[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 139 (Tuesday, October 16, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H6892-H6898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  SUPPRESSION OF WOMEN IN AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis) is 
recognized for one-half of the time until midnight.


                             General Leave

  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their 
remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, when the Islamic fundamentalist group, the 
Taliban, seized control of Afghanistan in 1996, it launched the Nation 
into a pit of oppressiveness and inequality. In the blink of an eye, 
the millions of women and girls who live in this desert nation in 
Central Asia were relegated to second class citizenship. The basic 
human rights that we in the free world take for granted were suddenly 
stripped away from these people.
  Prior to the civil war there that propelled the Taliban to power, 
women in Afghanistan and especially the capital of Kabul were highly 
educated and employed. Women in Kabul represented 70 percent of school 
teachers, 50 percent of the civilian government workers and they also 
were members of parliament, and 40 percent of them were represented as 
doctors and physicians. And at Kabul University, females comprised half 
of the student body and 60 percent of the faculty.
  In fact, the Afghani Constitution, which was ratified in 1964, had an 
equal rights provision for women contained within it. But today in 
Afghanistan, girls are no longer allowed to attend school. They are 
punished. Women are no longer allowed to work, forcing many to resort 
to begging or even prostitution to survive.
  Females are not permitted to leave their home unless accompanied by a 
male relative. And when they do leave, they are forced to be covered in 
a shroud which is known as a burqa.
  Mr. Speaker, I have with me this evening a sample of what the women 
in Afghanistan have to wear, this burqa that covers their body. If we 
look closely, we will see that there is a section here about 3 inches 
wide that is kind of a filtered material that allows these women to see 
through this shroud. She must wear this every time she leaves the home 
and goes out in public. And if it is 100 degrees or 110 outside, she 
must wear this and have her body fully covered. If she does not, then 
she is faced with perhaps a public beating and even in some cases with 
death.

                              {time}  2230

  This garment is hot, as you can tell. It is restrictive, and it is 
difficult to see. In fact, some of the women who have to wear this 
burqa cannot see, or do not have any peripheral vision; and countless 
women and girls have been known to have had traffic accidents in their 
cities because they simply cannot see where they are going. In fact, 
the Taliban regime is so wary of women that it has ordered that 
publicly-visible windows where these women live be painted black so 
that no man can see inside of those homes.
  Women who dare to defy these edicts imposed by the Taliban are 
subjected to brutal beatings, public floggings, or even death. For 
example, a woman who defied the Taliban orders by running a home school 
for girls was killed in front of her friends and family. A woman caught 
trying to flee Afghanistan with a man not related to her was stoned to 
death for adultery. An elderly woman was brutally beaten with a metal 
cable until her leg was broken because her ankle was accidentally 
showing underneath this burqa. But it is doubtful this woman ever had 
the chance to see a doctor or a physician, because male doctors are not 
allowed to treat women and women doctors are not allowed to practice 
their profession.
  The most heart wrenching part of this story, though, is that millions 
of children, young girls, are growing up in a hostile environment. Here 
I have, Mr. Speaker, some artwork created by little girls growing up in 
Afghanistan. And even though we cannot read the writing, because this 
is a foreign language to me, it depicts what they are suffering, what 
they have seen with their own eyes. Basically, in this picture here, 
what we see are young girls, one woman in the background with the 
shroud, the other two holding and grasping their hands and looking at a 
fellow colleague who has been slain in front of a school house. Near 
the school house is a Taliban soldier carrying a rifle.
  These are the kinds of things that these youngsters are having to go 
through every single day of their lives, since 1996. Here, on this 
side, we see a picture depicting three women covered in their shrouds, 
almost held by chains up against a tower that looks like an area where 
praying goes on. These are some of the vicious kinds of things that 
these women are seeing and feeling, actual real-life incidents that are 
occurring in Afghanistan.
  Despite these repeated condemnations of the Taliban actions by the 
international community, little has changed in Afghanistan; and 
millions of women and children, innocent people, caught in the 
crossfire of the Taliban's artillery have fled to the outskirts of 
Afghanistan to refugee caverns in Pakistan, where disease and 
starvation run rampant.
  Despite the fact that we have air-dropped more than 100,000 food 
rations in Afghanistan, international relief organizations are 
repeatedly warning us that these military food drops fall too short of 
fulfilling the need. Part of the problem is that we are not sending 
enough food. And although the administration has pledged $320 million 
in humanitarian relief efforts to Afghanistan, the United Nations 
estimates that it will take $584 million to see Afghanistan through the 
long cold winter.
  We need more help from the international community to ensure that 
these innocent Afghani citizens do not starve to death. Every effort 
has to be made to provide these people with adequate resources to 
survive this upcoming harsh winter, but part of the problem is that the 
food that we have dropped is not reaching these people. Many of these 
ready-to-eat meals are not being collected by the Afghani people, and 
in some cases are not easily located. Other times it is because the 
people fear retaliation for accepting the U.S. aid. Finally, some of 
the meals are falling into the hands of the Taliban forces that we are 
working so hard to fight against.
  It is important for us to provide humanitarian aid to the people of 
Afghanistan, but aid alone cannot be the sole means of action. It is up 
to the United States and the Members of this body to speak for the 
class of women who are too oppressed to speak for themselves. We must 
work with the women of Afghanistan to form a more representative 
government, one that recognizes their accomplishments and allows them 
to participate in the process of democracy. We must be vigilant in our 
attempts to force the Taliban government to alter its treatment of 
women and girls and begin to correct these transgressions. Only by 
bringing these offenses to light can we hope to combat them.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Millender-McDonald), who is also co-chair of the Women's Caucus.
  (Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend her remarks.)
  Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Speaker, let me first thank my colleague, 
the gentlewoman from the

