Afghan Women’s Health and Lives on the Brink By Julie Rank The following article is based on results from the newly released 2021 report on the Hologic Global Women’s Health Index, a comprehensive global survey on women’s health. The Index surveyed women in Afghanistan for the first time in 2021. Life was already extremely difficult for Afghan women before the…
Sonia Nassery Cole Talks About the Power of Film By Patricia Danaher When Afghan film director Sonia Nassery Cole was a young girl in Kabul, she and her father would go to the cinema together every week. As the eldest of three children, her father pampered his daughter with this special time together, little suspecting that Sonia would go on…
UN Recommits to Afghan Women and Girls’ Education By U.N. Writers “It has been a year of increasing disrespect for their right to live free and equal lives, denying them opportunity to livelihoods, access to health care and education, and escape from situations of violence,” said Sima Bahous, Executive Director at UN Women. Ms. Bahous outlined how the Taliban’s “meticulously constructed policies of inequality”…
Female Protesters Beaten by Taliban Fighters Shots fired into air and rifle butts used to attack dozens of women protesting outside Afghan education ministry. By The Guardian Taliban fighters beat female protesters and fired into the air on Saturday as they violently dispersed a rare rally in the Afghan capital, days before the first anniversary of the hardline Islamists’ return…
U.S. Announces Commitment to Advance Afghan Women and Girls’ Rights Press Release For Immediate Release Friday, August 12, 2022 Today, the United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), announced a $30 million commitment to support gender equality and women’s empowerment in Afghanistan. This funding will be programmed through the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the…
UN Women: Gender Equality is Critical for Afghanistan’s Future Expert’s take: Gender equality is critical for Afghanistan’s future, long-term development, and sustained peace By Alison Davidian On 15 August 2021, the Taliban entered Kabul and took the city, and we knew from that moment that life for women and girls in Afghanistan would change. Over the past month, we have…
Afghan Women’s Education vs. The Taliban Afghans who want teen girls back in school have new allies: Taliban-affiliated clerics By Fazelminallah Qazizia and Diaa Hadid KABUL, Afghanistan – Girls have pretty much been unable to attend secondary school in Afghanistan since the Taliban took power nine months ago. Public protests – with demonstrators shouting “We are sick of captivity!” –…
Fighting for Women’s Education in Afghanistan When Matiullah Wesa was 9 years old, Taliban insurgents torched his community school in Marouf District in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province. Terrified and disappointed, Wesa thought this marked the end of his education because there was no other school in his war-ravaged village. Fearing more Taliban violence, the villagers forced Wesa’s father, who was…