Women speak out about continuing discrimination

Kabul, Afghanistan: The women gave a news conference but asked that no one take pictures showing their faces, and one speaker's office requested that no one print her name. It's a lot of secrecy for a press event, but it's a dangerous time to be a powerful woman in Afghanistan.

Police Major Colonel Sediqa Rasekh and a number of high-profile women spoke on Thursday at the event to highlight the continuing threat of violence against females in Afghanistan eight years since the hardline Taliban regime was ousted.

Taliban assassins gunned down a senior policewoman in southern Afghanistan in September, and female government officials regularly report receiving threats to their safety from the hard-line Islamists.

Target

So, a photo in a newspaper can make a woman a target. "At some point we can become the target of an enemy attack, whether it is shooting, or spraying acid, kidnapping or anything. If they don't have pictures of us, they will not be able to pick us out," said Rasekh, who gave express permission for her name to appear in print after her office requested anonymity.

Rasekh said the Taliban have re-emerged as a threat in several parts of Afghanistan.

"The danger has increased significantly," she said.

When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, they ordered women to stay home and tend to their families.

Girls were banned from schools and women could only leave the house wearing a burqa covering their body and accompanied by a male family member.

The Afghan government and Western donors have made a major push to increase opportunities for women in recent years, but those females who buck tradition to join the government or the military or just speak out about women's rights put their lives on the line.

"If a woman doing that is taken by the Taliban, of course her head will be taken off," said Massouda Jalal, whose Jalal Foundation works for women's rights in Afghanistan.