[[Page H6893]]

great State of California (Ms. Solis), for her leadership in bringing 
this very important issue to the forefront this evening.
  You might recall, Mr. Speaker, that the Congressional Caucus on 
Women's Issues met just a couple of weeks ago with the Ambassador to 
Pakistan to talk about the conditions of women in the Central Asia 
area. In talking with her, we realized the atrocities that women are 
continuing to go through in Afghanistan. This is an issue that the 
Congressional Caucus on Women's Issues have now made as a top priority 
in this House; and it is a bipartisan effort, because, Mr. Speaker, 
years ago, as you can see by this very old paper, many of us tried to 
fight this issue on the atrocities, the genocide of women in 
Afghanistan.
  Let me simply read some of the things that we talked about back in 
1996. We talked to reporters to ask why they had not reported the 
atrocities against women. They simply said that the situation had 
received so little coverage because they were not sure that Americans 
were interested in this kind of news. Well, Mr. Speaker, the women of 
this House, the women around this country and across this Nation, and 
the women around the world are very much interested in how women are 
treated in Afghanistan. They are absolutely stripped of their very 
basic fundamental rights, a right to freedom of expression and the 
right to assemble. There is no way that we women in America can stand 
and allow women in other parts of this world to be treated so 
inhumanely.
  A lot of us saw just a couple of weeks ago this ``Beneath the Veil'' 
documentary. That in itself told the story, the story of how women are 
treated. They are stripped of basic fundamental rights to education and 
training. They cannot even educate their children. We, in America 
cannot continue to allow these types of things to happen. These women 
and children are the first victims of this Taliban regime, this very 
rogue group of men who are allowing women to not have their basic 
rights.
  Those of us here in the Women's Caucus have started this campaign. 
Tomorrow, I speak to a group of women again on the conditions of 
Afghani women. Next week, the Women's Caucus will be meeting with the 
Department of Defense to better understand the humanitarian efforts 
that they are putting forth and to make sure that the women and the 
children get the rightful benefits of this humanitarian effort that our 
President is putting forth. We applaud our President for the millions 
of dollars and for those relief efforts. But as I called the White 
House, I wanted to remind the President and the administration that we 
cannot just simply send this over and not have as a condition that 
women and children have their rightful share in this relief effort.

  We will introduce legislation this week, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that 
there will be Radio Free Afghanistan. We are not going to stop. We 
simply cannot do that. We, as the women of this House, are destined to 
make sure that the wellness of women goes across the hue, goes across 
the waters, goes not only from this country but to Afghanistan and 
other countries throughout the world. We must make sure that we fight 
for those women.
  Let me just say this, Mr. Speaker. The women, as the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Solis) has said, have been banned from working; the 
women and girls are prohibited from attending schools. But let me tell 
you some other things that are just absolutely inhumane. Women have 
been brutally beaten, publicly flogged, and killed for violating 
Taliban decrees, decrees that they have imposed on no one else. Let me 
cite some more horrific examples. A woman who defied the Taliban orders 
by running a home school for girls was killed in front of her families 
and friends. A woman caught trying to flee Afghanistan with a man not 
related to her was stoned to death for adultery. An elderly woman was 
brutally beaten with a metal cable until her leg was broken because her 
ankle was accidentally showing beneath that burqa that was demonstrated 
earlier.
  We will not stop, Mr. Speaker. Our campaign is continuing. As you see 
this very yellow paper, where we started in 1996, we will continue to 
fight until justice is brought to the women of Afghanistan and to that 
region. We want our children to be educated. We want them educated 
here; we want them educated there.
  And so I will simply say tonight is a night that we shed the light; 
we put the light on these atrocities. The documentary ``Beneath the 
Veil'' just reenergized us so that we can continue to fight for these 
women and children. I will be here throughout the rest of this hour to 
speak as we continue to unveil these atrocities against women and 
children, the suffering they endure at the hands of this Taliban 
regime, which absolutely has no regard for women and children. We will 
not tolerate the inhumane way by which they function.
  So I would simply say to my dear friend and colleague that we thank 
her for bringing this Special Order tonight so that we can unveil these 
horrors and continue to fight for the women of Afghanistan.
  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from 
New York (Mrs. Maloney), who has also agreed to speak on this topic. I 
do want to go back, first, however, and thank the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Millender-McDonald), who spoke very eloquently about 
the current crisis that is occurring and that we are faced with, not 
just in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan and other Middle Eastern 
countries.
  We hope that tonight's discussion will lead our leaders to the 
direction of providing humanitarian assistance to those families that 
are in need, particularly those women and those young girls.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York 
(Mrs. Maloney).
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. I thank the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Solis) for organizing this Special Order and speaking out for the 
women in Afghanistan.
  Mr. Speaker, the attacks of September 11 broke the hearts and boggled 
the minds of most every American. It left us all wondering just what 
kind of people would turn planes into bombs and slaughter thousands of 
people simply because they showed up for work. The answer is the 
Taliban, the terrorists among the Taliban, the terrorists they harbor, 
and the terrorists they refuse to surrender. But anyone who was 
familiar prior to September 11 with how the Taliban treat women should 
have recognized that the Taliban are capable of doing just about 
anything.

