Women's rights campaigner in Afghanistan shot dead [View All]

[Rose Siding]

Safia Amajan promoted women's education and work - a fairly ordinary job in most places - but in the Afghanistan of a resurgent Taliban it was a dangerous path to follow. She was a target, and yesterday she was gunned down outside her home.

Five years after the "liberation" of Afghanistan by the US and Britain, with promises of a new dawn for its downtrodden women, her murder was a bloody reminder of just how far the country is slipping back into a land of darkness.

Public figures, including the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, lined up to praise Ms Amajan.

Yet this support was signally lacking while she lived....Ms Amajan had asked for, and been refused, a protective vehicle, or bodyguards, despite repeated death threats.
...
At the official end of the Afghan war, America's first lady, Laura Bush, was among those who declared that one of the most important achievements of overthrowing the Taliban was emancipation of women. However, since then female social workers and teachers have been maimed and killed, girls' schools shut down and female workers forced to give up their jobs. The few women out in the streets in Kandahar and other places in the south are covered in burqas.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1757264.ece

Half of all Afghan women say they've been beaten. 85% are illiterate. More stats in the article.

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