Overtures to Taliban endanger women's rights: activist

[Coventina]

Source: Reuters

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Afghan women could lose gains they have made since the fall of the Taliban if Western countries come to terms with elements of the ultra-orthodox Islamist movement, a women's activist said on Tuesday.

Orzala Ashraf of the Afghans Women's Network said an international conference on Afghanistan in the Hague had brushed aside the need to hold Afghans to account for their actions and this could pose a longer term danger to society as a whole.

"We have Taliban members who are clearly slaughtering people on the ground, slaughtering teachers, slaughtering simple passengers -- young men who travel to Iran for jobs. How can you talk with such kind of people?" Ashraf told Reuters.

"It's very vague and very scary for us," she said. "We never want to return to that period (of Taliban rule)." "It was very disappointing to hear the president of Afghanistan and most of the speakers this morning not discussing the importance of women's rights enough, when it comes to the reconciliation part of Afghanistan's development," she added.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE52U4A720090331

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Mods: I realize that this story and the one on the "rape within marriage" stories are related, but they are different. My intent is not to spam LBN, but to report on the various challenges that Afghan women are currently facing.

Thanks.

[acmavm]

1. Of fucking course it does. But hell, we've always been expendable.

[subsuelo]

2. We never had any business in Afghanistan in the first place (nt)

[acmavm]

3. No, they didn't attack us and they (the Taliban) offered to hand

over OBL to bush**. But he wanted to be the 'war' pretzeldent (and there was a lovely natural gas pipeline to consider as well).

But those are two separate issues, the horrific treatment of women and the war on 'terra'.

[PDJane]

4. That's not quite true.

They offered to hand over bin Laden if the US had acceptable proof of bin Laden's complicity in the Trade Centre Fiasco. That evidence was not forthcoming, because it wasn't there.

So, they didn't hand him over, nor do I blame them. That's when Bush decided to bomb.

[acmavm]

5. That's true, they wanted proof. But if bush** hadn't been such a

hard-ass warmonger and tried negotiating with them, who knows what might have happened? You don't think they might have considered it in light of the fact that if they didn't we were going to (and did) bomb the shit out of the place? I think they're whack jobs, but they're whack jobs concerned first and foremost with their own hides.

[msongs]

6. Vietnamistan nt

[biopowertoday]

7. no words for this.