                              {time}  2245

  The Taliban have controlled 90 percent of Afghanistan since 1996 when 
they unilaterally declared an end to women's basic human rights. The 
restrictions on women's freedoms in Afghanistan are unfathomable to 
most Americans. Women are banished from working. Girls are not allowed 
to attend school beyond the eighth grade.
  Women and girls cannot venture outside without a burqa which they are 
forced to wear. It is an expensive, heavy, cumbersome garment which 
covers the entire body, and it includes a mesh panel covering the eyes. 
The veil is so thick it is difficult to breathe. The mesh opening for 
the eyes makes it extremely difficult to even cross the road.
  Women must be escorted by male relatives to be allowed to leave their 
homes. Women are not allowed to seek health care from male doctors, 
even in emergency situations. Female doctors and nurses are not 
permitted to work, so women and girls are dying from treatable 
illnesses. An Afghan woman dies in childbirth every 30 seconds.
  Violate the Taliban's draconian strictures, deliberately or 
accidentally, and you will pay dearly, sometimes with your life. Women 
who trip while crossing the road and show their face or ankles risk 
being beaten, arrested or even executed.
  A 16-year-old girl was stoned to death because she went out in public 
with a man who was not her family member. A woman who was teaching 
children in her home was also stoned to death in front of her husband, 
her children and her female students. An elderly woman was beaten and 
suffered a broken leg because she exposed her ankle in public.
  These atrocities are real, and the economic consequences for women 
are just as severe. They cannot earn money because they are not allowed 
to work.

[[Page H6894]]

 Since they have no means of supporting themselves, many Afghan widows 
have no income at all. Unless they have a close male family member, 
they have no access to society or food for families and themselves.
  Mr. Speaker, let us be clear, we are at war with the Taliban strictly 
because they are harboring Osama bin Laden and because they are 
involved in terrorism against the United States. Still, this just war 
which we have no choice but to wage has contributed to a humanitarian 
tragedy of staggering proportion.
  Our commitment to helping the innocent people of Afghanistan must 
never waiver. There are now 1.5 million Afghan refugees along the 
Pakistan border. More than half of them are women. 66,000 are pregnant. 
Winter is imminent.
  I salute the Bush administration for balancing war for compassion, 
for dropping food as well as bombs. Even in war, we are showing a 
regard for human life and human rights that the Taliban will never 
know.
  The good news is that the Taliban's days are numbered, and that some 
women from Afghanistan are fighting for their freedom. I am submitting 
for the Record an inspiring article by Rone Tempest of the L.A. Times. 
It is about the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, 
or RAWA. RAWA sends women on dangerous missions into Afghanistan to set 
up secret schools for girls and to use cameras to document the abuse of 
women.
  In Pakistan, RAWA runs hospitals, schools, orphanages and refugee 
camps. In the face of the most repressive regime in the world, women 
are risking their lives to gain rights so basic that we in the United 
States do not even think about them.
  Well, this is a night to think about them and to express solidarity 
with our persecuted sisters in Afghanistan. We will continue to send 
humanitarian aid. We will continue to battle the Taliban, and the women 
in Afghanistan who are fighting for freedom should know that they are 
not fighting in vain. The women in Congress, the women across this 
country are standing with them.
  The article previously referred to is as follows:

