in Pakistan and Afghanistan: The Current
Crisis and Beyond,” Brookings Institute,
December 17, 2001.
6. The Coalition To Stop the Use of Child Soldiers,
September 2001, www.child-soldiers.org/talebfinalweb.html.
7. Samar, Sima, speech to International Center
for Human Rights and Democratic Development, December
10, 2001, www.ichrdd.ca/english/commdoc/humphrey2001/
samarAcceptanceSpeech.html.
8. Perkins, Lucian, “For Girls, Education
without Fear,” Washington Post, November
18, 2001, page A20.
9. Raimondo, Lois, “Returning to School,
Reclaiming Their Lives,” Washington Post,
November 22, 2001, page A26.
10. Samar, Sima, speech to International Center
for Human Rights and Democratic Development, December
10, 2001, www.ichrdd.ca/english/commdoc/humphrey2001/
samarAcceptanceSpeech.html.
11. The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women
and Children, web site www.theirc.org/wcrwc.
12. Saba, Sahar, telephone interview, “Women’s
Rights in Post-Taliban Afghanistan,” CNN,
November 19, 2001.
13. Lacayo, Richard, “About Face: An Inside
Look at how Women Fared Under Taliban Oppression
and What the Future Holds,” Time, December
3, 2001.
14. “Some of the Restrictions Imposed by
the Taliban on Women in Afghanistan,” Revolutionary
Association of the Women of Afghanistan, www.rawasongs.
fancymarketing.net/rules.htm.
15. The Brussels Proclamation, Afghan Women’s
Summit for Democracy, December 4-5, 2001, as posted
at www.womenlobby.org.
Resources
for Educators and Students
If
we are to reach real peace in this world, and
if we are to carry on
a real war against war, we shall have to begin
with children.
Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948
Adopt-A-Minefield
www.landmines.org
This project, coordinated by the United Nations
Association of the United States, supports the
UN work in Afghanistan to map and clear minefields,
conduct mine awareness and risk education, and
advocate for the ban on landmine use.
Amnesty
International
www.amnesty.org
Amnesty International is campaigning to make human
rights the agenda in deliberations about the future
of Afghanistan.
Feminist
Majority
www.feminist.org/afghan/intro.asp
The Feminist Majority Foundation has done considerable
work to address the extreme human rights violations
which women have faced under the Taliban.
Human
Rights Watch
www.humanrightswatch.org/press/2001/10/afghan-women.htm
A new report focuses on the grave impact of the
Afghan war on women’s human rights.
Oxfam
America
www.oxfamamerica.org/kids_and_teachers/index.html
This web site includes information for teachers
and students about the food shortage in Afghanistan
and the famine relief work of Oxfam.
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan
www.rawa.org
This site is written for and by Afghan women who
have opposed the Taliban, fundamentalism, and
gross violations of human rights against women.
UN
High Commission on Refugees
www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/afghan
Facts, figures, photos, and maps are included
on this site which addresses the refugee emergency
in Afghanistan.
UNICEF
www.unicef.org/noteworthy/afghanistan/index.html
UNICEF is working to address the dire needs of
children and women caught in the humanitarian
crisis in the Afghanistan region.
Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and
Children
www.womenscommission.org
This web site, which sponsors the “Watch
List on Children in Armed Conflict,” includes
detailed information on the situation of children
in Afghanistan.
Women’s
Edge
www.womensedge.org
The House of Representatives Access for Afghan
Women Act (HR 3342) is posted on this site, which
calls for the US government to comply with basic
human rights of women in peacekeeping, refugee
relief, and resettlement.
Taking
Action
Alone, or with students, you can take three steps
that will make a difference for children, women,
and education in Afghanistan:
1. 5 minutes
Email your member of congress through the NEA
Legislative Action Center www.nea.org/lac/ to
ensure that women’s human rights are respected
in all aspects of US involvement in Afghanistan.
The House of Representatives bill, HR 3343, co-sponsored
by Representatives Constance Morella (R-MD) and
Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), calls for the inclusion
of women in all US peace-building and reconstruction
efforts. See Women’s Edge above.
2.
15 minutes
UNICEF relies on the support of individuals to
contribute to the life-sustaining work for the
children of Afghanistan. Browse the web sites
www.unicefusa.org and www.nea.org/international
to determine whether you and your students can
help provide a warm blanket, oral rehydration
therapy, or a School-in-a-Box to children in Afghanistan
this winter.
3.
45 minutes
On International Women’s Day, March 8, share
with students the important lessons about human
rights for women and girls in Afghanistan. The
2002 International Women’s Day theme is “Afghanistan
is Everywhere,” signifying that discrimination
and violence against women are international issues
that impact girls and women in all countries.
Connect to the web resources cited here, plus
additional links at www.nea.org/international.
International Relations
1201 Sixteenth Street NW
Washington, DC 20036
[email protected]
www.nea.org/international
|
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