In 2007 when the Tehrik-e-Taliban forces marched into the town of Swat, the rest of Pakistan watched, aghast and unbelieving. The town was very popular as a tourist destination, its […]
Author: Rafia Zakaria
Pawns of War and Peace: What Does the Future Hold for Afghan Women?
On November 18, 2001, in a radio address to the nation, then-First Lady Barbara Bush condemned the degrading treatment imposed on Afghan women by the Taliban regime. Thus the story […]
Feudals, Feminists and Foreign Ministers
On July 19, Hina Rabbani Khar was sworn in as Pakistan’s youngest and first-ever woman foreign minister. It seemed like welcome news from a beleaguered country whose name evokes visions […]
The Women Within Elif Shafak
Motherhood is often imagined as a natural state for women, a return to some authentic self that is believed to lie at the core of every woman. In patriarchal societies, […]
Irma Medrano: Don’t Send Me Back to My Abuser
In 1995, Irma Medrano fled El Salvador after being subject to horrible abuse at the hands of her husband. For years he had routinely beaten her, strangled her with a […]
Muslim Women Challenge Stoning
Based on these arguments made by brave Muslim women, stoning can be denounced as unislamic and a distortion of Islamic principles of justice
Listening to Muslim Women’s Voices on 9/11
Much has been said about Imam Abdul Rauf, the Imam behind the proposed Park 51 Islamic Cultural Center in New York City, which would stand a few blocks from the […]
Floods and Feminism: The Plight of Pakistan’s Women
As Pakistan’s flood crisis continues into its fourth week, it is the women who are suffering the most. Millions displaced by the flood waters languish with few resources to alleviate […]
Now’s the Time to Prosecute the Taliban for War Crimes
It is this view that perceives only nation states to be human rights abusers that must change drastically for groups like the Taliban to be held accountable for their brutality. The lack of an existing system of justice in Afghanistan means that unless international mechanisms of justice get actively involved in the situation, Afghan civilians will remain helpless before the bloodthirsty campaign of the Taliban. Women like Sanam Gul will continue to die at their hands in acts of political theatre that manipulate faith to keep a population in constant fear. Because of this Amnesty International is calling for the investigation of Taliban crimes so that they may be prosecuted for war crimes.
The Face We Can’t Ignore: Women in Afghanistan
War is horrific, its misery recorded in lurid detail in the tragedy of Aisha’s mutilation, but the war we have waged has required taking sides. Withdrawing without a plan for safeguarding the women who chose to believe in the American promises of empowerment, however deceitfully they may have been made, is to live in denial of a tragedy in which we are roundly implicated.