                     Training Camp of Another Kinid

       In Pakistan, defiant young Afghan women bent on reversing 
     years of brutal oppression study and plan. To them, the 
     conflict has no good guys.
       Khaiwa Refugee Camp, Pakistan--The sprawling refugee camps 
     on the Pakistani-Afghan border have long been breeding 
     grounds for male militants in Afghanistan--first for the 
     moujahedeen fighters who battled the Soviet occupation in the 
     1980s and, more recently, for the fundamentalist Taliban.
       But here in the dusty, abused terrain of Pakistan's 
     northwestern frontier, the Khaiwa refugee camp is a uniquely 
     feminist outpost.
       Women in the Khaiwa camp shun the head-to-toe raiment known 
     as a burka. Girls study science and Koranic scripture in a 
     mud-walled school and dream of attending university. The 
     camp's male physician, Dr. Qaeeum, vows that his infant 
     daughter will be educated ``from cradle to grave, until 
     PhD.''
       Khaiwa is a training ground for a different kind of 
     fighter: intense young women bent on reversing the trend of 
     female oppression that has helped hurtle Afghanistan into a 
     new dark age.
       For the female activists based here, there are no good guys 
     among the factions battling for supremacy in their homeland--
     not in the notorious Taliban and not in the opposition 
     Northern Alliance. They worry that in the international rush 
     to bring down the Taliban, the United States and its allies 
     will form partnerships with the Northern Alliance or with 
     other groups that also have a history of brutally oppressing 
     women.
       ``The devil is the brother of evil. The dog is the brother 
     of the world,'' Khaiwa camp school Principal Abeda Mansoor 
     said in her native Dari language. ``We condemn both the 
     Taliban and the Northern Alliance.''
       Mansoor, a former geography teacher in Afghanistan, is a 
     16-year member of the Revolutionary Assn. of the Women of 
     Afghanistan, or RAWA, a small but influential rights group 
     that sends women on dangerous missions into Afghanistan to 
     set up clandestine schools for girls and to use hidden 
     cameras to document abuse of women. Under the Taliban's harsh 
     version of Islam, girls cannot attend school and women are 
     prohibited from working outside the home.
       Displayed on the association's Web site at www.rawa.org, 
     secretly taken photos and videos of public executions and 
     floggings have played a major role in building international 
     opposition to the Taliban. The recent critically acclaimed 
     documentary ``Beneath the Veil,'' by London-based filmmaker 
     Saira Shah, was made with the help of RAWA workers who 
     escorted Shah in Afghanistan.
       In Pakistan, the group operates hospitals, schools and 
     orphanages in the camps where 2 million Afghan refugees live. 
     But even here, their activities remain mostly secret. 
     Taliban-style fundamentalism thrives in many of the camps. A 
     recent RAWA human rights procession in Islamabad, the 
     Pakistani capital, was attacked by stick-wielding 
     fundamentalist students.
       But the Khaiwa camp, in the middle of a rutted quarry 
     surrounded by smoking brick kilns, is an island of tolerance. 
     It is small and exceptional, home to only 500 families. But 
     it is a microcosm of what Afghanistan might resemble if it 
     was freed of religious extremism and civil war.
       Safora Wali, 30, manages the camp's small orphanage, home 
     to 20 Afghan girls ages 6 to 19. A former student at Kabul 
     University in the Afghan capital, Wali also teaches older 
     women in the camp how to read.
       ``My oldest student is 45 years old,'' Wali said. ``She's 
     so happy now to be able to read letters from her relatives. 
     She told me, `I now know the pleasures of my eyes.' ''
       The Khaiwa camp was founded in the early 1980s by one of 
     the more enlightened moujahedeen commanders, who believed in 
     universal education. He allowed RAWA workers into the camp to 
     teach and counsel the families. The camp eventually became 
     known as an open-minded haven for the RAWA activists, who run 
     the 450-student school and the orphanage.
       Wali came to the camp last year from western Afghanistan 
     after Taliban authorities found her distributing RAWA 
     literature and she was forced to flee.
       In Afghanistan, Khaiwa is known as a place to send girls 
     who are threatened by either the religious restrictions of 
     the Taliban or the sexual aggression of Afghan warlords.
       Danish, 15, said she was sent here after her father was 
     killed by agents of the former Communist government in Kabul. 
     She said her mother still lives in Afghanistan but could no 
     longer protect her.
       Like the other girls in the four-room adobe orphanage, she 
     wants to finish high school and reenter Afghanistan as a RAWA 
     operative--teaching in underground home schools.
       When asked by a reporter how many of them planned to go to 
     work for RAWA, all but the youngest of the 20 girls raised 
     their hands.
       Women in Afghanistan have suffered a long history of 
     repression punctuated by brief periods of progressive 
     leadership.
       Inspired by the reforms of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of 
     modern Turkey, self-styled King Amanullah lifted the veil of 
     subjugation for a short period in the late 1920s. But women 
     in Afghan cities probably enjoyed their greatest freedom 
     during the Soviet-backed Communist regime that ruled in Kabul 
     from 1979 to 1992.
       RAWA was founded in the capital in 1977. But its founder, 
     known by the single name Meena, opposed the Soviet occupation 
     and joined resistance forces to fight against it. Considered 
     an enemy by both the Communist regime and the fundamentalist 
     moujahedeen, Meena was assassinated in a Quetta, Pakistan, 
     refugee camp in 1987.
       Sahar Saba, 28, who like many of the RAWA activists uses a 
     pseudonym for protection, grew up in one of the Quetta camps 
     and was educated in a RAWA school. Now she works as a 
     spokeswoman for the group in Islamabad and travels abroad 
     seeking foreign support.
       Saba came to Pakistan when she was 7 after the Soviet 
     invasion of Afghanistan. Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks 
     on the United States, she has spent much of her time working 
     to make sure that the U.S. and its allies do not forget the 
     cause of women's rights as they continue their campaign 
     against the Taliban.
       Besides providing a well-documented history of the 
     Taliban's suppression of women, RAWA has recorded hundreds of 
     cases of abuse by the Northern Alliance and non-Taliban 
     warlords.
       Saba and the other RAWA activists favor the return of 
     Mohammad Zaher Shah, the former Afghan monarch who was 
     deposed in 1973. Through the agency of the ex-king, she says, 
     Afghanistan could have a new leadership tainted neither by 
     the abuses of the warlords nor by the restrictions imposed on 
     women by the Taliban.
       When the Taliban swept into power in 1996, it capitalized 
     on its claim to be a ``protector of women.'' Taliban leader 
     Mullah Mohammed Omar gained fame by rescuing two girls who 
     had been kidnapped by a warlord. According to Taliban Iore, 
     Omar killed the man and hanged his body from the barrel of a 
     tank.
       ``The parties that were in power before the Taliban were in 
     some ways worse,'' Saba acknowledged. ``Many girls were 
     raped. Many others committed suicide.
       ``When the Taliban came to power, women were safer,'' she 
     added. ``But they set the wheel of history back hundreds of 
     years.''

