By Susan Domowitz
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental human rights organization, has published a comprehensive report on systematic violations of women's human rights in Afghanistan. Afghan women, according to the report, "have suffered a catastrophic assault on their human rights during more than twenty years of war and under the repressive rule of the Taliban."

The report, published on October 29, and entitled "Afghanistan: Humanity Denied," urges the international community to include full respect and protection for women's rights as an integral part of any post-conflict reconstruction in Afghanistan.

"The Taliban have sought to erase women from public life through widespread discrimination. They punish women with public beatings," said LaShawn R. Jefferson, executive director of the women's rights division of Human Rights Watch. "Any political solution in Afghanistan must not bargain away accountability for this systematic violence and discrimination."

"Women have borne the lion's share of human rights abuses in Afghanistan throughout the conflict, and they are in particular danger now," said Jefferson. "Any future political arrangements in Afghanistan have to take special account of what women have suffered -- and how that can be remedied."

Human Rights Watch, based in New York, is one of the most influential non-governmental organizations covering human rights abuses around the world.

The Taliban have banned women from employment in most sectors, and have prohibited women from going out in public unless they are accompanied by a close male relative. Women are acutely affected by the restrictions on women's employment and movement. There are an estimated 40,000 war widows in Kabul alone, and they are deprived of the means to support themselves and their children, according to the report.

The report says the Taliban have banned the education of girls beyond primary school. The rate of illiteracy among Afghan women is now over 90 percent.

As the report notes, throughout the Afghan civil war, all sides in the conflict have committed flagrant violations of human rights law, including violations of women's rights, with impunity. Historically, the report says, "When the Taliban have felt threatened, they have redoubled their persecution of women."

"Women living under the Taliban report being in a constant state of fear," Human Rights Watch says. "The slightest infraction, real or perceived, of gender-specific norms or mores as expressed by the Taliban edicts can and often does lead to summary beatings by the Religious Police."

Most women interviewed by Human Rights Watch had either been beaten or had witnessed other women being beaten, and many of their testimonials are included in the report. A woman doctor who left Kabul in January 2001 recounted the risks she had taken simply to get to work at her hospital. She worked long shifts and so took her infant son, whom she was breastfeeding, with her to work.

"My husband hailed a taxi to take my child and me to the hospital. Five minutes later, a Religious Police car stopped the taxi. He made me get out of the taxi. I was lucky my husband told the taxi driver I was a doctor. The taxi driver told the Taliban that he was taking me to the hospital. There were three Taliban. One of them beat the driver with a yellow cable that was pretty wide. I was scared. He asked me why the holes in my chadari (burqa) were so big. Why are you alone in the taxi? I asked, "Are you going to beat me?" I put my child away in the car and told them, "Beat me, but do not hurt the child." He beat me. I hid my face. He hit me several times on the back and arms. I had bruises."

An educated widow who left Kabul in June 2001 told Human Rights Watch about the difficulties she faced in trying to earn a living by tailoring women's clothes in her home.

"The Taliban asked my customers, 'Why are you going to her house? Are you going to gather and make plans against us?' I had a board outside which read, 'Tailoring for women and children.' Three times they came and warned me, and I told them, 'I am a widow, what should I do?' the third time they took board down and said that if I do not stop this work they will kill me. They accused me of making plans against the Taliban. They said, 'Everyone should sew their own clothing; our wives sew their own clothes. God will assist you, if you do everything as God wishes.' It was the Religious Police, and I was forced to close four months ago, and leave for Pakistan."

The Human Rights Watch report, "Afghanistan: Humanity Denied," is available at www.hrw.org/reports/2001/afghan3/.