|
Don't Abandon Afghan Women (Laura Bush)
As the United States convenes the NATO summit in Chicago this weekend, the fate of Afghanistan's women is on my mind. This spring marks the 10th anniversary of the return of Afghanistan's girls to the classroom. During the Taliban era, women were denied education. Women could not work, even when they were the sole providers for their families. Under the Taliban dictatorship, it was decreed that women should be neither seen nor heard.By 2002, the consequences of such deliberate human cruelty were abundantly clear. Afghanistan faced a humanitarian crisis. Seventy percent of its people were malnourished, and 25 percent of children died before age 5. A decade ago, after years of war with the Soviet Union followed by the rise of the Taliban, basic infrastructure, such as roads and schools, lay in ruins. In rural areas, clean water and electricity are still luxury goods rather than the norm. But the Afghan story is changing. Over the past 10 years, there has been remarkable progress. Four thousand schools have been built, and more than 100,000 new teachers have entered the classroom. Today, girls make up 37 percent of the 7 million Afghan students in primary and secondary schools. During Taliban rule, only 900,000 children, all male, attended school. Adult learning has also accelerated. More than 62,000 Afghans attend universities. The co-educational American University of Afghanistan, which opened in 2006 with 50 students, has more than 1,700 full and part-time students and offers Afghanistan's leading MBA program. This fall, a record 52 Afghans will come to the United States as Fulbright scholars. A basic literacy and math education program that I visited in 2008 is reaching more than 300,000 Afghan adults, 60 percent of them women. I assume the Talibunnies don't need no steekin' skool. But if this progress is to last, these business and educational investments must be protected and expanded. And, every bit as important, the Afghan government cannot negotiate away women's rights. At their gathering, NATO officials have an opportunity to communicate that aid, investment and alliances are not guaranteed if women are simply to be treated as a bargaining chip. Having already seen the terrible cost of denying the most basic of human freedoms, do we dare risk the consequences now of abandoning the women of Afghanistan? Posted by: Bobby 2012-05-19 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=344968 |