  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California 
(Mrs. Capps).
  Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend and thank my colleague, 
the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis) for organizing this special 
order on the plight of women in Afghanistan, and I thank also the 
Women's Caucus, particularly the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Millender-McDonald)

[[Page H6895]]

for hosting this and gathering us together to speak in solidarity with 
our sisters in Afghanistan who are enduring such terrible hardship and 
prejudice and imprisonment in their society.
  Mr. Speaker, it is an important topic which we should repeat over and 
over and over again in this well, even as we are able to do this in 
this country in stark contrast to the way of life our sisters across 
the world are now enduring.
  For 5 years the Taliban militia have ruled Afghanistan so severely 
restricting and denying a woman's right to participate in social, 
economic, cultural and political life. We have known about this and 
seen news accounts. 5 years is a long time.
  Prior to the Taliban control, many Afghani women held positions of 
great leadership, obtained higher education degrees, were engaged in 
professions and business interests in their community, adding to the 
vibrancy and strengthening of the economy. In the capital city of 
Kabul, 70 percent of school teachers, 50 percent of the civilian 
government workers, and 40 percent of the doctors were women. It is a 
different story today.
  Women are denied access to education entirely. They are barred from 
the workplace, and as we have been listening this evening in the 
special order, they are forced to remain in their homes. Family 
planning is outlawed in the region, and women are forbidden to see a 
male doctor or surgeon. And, of course, the female doctors and nurses 
are prohibited from working; and, therefore, the majority of Afghani 
women are unable to seek medical treatment of any kind. In this century 
in this world.
  For these reasons, I with my colleagues, 52 of my colleagues, are 
cosponsoring legislation condemning the destruction, the Taliban's 
deduction of preIslamic laws which until their rein were the law of the 
land. I am also cosponsoring a resolution with many of my colleagues 
which refuses to recognize the Taliban as the government of 
Afghanistan. Of course we are doing that for many reasons, but one of 
them surely must be the actions that they have taken against women and 
that they need to restore the women in Afghanistan their basic human 
rights.
  The square of fabric that many of us are wearing, a piece of the 
burqa, the clothing of the Afghani women, we wear as a sign of 
solidarity to their suffering and torment. And I came to the podium 
following my colleague who wore the entire burqa. As I watched the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) standing in this place, which 
is the symbol of freedom that all of us enjoy in this country, her 
voice muffled, she could barely read the words on the page. This is 
today, this modern world, and yet in Afghanistan, and of course a woman 
would not even be allowed to be here, but they are confined even within 
their homes to wearing this kind of garment.
  Women, as we have heard this evening and will continue to hear I am 
sure, women who ignore the decrees are beaten, publicly flogged and 
even murdered for a slight infraction of the rules. Through such public 
beatings the Taliban has succeeded in cowing the civilian population 
into submission, so it is even more critical during this time of 
political upheaval and turmoil that this country, the United States, 
continue to provide humanitarian assistance to the children and also to 
the women who have been forced to flee from their native land and 
forced to live the kinds of lives that they are living.

  We remain and must remain committed to bringing the Taliban into 
compliance with international norms of behavior on all human rights 
issues. I know all of us stand in awe here as we speak on this topic. 
We stand in awe before the women of Afghanistan who are daring, even 
against all of these signs of oppression, daring to speak out, daring 
to gather the children together to teach, the young women, the girls, 
to offer them classes knowing that if they are caught, their lives will 
be ended.
  Even as we speak freely in the House, our sisters in Afghanistan are 
finding ways to gather together to strengthen each other, to hold on to 
their inner burning of freedom, and they are counting on us to give 
them support.
  Across this land there are groups that have sprung up. In my district 
I was approached by several women who are part of organizations 
contributing money to give aid directly to these women to support them 
in their freedom-fighting mission that really does reach to the heart 
of what we stand for in this country. So we stand in awe and solidarity 
with the women of Afghanistan, and we must work in this place.
  Mr. Speaker, that is why I say to my colleagues, I hope this is just 
the beginning of our speaking out. We must speak out in ways across 
this country to join people together, women, but everyone together, to 
support the efforts of women in Afghanistan, to throw off their yokes 
of oppression and to be able to return to a life that they know and 
burns within them, the passion for that way of life in their hearts.
  We have to find a way to let them know that the world is watching and 
supporting them and encouraging them in their struggle to retain and 
regain their sense of dignity and regain their personal freedoms.
  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. 
Kaptur).
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Solis) for bringing us together this evening so all of us coast to 
coast can express our union and solidarity with the women of 
Afghanistan, with those who are in country with their children, for 
those who have fled and are fleeing and are in refugee camps in Iran, 
in Pakistan, in Tajikistan, and God knows where else.
  As I have read the press reports and I have been watching television 
and reading the newspapers and looking at the demonstrators and 
thinking about our role in the world and that region of the world, I 
keep looking for women and every picture only has men. Men fighting, 
men drinking tea, men demonstrating, and I keep saying, where are the 
women? Where are the women? Knowing that war has ravaged through that 
region for many, many years; and obviously there are more women than 
men. The demographics alone, because of war, would attest to that. So 
where are they?
  In coming here to this chamber this evening I kept thinking about the 
words of the great Negro national anthem, and the words that ring in my 
ears tonight, ``God of our silent tears, God of our weary years,'' a 
song borne of the great struggle for freedom in our own land and across 
the world, of those who were placed in slavery and whose heroic history 
has been so much part of America's own struggle for liberty.
  I kept thinking about the silent tears of the women of Afghanistan 
and so many women of the Middle East and Central Asia. I thought about 
their silent tears. I thought most of the world never sees those tears 
because we do not see them, and under that burqa you cannot see 
anything.
  In fact, I tried to look out of it as I handled it on the floor, and 
one cannot really see very well out of it. It looks like you are 
looking through a multi-screened door where so much of the light is 
shut out. Truly you feel like a prisoner. It is a visible symbol of the 
abysmal human rights record of the Taliban regime and the fact that 
women have no official dignity. In fact, they are beasts of burden. 
They are there to cook. They are there to carry their children and to 
bury their children. And they have absolutely no moment, no moment, no 
place, no home. No place of comfort. No place to hide, no place just to 
be.
  They are in our hearts this evening because many of us understand 
some of the tinges of oppression, but nothing like what they are living 
through.

