Support Education and Women’s Rights in Afghanistan

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch issued a report entitled “Lessons in Terror: Attacks on Education in Afghanistan,” which documents the escalating violence committed against schools—especially girls’ schools—by militia groups. 

Taliban militias and other paramilitary groups target schools because they educate girls, teach secular subjects, and are often partially funded by international non-profits.  Under Taliban rule, girls were not allowed to attend school.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Zuhoor Afghan, the top adviser to Afghanistan's education minister, reports that 120 schools have been burned and 200 have been closed due to threats to teachers’ and students’ lives.

In January 2002 Secretary-General Kofi Annan singled out primary education for Afghan children as one of the most important goals of the international community in Afghanistan: “If we want to help the next generation of Afghans improve upon the country's recent history, surely this is one place where our efforts must begin."

You can help protect the rights of Afghan children to attend school by asking your representatives to co-sponsor the Afghan Women's Empowerment Act of 2006 (S.2392/H.R.5185.) Introduced to Congress by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), the Act will allocate millions of dollars in support to women-led educational and health nonprofits that cater specifically to the needs of Afghan women and girls. It will also provide monetary support to the Ministry of Women's Affairs and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

Learn More!

• Read the full text of the Afghan Women’s Empowerment Act of 2006 (S.2392/H.R.5185) by searching the Library of Congress.

• Read the Human Rights Watch report Lessons in Terror: Attacks on Education in Afghanistan.

• Read recent press coverage of attacks on Afghan schools at the Houston Chronicle.

• Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) is “the oldest political/social organization of Afghan women struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women's rights in fundamentalism-blighted Afghanistan since 1977.”

• Tell your senators and representatives to co-sponsor The Afghan Women’s Empowerment Act of 2006 by filling out the handy form provided by the Feminist Majority Foundation.