AFGANISTAN essays

AFGANISTAN essays Beginning on September 27, 1996, an extremist militia group known as the Taliban seized control of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Upon seizing control, the Taliban has instituted a system of gender apartheid, which has placed women into a state of virtual house arrest. Since that time the women and girls of Afghanistan have been stripped of all human rights including their voice, visibility and their mobility. The Campaign to stop Gender Apartheid, led by the Feminist Majority Foundation, has brought together numerous human right and womens organizations around the world to demand an end to the abuses of the women in Afghanistan. In the 1980s when the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan, the United States gave billions of dollars, through a secret CIA operation, to revolutionary militia forces called the mujahideen (soldiers of God). Unfortunately, in 1989 when the Soviet Union pulled out, groups of the mujahideen entered into a civil war and in 1996 the Taliban emerged as the controlling force. The Taliban is actually made up of young men and boys who were raised in refugee camps and trained in ultraconservative religious schools in Pakistan. The primary support system of the Taliban is from Pakistan, they provide military aid and personnel, Saudi Arabia provides the financial support. In addition, Afghanistan is one of the worlds two largest producers of opium, which in turn makes it a huge drug-processing center. Finally, the biggest potential for financial support comes from the wealth of the petroleum industry. The Taliban claim to follow a pure, fundamental Islamic ideology, except the oppression they place upon women has no foundation in Islam. Within Islam, women can earn, control and spend their own money; they can also participate in public life. Both the Organizations of the Islamic Conference and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt have refused to recognize the Taliban as an official governmen...