                              {time}  2300

  Others this evening have talked about their lack of access to health 
care and the fact that they can receive no health services. I can 
remember Congresswoman Pat Schroeder on this floor one evening talking 
about the fact that during World War I, more women died in childbirth 
than people were killed in the war. This is before health services were 
available to people. Can you imagine the struggle of bearing a child in 
Afghanistan?
  God of our silent tears; God of our weary years. We think of them 
especially tonight. I learned from the world food program last week 
that, of course, the United States has provided some of the meager food 
sustenance that has kept that population alive over the last several 
years. Over 257 bakeries have

[[Page H6896]]

been started inside Afghanistan just to make use of the raw wheat, and 
the diet basically is a piece of wheat bread that looks like pita and 
tea, that is about what the average person eats every day. But the 
Taliban had ruled that because women, the mothers, the widows, were 
feeding the people and working in those bakeries, that they would shut 
those bakeries down because, in fact, women were doing the work and 
women were not allowed to be seen in public.
  And there was such civil unrest across that country that the Taliban 
reversed its own ruling because the people were fighting for their own 
survival in a country that is now prefamine and the world community is 
desperately trying to find ways to move donkey trains in there with 
wheat bags and trying to move product in any way that we can in order 
to help the civilian populations. We know the majority of people trying 
to feed the desperate are women and many of them are widows.
  Tonight, I know that every single woman here thinks about the future, 
and every man and woman in our country wants to help those who are in 
dire need. I know that in the weeks ahead, this Women's Caucus through 
the leadership of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender-
McDonald), who has just been fantastic in her leadership on this issue, 
and so many others is going to make sure that our Women's Caucus keeps 
in sight, in fact right in the bull's-eye of U.S. policy in that region 
of the world humanitarian assistance and food programs, in fact, 
linking our food programs to education wherever we can possibly do it 
and that America's true greatness and the generosity of its people will 
be seen extending a hand across the ocean and a hand across a forgotten 
part of the world. We want every life that can be saved to be saved, 
and we know that our first partners in this effort will be the women of 
Afghanistan who know the price of life and the price of death.
  This evening, we rise in their honor. Those of us who are wearing 
these little squibs of cloth cut from the burqa, we will not forget 
them. We ask the God of silent tears and God of weary years to be with 
them, to protect them and to know that we are in sisterhood and 
brotherhood with them.
  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. 
Jackson-Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. I thank the distinguished Congresswoman 
from California, and I thank her very much for creating this 
opportunity for the women of this House to come together and to 
embrace, though distant, our sisters far away. You notice that the tone 
of our voice is somewhat somber and solemn. Tears are in our voices and 
tears are in our hearts and minds. We as women, however, are 
strengthened by the unity that we are showing tonight because we 
believe we are linked with our sisters in Afghanistan and those who 
have escaped Afghanistan and are on the perimeters around in the 
different countries fighting from the outside for their sisters who are 
now contained.
  I want to thank the distinguished gentlewoman from California because 
I believe that we should be on this floor day after day and night after 
night, create a movement, create an engine, create a movement that 
cannot be turned around. In fact, I would suggest, in following your 
lead and that of the Women's Caucus and my friend and colleague the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender-McDonald), who has given 
such comfort to women around the world, but also to the leadership of 
the women in the caucus.

  We are known to have marched a day or two. I believe this may be the 
time to march for the women of Afghanistan, whether we take all the 
women of this House, or whether we ask women from the community to join 
us. I am reminded of the phrase, when women pray, things happen. When 
women march, when women speak, things happen. And the tragedy of the 
women in Afghanistan is so enormous, so frightening, so vicious, so 
violent that I think this day tonight is setting the tone; and I thank 
you very much for your leadership.
  I do not know if people are aware, and I know that many of my 
colleagues might have already cited these numbers and statistics, but 
for me they loom very large. Journalist Jan Goodwin, before the Taliban 
banned female employment, gave us a bird's-eye view what women were 
doing before the Taliban banned women working. Seventy percent of the 
teachers in Kabul were women, 50 percent were civil servants and 
university students, and 40 percent were doctors. Today, lawyers and 
doctors who happen to be female cannot practice. They cannot practice 
medicine. They cannot practice law. Women are totally deprived of the 
right to education, of the right to work, of the right to travel, of 
the right to good health care, of the right to legal recourse, of the 
right to recreation, of the right to being a human being.
  Those who are listening, men and women, know how much we pride our 
freedom in the United States even after the heinous acts, the horrific 
acts of September 11. Our lives changed after that day, but we still 
understand the first amendment, freedom of access, freedom of speech. 
We demand good health care, good education. We are always looking to 
improve the lot of others. And when that does not happen, we speak out 
against it and try to improve it.
  But in this country, there are no rights for women. They cannot move 
about. They cannot be educated. They cannot go into a courtroom and 
protest how they are treated. They cannot laugh. They cannot be full of 
joy. They cannot skip rope. They cannot play tennis. They cannot go 
swimming. They cannot recreate. They cannot go into the mountains and 
hills to look at the beauty of the sunrise or the sunset. They cannot 
be mountain climbers. They cannot be bicycle riders. They cannot enjoy 
life.
  Although we respect the Islamic faith, this is not a denigration and 
a disrespect because our faiths are different, because we love the 
diversity of our faiths in this country, the diversity of our ethnic 
backgrounds, our racial backgrounds. We love the fact that America 
applauds the differences, but we acknowledge that the fundamentalism of 
Islamic faith treats women as subhumans, and it fits them in a category 
that can only be described as slavery and only as a source of 
procreation.
  And so I think that it is extremely important to note that the life 
and plight of women in Afghanistan has gone to its lowest level.

