Political Quotes

“I rise today in support of educational and health care rights for the women and children of Afghanistan. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the current health and human rights status of women in Afghanistan suggests that the combined effects of war-related trauma and human rights abuses by Taliban officials have had a profound effect on Afghan women's health. Moreover, support for women's human rights by Afghan women suggests that Taliban policies regarding women are incommensurate with the interests, needs, and health of Afghan women. Before the Taliban regime took power, Afghan women were protected by law, had important freedoms and were active participants in society. In 1977, women comprised more than 15 percent of Afghanistan's highest legislative body. By the early 1990s women comprised 70 percent of schoolteachers. Women made up 50 percent of government workers. Forty percent of doctors in Kabul were women. Then came the Taliban and their destruction of the family. For nearly 20 years, life in Afghanistan has been degraded by foreign and civil wars, but, since 1994, the regime of the Taliban militias has, by decree, officially taken away from women all rights to education, to work, and to health. Denial of freedom of movement renders Afghan women practically prisoners in their own homes, in the most extreme situation of material and moral destitution.”