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American Morning

America's New War: Repression of Women in Afghanistan

Aired September 28, 2001 - 10:45   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The current focus on the Taliban regime is bringing attention to some of that government's most notorious practices, the violent repression of women.

CNN's senior Asia correspondent Mike Chinoy shows us how some are secretly fighting back.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE CHINOY, CNN ASIA CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Members of the Taliban's Department of Virtue beating a woman in the streets of Kabul earlier this month. Her crime, letting her veil slip from her face.

Such religious enforcers have official backing in Afghanistan, where repression of women has been a central feature of Taliban rule.

SAIMA KARIN, RAWA: What happened to women, I think it's unprecedented, not only in our history, but I think in the modern history of the world.

CHINOY: Her face covered to protect her identity, Saima Karin is a member of RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan.

CNN first told you about RAWA in the recent program "CNN Presents: Beneath the Veil." Today in a country of terror and violence, RAWA's 2,000 members in Afghanistan and Pakistan are still waging a desperate underground struggle against the Taliban.

KARIN: We believe the root cause of all current tragedy and miseries, and all problems in Afghanistan, is the domination of fundamentalists.

CHINOY: In the Taliban's Afghanistan, this is a crime: teaching young girls to read. School and work for women are forbidden. RAWA activists continue to conduct such classes in secret.

KARIN: Afghan women are not what outside world can image them or can think of them. They love to learn. They love to be educated. They love to be something.

CHINOY: But it's a dangerous business.

KARIN: We have to train students how to make it through if they are stopped by Taliban on the way. We have to change the houses. We have to change the timings, or we have to even take a course at 6:00 in the morning.

CHINOY: Discovery can mean a beating. Membership in RAWA can mean death.

KARIN: They have already decreed their punishment, which is stoning to death for any member of RAWA if we're caught by the Taliban.

CHINOY: In a devastated country where the Taliban has made photographing human beings a religious crime, RAWA members have risked their lives to bring the world a glimpse of the regime's fanaticism. Here, a soccer game halted. Spectators ordered to pray.

Here a public execution. A man's throat is slit before a crowd in Kabul. Another man put to death, hung from a soccer goal post. The bodies of these men displayed on a city thoroughfare.

RAWA has waged its struggle here in Pakistan too, running clinics and classes in Afghan refugee camps and facing regular threats from the Taliban.

KARIN: I have to be careful. I want to have long life to continue this work.

CHINOY: Work which Saima says will be necessary for many years to come whatever the outcome of a U.S. campaign against the Taliban.

KARIN: Our women especially not only physically killed, physically tortured, they are mentally killed. And they may forget about the physical pain, but it will take years and years to forget the mental and psychological pain.

CHINOY: Mike Chinoy, CNN, Peshawar, Pakistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: There is one woman in the United States very close to the plight of Afghan women. Mavis Leno joins us now from Los Angeles this morning. She is the chair of the Feminist Majority Foundation's Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan.

Good to have you with us this morning. Welcome.

MAVIS LENO, CHAIR, FEMINIST MAJORITY FOUNDATION: Thank you for having me.

ZAHN: I know it's painful for you to have to look at these continual images of these women so violently repressed in their culture. But can you explain to our audience this morning why they are treated this way?

LENO: Well the Taliban advocate a very extremist version of fundamentalist Islam, which is unique to them. It's not a version of Islam that anybody else ever followed. And they use it, I think, to some extent not only that they really believe in it, but also it's very convenient for them to take a huge portion of their population and put them, essentially, under house arrest.

The Taliban took over at the point of a gun, they rule at the point of a gun, and they have -- they're very heavily invested in keeping their population helpless.

ZAHN: But I think you've made a very important distinction, that this is very different from the way other Islamic women are treated around the world. And basically what you are saying they've hijacked the religion, right, and distorted it?

LENO: The people of Afghanistan have been hijacked by the Taliban, as surely as the people on those planes were hijacked by the terrorist. They have absolutely no say in this.

ZAHN: How much contact have you had with these long suffering women in Afghanistan?

LENO: Oh, a huge amount of contact, because one of the things that my campaign is involved in, and my organization, the Feminist Majority, does is to try and get as many women as possible out of Afghanistan; and then to help them maintain some semblance of a life, when they get out, in the refugee camps in Pakistan, where people are really starving to death now, not to mention what's going on for the people that in the country.

But I've had constant reports of the abuses, things that in many ways go beyond what you're audience just saw. Taliban members coming into households where they know the family has an adolescent girl, and if she is of their ethnicity, force marrying her to a Taliban member; if she's not of their ethnicity, selling her off into the sex worker trade.

ZAHN: That is absolutely sickening.

LENO: Oh, well you saw what was going on there. Men walking through the streets, beating women like they're herding cattle. What kind of thing is that to be allowed to go on in this world? I really don't feel our government can back off its stance with the Taliban.

I mean, if they do not restore all the human right to these women, and to the men as well who are also living a terrible life. We simply have to see to it that they're -- the people that are working against them are well supported enough that that Taliban, in the end, will collapse.

ZAHN: Mavis, just, I need a brief answer on this. What are these women communicating about this looming humanitarian crisis, as women and children try to flee the country and head for the Pakistani, or Pakistani or Iranian border?

LENO: The foremost things is that people are starving to death. They have nothing, absolutely nothing. In some places they have maybe two weeks worth of food left. And what we can do as the government is give a huge, enormous amount of humanitarian aid. And this is one of the things that I'm working on, the Feminist Majority is working on, hardest right now.

And if people want to help out, they can call our take action number, which is 888-WE-WOMEN. And we'll tell them everything that they can do to make sure that these people don't starve to death before they see freedom again.

ZAHN: Well, Mavis Leno, you obviously are very passionate about this. We really appreciate your sharing your perspective with us this morning.

Thank you very much.

LENO: Thank you for giving me the opportunity. Thank you.

ZAHN: Our pleasure.

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