                              {time}  2310

  Female education, from kindergarten to graduate school, is banned, 
and employment for women is banned. The beating of women for 
disciplinary action is accepted and routine. Women must be covered with 
the material that is on my suit top. They must be covered from head to 
toe. The burqa. You can hardly breathe. It is so hot. You can hardly 
see. You cannot enjoy, you cannot live.
  The whipping of women in public for having non-covered ankles is 
acceptable. A ban on women laughing loudly is acceptable. A ban on 
women wearing brightly covered clothing is acceptable. Women are 
prohibited from going outside except for government-sanctioned 
purposes.
  Finally, I would say that we love to wake up in the morning, hear the 
birds sing, smell the beautiful fragrances, go outside, travel as we 
desire to do. We desire to express freedom. But here in Afghanistan 
these women are not allowed to enjoy freedom, to enjoy the simple 
pleasures of life. And out of that tragedy comes more tragedy, such 
that a 20-year-old educated woman burned herself with gasoline as a way 
out of all of her misery that had poisoned her life for years. Her 
young life, she sought to extinguish it because she could see no future 
for someone who desired to be a bright and shining star.
  So I hope that as we speak tonight some way, somehow, the women of 
Afghanistan are listening to us, and that they will know that we are 
united with them in sisterhood, and as they see that we are united, I 
would hope that we would move to the next step, which is to march for 
the freedom of the women in Afghanistan and on behalf of their survival 
and their life in the future.
  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Millender-McDonald).
  Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Speaker, I would just merely say the 
collective voices you have heard tonight simply is a determination to 
ensure that the women of Afghanistan be

[[Page H6897]]

