Protecting
Afghan Women Is A National Security Issue
by Abigail R. Esman
Special to IPT News
February 23, 2018
|
|
|
|
Share:  
|
  Be the
first of your friends to like this.
 There was the woman
whose husband sliced off her genitalia, and then reached inside her
with his hand, damaging her inner organs.
There was the woman whose husband cut off her ear.
More commonly, there are the rapes, the forced marriages, and the mob
beatings, such as the one last December: video shows a woman dressed in a
blue burqa, being beaten by crowds of men – including family members – as
onlookers call out "Allahu Akbar!"
Such is life for women in Afghanistan, where an estimated 87 percent of them have experienced physical or sexual
abuse, or both. Their stories are part of what has made Afghanistan the worst country in the world for women.
In the weeks following America's first attacks in Afghanistan during the
fall of 2001, images of burqa-clad women tearing off the imprisoning
garments filled TV news reports. With tremendous satisfaction, Americans praised themselves for beating back the Taliban – the
terror-supporting militia that not only ruled much of the country, but had
harbored Osama bin Laden – and for liberating Afghan women. The images of
them without their burqas were our proof: America had once more helped
forge a victory for the oppressed.
Except, as it turned out, we hadn't.
While the Taliban no longer hold power over many of the regions it ruled
before the American invasion, the group still maintains control over
several rural areas of the country, as do other militia groups which impose
similar constraints on women. Moreover, low female literacy rates have
ranked Afghan fourth on the list of 10 worst places for girls'
education, according to a report from global anti-poverty group ONE. The other nine
countries are all in Africa.
In rural regions, 90 percent of women are illiterate, versus 63 percent
of men – numbers that are deeply disturbing for both genders, since, as UNESCO and others have observed, literacy is directly
related to political empowerment. But the problem particularly affects
women, and is arguably a strategic measure: in the words of former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon,
"by acquiring literacy, women become more economically self-reliant
and more actively engaged in their country's social, political and cultural
life."
The refusal to educate women represents, in other words, not just a
systemic oppression, but enslavement.
Which is why the abuse of women includes depriving them of schooling –
and why such abuse in Afghanistan and other war- torn countries like Iraq,
the Congo, Somalia and Sudan, should be of profound concern to Americans
and the West.
Researchers, particularly Valerie M. Hudson, director of the Womanstats project and
George W. Bush Chair of the Bush School of Government at Texas A&M
University, have shown definitive links between the societies that produce
terrorists and the rate of domestic abuse and the oppression of women. As
Hudson puts it in her book Sex And World Peace, "states
characterized by norms of gender and ethnic inequality as well as human
rights abuses are more likely to become involved in militarized interstate
disputes, to be the aggressors in international disputes, and to rely on
force when involved in an international dispute.... International security
cannot be attained without gender equality."
It is likely no coincidence then that the Afghan man who cut off his
wife's labia was a member of a powerful militia; or that ISIS fighters
kidnapped and enslaved Yazidi women; or – closer to home – that Pulse
nightclub shooter Omar Mateen allegedly abused, even tortured, his ex-wife; that Boston Marathon bomber
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was arrested for beating an ex-girlfriend; that Syed
Farook, the San Bernardino shooter, grew up in an abusive home; and so on. Such examples
demonstrate with utter clarity that, as Hudson notes in a quote from former
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, "the subjugation of women
is a direct threat to the security of the United States."
But nearly 17 years after 9/11 and the American invasion, with a cost of
more than $1 trillion and the loss of nearly 2,500 troops,
Americans' support for the Afghan war is dwindling. What's more, terrorist attacks on aid organizations, coupled with declines in funding, are causing many to rethink
their presence there. A number of aid groups have already cut back
significantly on staff and reduced their outreach.
Yet on the home front, Americans are now focusing with new intensity on
the issue of domestic violence in their own country, particularly in the
wake of allegations that former Trump White House Staff Secretary Rob
Porter abused his two ex-wives, and the ongoing #metoo movement. But if we
are truly concerned about such abuse, how can Americans then turn their
backs on these women and the intensity of their suffering? Or are the
rights of Afghan women an Afghan, not an American problem?
In 2010, I penned an article condemning Dutch leaders for withdrawing troops
from the Afghan conflict. "If we are fighting a war on terror," I
wrote, "are we not also fighting against the terror that rules these
women's lives?
The responses were swift and vicious, and while they are no longer
visible online, I remember them well. No, the all-male readership
responded. Our soldiers do not need to risk their lives for another
country's women.
Eight years later, I am more convinced than ever they were wrong – the
more so in the face of Hudson's research. That doesn't necessarily mean
that America needs to keep large numbers of boots on the ground in
Afghanistan. But as Leah Greenslade, Vice Chair of the MDG Health Alliance,
a UN affiliate, has noted, programs are desperately needed that will engage
young men in these regions to reduce violence against women "as a strategy
for peace, security, and economic social development." And those
programs – and their workers -- need to be kept safe.
Yet Afghan organizations and politicians are doing little to help in this regard. In their place, if
not for Afghan women's safety, then for the sake of our own, America must.
Abigail R. Esman, the author, most recently, of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in
the West (Praeger, 2010), is a freelance writer based in New
York and the Netherlands. Follow her at @radicalstates.
Related Topics: Abigail
R. Esman, Afghanistan,
women's
rights, human
rights abuses, Taliban,
al-Qaida,
poverty,
education,
Valerie
M. Hudson, Womanstats,
Leah
Greenslade
|
Print
Send
RSS
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment