Following are the texts of speeches on S. 1573 by Senators Murray and Snowe from the Congressional Record:

(begin text of Murray's remarks)

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues today to again raise the plight of women, girls and children in Afghanistan. I commend Senator Hutchison and Senator Mikulski for taking the initiative to introduce the Afghan Women and Children Relief Act of 2001.

Many of us have been working since the Taliban seized control in Afghanistan to give voice to women who have been silenced, beaten, harassed and even executed.

Afghanistan has been in a cycle of war and conflict for more than twenty years. These two decades have been hard on the Afghani people but especially difficult for women, young girls and children. When the Taliban seized control in Afghanistan, the plight of women, girls and children went from a crisis existence to a catastrophic one.

As noted in our bill and mentioned by my colleagues, women in Kabul, Afghanistan represented 70 percent of the teachers when the Taliban came to power. Women in Kabul represented 50 percent of the public employees and more than 40 percent of the medical professionals including doctors. Women students made up 50 percent of the student body at Kabul universities.

Throughout Afghan society women served their country, their culture and their families as scientists and professors, as members of parliament, as leaders of their communities. The Taliban changed all of that quickly and cruelly with little consideration for the rights of women or the many roles played in Afghan society by women.

The Taliban now bans women from working as teachers, doctors or for that matter, in any profession.

The Taliban closed schools to women. Not just the teachers. But to all young girls. It is against the law for a young girl to attend a school in Afghanistan. To attend school, women and young girls in Afghanistan risk floggings, death by stoning, or single shot execution.

Women cannot leave their homes without the heavy veil style clothing. They must be accompanied by a male. Women must not laugh or make noise in public. The punishment for violating Taliban law as we have now seen in several informative documentary pieces can be deadly. Many of my constituents have contacted me shocked and outraged at the video clip of the woman ushered into a soccer stadium to the jeers of a crowd. She's forced onto the playing field on her knees where she is quickly executed by a single shot from a rifle.

Women in Afghanistan, every generation now living, is suffering under the Taliban rule. Some have been forced from meaningful lives to absolute poverty. Others now see no future in Afghanistan for themselves and their children. Still others, war widows and elderly women, are forced into prostitution or forced to sell all of their possessions to feed themselves.

Yesterday, we passed the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. I served on this subcommittee for a long time and its many programs offer hope to women in Afghanistan. The Afghan Women and Children's Relief Act notes many of these programs.

We provide assistance to help educate and immunize young girls in the world. We provide assistance in the form of maternal health care and family planning in the most needy areas of the world. We support microcredit lending, particularly to women led households, in many impoverished areas of the world.

We support international organizations from UNICEF and other UN entities to non-governmental organizations based here in the United States and throughout the world. Our bill would include Afghani women and girls in these vital programs.

As we look to aid women, young girls and children in Afghanistan, we must not assume that simply ending the Taliban rule will cure the problem. We walked away from Afghanistan when the Cold War ended, we cannot do that again when the Taliban goes.

We must ensure that women and children are fully protected in the Afghan government which will eventually follow the Taliban. Women in Afghanistan must be brought back -- fully brought back -- into Afghani society. All of Afghanistan will be better when women are allowed again to teach, to serve publicly, and to treat illness.

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for raising this issue. I join them as an original cosponsor of this legislation and I urge its prompt passage. Further, I call on all of our colleagues to support the appropriate funding levels which will ultimately make a great difference in the lives of Afghani women, young girls and children.

(end text of Murray's remarks)

(begin text of Snowe's remarks)

Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise today in support of a bill sponsored by Senators HUTCHISON and MIKULSKI that would authorize the use of Federal resources to increase the education, health and living standards for women and children in living in Afghanistan, and as refugees in neighboring countries. Importantly, it also specifies that this assistance is provided in a way that protects and promotes the human rights of all people in Afghanistan.

Allow me to begin by praising the work and leadership of my colleague from Texas, Senator Hutchison, on behalf of women both at home and abroad. This legislation is entirely consistent with her strong beliefs and leadership to extend opportunities to women throughout the world, and I am proud to join her in support of this effort.

It is simply unconscionable that we should even have to consider such a measure in this day and age. But there should be no mistake, the facts show that Congressional support for women in Afghanistan is nothing short of a moral imperative.

This issue is not simply a matter of cultural differences, of imposing a particular viewpoint on another country or people. This is a core human rights issue, and to ignore the plight of Afghan women is to turn our backs on a terrible wrong that we have the power and I would say the obligation as fellow human beings to help right.

This is a matter of basic justice, and it's basic justice denied under the current Taliban regime.

Prior to the Taliban's assent to power, Afghani women enjoyed both stature and freedom. In fact, many Americans may be unaware that Afghani women were not only well educated, they constituted 70 percent of the nation's school teachers, half of the government's civilian workers, and 40 percent of the doctors in its capital.

But that all changed, or, more accurately, came to a crashing and tragic halt, with the seizure of the Afghanistan capital in September of 1996, when the Taliban began a regime of gender-based apartheid. It's a regime, I'm sad to say, that's been enforced with the most extreme brutality.

Talk about going backwards, what's happened in Afghanistan hasn't just turned back the clock, it's turned back the centuries. While the calendars tell us it's a new millennium, you'd never know it from the graphic and disturbing footage we see from the Taliban-occupied regions of Afghanistan, which paint a very different picture of Afghanistan than even five years ago.

Today, women have been banished from the work force, flat out not allowed to work, to earn a living, or to support themselves or their family. And let's not forget that, according to an October 23 article in the Chicago Tribune, and I quote, ``Tens of thousands of women were said to be widowed by Afghanistan's long-running battle against Soviet occupation in the 1980's. Many have had to turn to begging and prostitution.''

Under the Taliban, girls aren't allowed to go to school. And women have been expelled from the universities. In fact, incredibly, women are prohibited from leaving their homes at all unless accompanied by a close male relative, even in the event of a medical emergency for themselves or their children. These women are under house arrest, they are prisoners of their own homes.

And if that's not bad enough, they are prisoners within themselves, with the Taliban going to great and inhumane lengths to strip Afghani women's sense of self and personhood. As the world has seen over and over again in the past five years and even more so since the start of the military campaign on October 7th, Afghani women are forced to wear a burqa, leaving only a mesh hole from which they can view the world in which they cannot participate.

And heaven help those who dare to tread upon or flout these laws. Penalties for violations of Taliban laws range from beatings to public floggings to killings, all state sanctioned. While these tragedies are not new, with the world's focus on the plight of the Afghani women, it is time for us to stand up and be counted.

For myself, I have continually supported efforts to improve the lot of women in Afghanistan, cosponsoring a resolution in the last Congress to condemn the systemic human rights abuses that are being committed against women and girls in Afghanistan, and supported a similar resolution this year that passed unanimously.

We've been a leader in assisting the people of Afghanistan, in fact, the U.S. is the largest single provider of assistance to the Afghan people, and we should continue our leadership, now more than ever, as the Taliban has brought even greater woe upon the Afghan people.

It is imperative that we distinguish between the Afghan people and the oppressive ruling Taliban that harbors terrorists within their borders. This bill highlights the ongoing plight of the Afghani women.

By authorizing the President to provide educational and health care assistance to women and children living in Afghanistan, and as refugees in neighboring countries, we recognize that women must have a future in Afghanistan. This potential for prosperity can only be realized if, as in the United States, both men and women have an opportunity to participate and contribute. That's what this bill is all about, and I hope that my colleagues will join us in supporting it.

(end text of Snowe's remarks)