given their rightful spot of freedom and democracy, and we will not 
stop until that is done. We will do an international strategy to ensure 
that the type of human rights that they deserve will be given to them.
  We thank again this outstanding young freshwoman, freshman, fresh-
person, for tonight's special order, and for that, I am not sure if she 
wants to say a few words, but I thank her so much.
  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, in closing I just want to reiterate the 
importance of our discussion here tonight. Let us not forget the 
shroud, the burqa, that may veil and provide coverage in a foreign land 
that we do not know, but let us remember here as women, as Members of 
the House of Representatives, and our male colleagues, that we shall 
not go unheard; that our voices will be heard throughout the country 
and throughout the world; and that we are not just pleading for those 
woman who are suffering, those children in Afghanistan, but throughout 
the Middle East. There are many women who are treated very differently 
in other parts of the Middle Eastern countries. They do not have to 
wear this shroud. They walk in honor, they walk in dignity. They have 
education, they have jobs. We want that for women of Afghanistan, and 
we will not stop until our voices are heard.
  I want to thank the Women's Caucus and the Members that shared the 
dais with me this evening, and for the artwork that was provided for us 
tonight, so that Members might see what young girls in Afghanistan are 
seeing through their eyes.
  Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, our lives are marked by noises 
and silences. We wake each morning to an alarm clock, we return to bed 
quietly each night to sleep. We hear the scream of our children being 
born, the cheers at their graduation ceremonies, and the hush at the 
funerals of our parents. To these, we have recently added the low 
rumble of buildings collapsing, the tones of thousands of Americans 
singing before our baseball games and on the steps of the U.S. Capitol 
building, and the silence of moments of private reflection.
  The lives of the millions of women in Afghanistan are also marked by 
the noises and silences around them. They hear the sound of their front 
doors closing as their husbands leave for jobs, something these women 
are no longer allowed to hold. As they walk by schools, always 
accompanied by a male relative, they hear lessons being taught, but 
only to their sons. These women hear the sound of beatings and public 
executions of women suspected of adultery, or who have cut their hair 
short, worn colorful clothes, nail polish, or white socks.
  The lives of women in Afghanistan often depend on silence. They must 
not walk loudly. They must not talk loudly. They must not laugh in 
public. They must wear burqas, allowing only some sight, covering their 
ears and mouths entirely.
  The women of Afghanistan recognize that their lives also depend on 
breaking silences. Through international aid organizations and their 
own resistance organizations, the experiences they have quietly 
whispered to each other have been passed along to the outside world. 
What was once a few, sporadic reports has become a chorus pleading for 
recognition and compassion.
  We must reassure these women that their pleas have echoed across 
mountains and oceans and reached our ears, and that we will answer 
them. The compassion we extend to our mothers, sisters, wives, and 
daughters must now be extended to the mothers, sisters, wives, and 
daughters in Afghanistan. Just as we have overcome our fear in the past 
few weeks, we must help these women overcome their fear by working to 
end the conditions which cause it.
  We must use our voices and all of our abilities to ensure that the 
quiet voices of the women in Afghanistan are heard loudly and freely 
not just here in the United States, but in all countries, and 
especially, their own.
  Ms. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to shed light on 
atrocities occurring halfway around the world. Long before the horrific 
events of September 11, the Taliban regime has been perpetrating 
egregious human rights violations against Afghan women and girls.
  When the fanatically religious Taliban militia seized control of 
Kabul in September 1996, Afghanistan was transformed into a brutal 
state of gender apartheid. Under the extremist Taliban rule, women and 
girls are denied the most basic human rights.
  The Taliban religious police, known as the ``Ministry for the 
Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice,'' monitor strict conformity 
to Taliban edicts. Women are forbidden to work, go to school, leave 
their homes unless accompanied by a male relative, or speak above a 
whisper in public.
  Many women are widowed due to their husbands being killed by the 
Taliban militia. They are routinely raped by militia men and forced to 
beg for scraps of food to feed their children. Other mothers hopelessly 
turn to prostitution, knowing that if they are caught, they will be 
publicly executed.
  Women are ordered to wear a burqa--a large, heavy cloth which covers 
the body from head to toe--with only a small mesh-covered opening 
through which to see and breathe.
  Women and girls are also denied access to basic health care services. 
They are denied admittance to most hospitals and from being examined by 
male physicians while prohibiting most female doctors and nurses from 
working.
  A violation of any of these Taliban decrees results in women being 
brutally beaten, publicly flogged, and killed.
  This regime is so heinous and oppressive that it executes little 
girls for the crime of attending school. Girls ages 8 and older caught 
attending underground schools are subject to being taken to the Kabul 
soccer stadium and made to kneel on the ground while an executioner 
puts a machine gun to the back of their heads and pulls the trigger. 
Spectators in the stands are instructed to cheer.
  An elderly woman was brutally beaten with a metal cable until her leg 
was broken because her ankle was accidentally showing from underneath 
her burqa.
  In a village outside of Kabul, three young girls were made to watch 
as the Taliban militia shot their mother in front of their eyes and 
then stayed in their home for two days while the mother's body lay in 
the courtyard.
  The despair among women and children is so extreme, Physicians for 
Human Rights reports that 76 percent of women living in Taliban-
controlled areas are suffering from severe depression and 16 percent of 
women committing suicide.
  The United States and the international community cannot turn its 
back on the plight of Afghan women and children. I was pleased by the 
President's recent announcement to increase humanitarian assistance to 
Afghan refugees, 75 percent of which are women and children.
  The United States must demonstrate that while we strongly oppose the 
Taliban regime, we support the people of Afghanistan. We must remain 
committed to improving the status of women and children in Afghanistan.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, women in Afghanistan have been suffering 
incredible human rights abuses since the extremist Taliban regime 
seized control of Afghanistan in 1996. Today, I rise in solidarity with 
Afghan women against this misogynist, fundamentalist regime and for 
women's rights.
  The treatment and condition of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban 
rule is deplorable. Women have been beaten and stoned in public for not 
being completely covered, even if this means simply not having mesh 
covering in front of their eyes. One woman was beaten to death by an 
angry mob of fundamentalists for accidentally exposing her arm while 
she was driving. Another victim was stoned to death for trying to leave 
the country with a man that was not her relative. Husbands have the 
power of life and death over their female relatives, especially their 
wives, but an angry mob has just as much right to stone or beat a 
woman, often to death, for exposing an inch of flesh. Women live in 
fear of their lives for the slightest ``misbehavior.''
  Women have been forced into poverty and destitution because they are 
not allowed to work or even go out in public without a male relative. 
Professional women such as professors, translators, doctors, lawyers, 
artists and writers have been forced from their jobs and restricted to 
their homes. Because they cannot work, those without male relatives or 
husbands are either starving to death or begging in the street.
  There is a public health epidemic growing among women in Afghanistan. 
Depression is becoming so widespread it has reached emergency levels. 
There is no way in such a society to know the suicide rate with 
certainty, but relief workers are estimating that the suicide rate 
among women is extraordinarily high. Health care has suffered on many 
other levels. Men are not allowed to examine women patients without a 
chaperone. And even then, women are only allowed to be examined through 
their clothes. Even in life saving situations, surgery is unavailable 
for women in this country, if they have money, they might travel to 
Pakistan for needed operations. More than 1 in every 100 women dies in 
childbirth. The infant mortality rate is at an alarming number of 165 
deaths per 1,000 births. Women give birth to their children on hospital 
floors and then watch them die due to minor complications. The Taliban 
regime is killing its own people.
  As we move forward with out mission to eradicate terrorism, we must 
look for natural allies in this process. I would like to draw attention 
to the work of an organization that has fought the injustices committed 
against Afghani women and society by the Taliban,

[[Page H6898]]

the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). RAWA 
strives to provide the basics of life, like education and health care, 
to women and girls in Afghanistan. The women of RAWA work underground, 
fighting for a true democracy and struggling to create a better life 
for the people of Afghanistan. These women fight at their own peril to 
create a better society. They are our allies. I urge this body and this 
government to recognize the voices of RAWA and provide support to their 
difficult, dangerous, and heroic work. We need to increase our efforts 
to help the women of Afghanistan live without their fundamental human 
rights violated. I hope this will be a policy that all of my colleagues 
can embrace.

                          ____________________