Kay Bailey Hutchison: “I will take a few moments, because I deferred to the Senator from Maryland, to talk about some of the statistics in…”

“I will take a few moments, because I deferred to the Senator from Maryland, to talk about some of the statistics in Afghanistan that have caused us to highlight this issue. We have seen repression of women in other countries, but we have never seen the repression that is happening in Afghanistan today. The pictures of women being beaten on the streets because their burqa was opened a little bit by the wind, or beaten on the streets because the religion police heard a clicking of heels of shoes on the sidewalk and believed the woman must be wearing high-heeled shoes--this is unbelievable. In one account I read in a journal, a widow who did not have a male relative to escort her to the hospital watched her small son die of dehydration. She tried to make the journey to the hospital by herself but was beaten by the religion police as she left her home.”