Elizabeth MacNabb wrote:
If you have interest in the conditions for women in the
world, read on:
The situation in Afghanistan is getting so bad that one
person in an editorial in the Times compared the treatment of women
there
to the treatment of Jews in pre-holocaust Poland. Since the Taliban
took
power in 1996, women have had to wear burqua and have been beaten and
stoned in
public for not having the proper attire, even if this means
simply not having the mesh covering in front of their eyes.
One woman was beaten to DEATH by an angry mob of
fundamentalists for accidentally exposing her arm while she was
driving.
Another was stoned to death for trying to leave the country with a man
that
was not a relative.
Women are not allowed to work or even go out in public
without a male relative; professional women such as professors,
translators, doctors, lawyers, artists and writers have been forced
from
their jobs and into their homes, so that depression is becoming so
widespread that it has reached emergency levels.
There is no way in such an extreme Islamic society to know the suicide
rate
with certainty, but relief workers are estimating that the suicide rate
among women, who cannot find proper medication and treatment for severe
depression and would rather take their lives than live in such
conditions,
has increased significantly. Homes where a woman is present
must have their windows painted so that she can never be seen by
outsiders.
They must wear silent shoes so that they are never heard. Women live in
fear of their lives for the slightest misbehavior. Because they cannot
work, those without male relatives or husbands are either starving to
death
or begging on the street, even if they hold PhDs.
There are almost no medical facilities available for women.
Relief workers, in protest, have mostly left the country, taking
medicine
and psychologists and other things necessary to treat the sky-rocketing
level of depression among women. At one of the rare hospitals for
women, a
reporter found still, nearly lifeless bodies lying motionless on top of
beds, wrapped in their burqua, unwilling to speak, eat or do anything,
but
are slowly wasting away. Others have gone mad and were seen crouched in
corners, perpetually rocking or crying, most of them in fear.
It is at the point where the term 'human rights violations' have become
an
understatement. Husbands have the power of life and death over their
women
relatives, especially their wives, but an angry mob has just as much
right
to stone or beat a woman, often to death, for exposing an inch of flesh
or
offending them in the slightest way. David Cornwell has told me that we
in
the United States should not judge the Afghan people for such treatment
because it is a 'cultural thing', but this is not even true. Women
enjoyed
relative freedom, to work, dress generally as they wanted, and drive
and
appear in public alone until only 1996 -- the rapidity of this
transition
is the main reason for the depression and suicide; women who were once
educators or doctors or simply used to basic human freedoms are now
severely restricted and treated as sub-human in the name of right-wing
fundamentalist Islam. It is not their tradition or 'culture', but is
alien
to them, and it is extreme even for those cultures where fundamentalism
is
the rule.
Besides, if we could excuse everything on cultural grounds, then we
should
not be appalled that the Carthaginians sacrificed their infant
children,
that little girls are circumcised in parts of Africa, that blacks in
the
deep south in the 1930's were lynched, prohibited from voting and
forced to
submit to unjust Jim Crow laws. Everyone has a right to a
tolerable human existence, even if they are women in a Muslim country
in a
part of the world that Americans do not understand. If we can threaten
military force in Kosovo in the name of human rights for the sake of
ethnic
Albanians, Americans can certainly express peaceful outrage at the
oppression, murder and injustice committed against women by the
Taliban.
Kathleen Barbosa
If you wish to participate in the outcry against such treatment:
Please Sign petition at the bottom to support and include
your town. Send it to your friends. If you receive this list with more
than 50 names on it, please email a copy of it to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Even if you decide not to sign, please be considerate and do not kill
the
petition. Thank you. It is best to copy rather than forward the
petition.
STATEMENT:
****** In signing this, we agree that the current treatment
of women in Afghanistan is completely UNACCEPTABLE and deserves support
and
action by the people of the United States and the U.S. Government and
that
the current situation overseas will not be tolerated. Women's Rights is
not
a small issue anywhere and it is UNACCEPTABLE for women to be treated
as sub-human and so much as property. Equality and human
decency is a RIGHT not a freedom, whether one lives in Afghanistan or
the
United States.*****
1) Kathleen Barbosa, New London, CT
2) Melissa J. Buckheit Waltham, MA
3) Olga Broumas, Brewster, MA
4) Heather Feldman, Waltham, MA
5) Robert L. Hawkins, Waltham, MA
6) Ann Vollmann Bible, Cambridge, MA
7) Joy Garnett, New York, NY
8) Cynthia Pannucci, New York, NY
9) Ken Knowlton, Merrimack NH
10) Eric Somers, Poughkeepsie, NY
11) Faith Watson, Philadelphia, PA
12) Sherry Branch, Orlando, Fl
13) Susie Ellis, Strasburg, VA
14) Christine Jurzykowski, TX
15) Marion Hunt-Badiner, CA
16) Riane Eisler, CA
17) Dagmar Celeste,OH
18 and 19) Linda Krasienko and Patti Verde, Westlake, OH
20)Anita C. Hill, St. Paul, MN
21) Peggy Yingst, Mentone, CA
22)Laurie Line, El Cajon, CA
23)Barbara D'Aversa, La Mesa, CA
24) Erin Alcaraz, Phx, AZ
25) Erin Thomas Palmeter, San Diego,
26) Karen Van Dyke, San Diego, CA
27) Robert MacPhee, San Diego, CA
28. Edna Smith, Springfield, MO
29) Julie A. Donnelly, Columbia, MO
30) Susan Walter, Sonora, CA
31) Susan M. Harrison, Clements, CA
32) William E. Harrison, Clements, CA
33 & 34) Robert and Johnette Orpinela, Stockton, CA
35) Kenneth L. Beauchamp, Stockton CA
36 & 37) Gail Erwin & Bob Schuldheisz, Galt, CA
38) Margo Leslie, Berkeley, California
39) Sara Gratiot, Marina, CA
40) Marguerite Campbell, Monterey, CA
41) Adrienne Paull, Austin, TX
42) Amy Overslaugh, Austin, TX
43) Tina Tabler, Austin, TX
44) LeeAnn Maxwell-McGlynn, Bedminster, NJ
45) Mary L. Robertson, North Brunswick, NJ
46) Laura W. Walters, Blacksburg, VA
47) Anne Meehan, Richmond, VA
48) Elizabeth MacNabb, Richmond, VA
49) Jill Woods, Pacifica, CA, USA
50)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elizabeth L. MacNabb, PhD
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Service Learning, Career Development Center
Richmond Hall, UR, Richmond, VA 23173
phone 804-289-8686, fax 804-287-6465
