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CNN Live Event/Special

First Lady Addresses Afghan Families' Plight

Aired March 08, 2002 - 10:32   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We want to go to another part of New York City, the United Nations: First lady Laura Bush is speaking. This is International Womens Day. She is speaking on the plight of Afghanistan women.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

LAURA BUSH, FIRST LADY: ... child malnutrition and mothers with a secondary education have children with mortality rates nearly 36 percent lower than mothers with only a primary school education. In two weeks, Afghan boys and girls start school, many for the first time. The world will be watching on the first day of school as teachers take their long vacant places, and students open their books for their first lessons.

Through a number of projects, the United States is committing to helping Afghan people redevelop their education system. The U.S. agency for international development is sending almost 10 million Pusthu and Dari language textbooks to Afghan schools. When school starts, the primary grades will have language and math books. More books will follow for secondary education, covering all subjects.

We're funding teams of teacher trainers and helping educators develop the curriculum. As the U.S. -- and the U.S. helped refurbish the women's dormitory at the University of Kabul, so that women can remain on campus in a safe environment. For primary schools, the academy for educational development just sent 40,000 backpacks filled with slates, chalks, school supplies, and toys for refugee children.

And I happen to have one of those backpacks with me.

(LAUGHTER)

This is the backpack, handmade in Pakistan. Children who receive these backpacks may have never owned or even seen books and toys. This great effort deserves our support. When you give children books and an education, you give them the ability to imagine a future of opportunity, of equality, and justice. Education is the single most long term investment we can make in our future.

At a girls' school in northern Afghanistan, the principal, a man named Duana Kol (ph) said, "These girls are a part of our future. We will need all of our children, boys and girls, to be well educated if we are to rebuild our country from all this war. Today, on international women's day, we affirm our mission to protect the human rights for women in Afghanistan and around the world.

And we affirm our support of all Afghans as they recover from war and injustice. Peranez Nazir (ph), founder of the Afghanistan Women's Association, said, and I love this quote, "Society is like a bird. It has two wings, and a bird cannot fly if one wing is broken." Our dedication to respect and protect women's rights in all countries must continue if we are to achieve a peaceful prosperous and stable world.

In his State of the Union Address to the United States Congress, President Bush said all fathers and mothers in all societies want their children to be educated and live free from poverty and violence. No nation owns these aspirations and no nation is exempt from them.

Human dignity, private property, free speech, equal justice, education and health care, these rights must be guaranteed throughout the world. Together the United States, the United Nations and all of our allies will prove that the forces of terror can't stop the momentum of freedom.

Thank you all very much.

(APPLAUSE)

KAGAN: Listening to first lady Laura Bush as she speaks in front of the United Nations. It's International Womens Day, the first lady speaking about the plight of women and children in Afghanistan, but also help that is on the way to those people, and asking for support for that help as it heads to them.

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