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HARD TIMES FOR AFGHAN WOMEN

The lives of Afghan women were always difficult but they have been made wretched by the harsh rules imposed on society by the fundamentalist Taleban forces. Our Afghanistan correspondent, William Reeve, sent us this despatch on International Women's Day. Ever since the Taleban movement took control of the Afghan capital, Kabul, 18 months ago, the issue of women's rights in Afghanistan has moved to centre stage. There was an international outcry when the Taleban forbade women from working and girls from going to school. Both the international community and the Taleban vehemently claim that their policies are the ones that maintain the dignity of women. The European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, Emma Bonino, said the treatment of Afghan women was a step backwards that could become contagious and she accused the Taleban of trying to justify repression by pretending it was tradition. She says the Taleban have removed from Afghan women what it's taken 20 years for them to obtain. Iran, which supports the anti-Taleban alliance in Afghanistan, said Iranian women were listening to the suppressed cries of their Afghan sisters. In his message to mark International Women's Day, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, appealed to all parties in Afghanistan to recognise the rights of women and girls in education, health, and employment. In reality, the social position for most Afghan women, except for the small, urban middle classes, has changed little for centuries, whether they are in Taleban or non-Taleban held areas. What has changed dramatically is their economic well being in a country that's been torn apart by warfare for nearly 20 years with the economy The main concerns of many international aid workers are issues such as the very high death rate of women giving birth. It is about the highest in the world, as is Afghanistan's child mortality.

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