In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, New York Senate candidate Hillary Clinton said that her vision of US foreign policy includes promoting women’s rights and human rights, humanitarian assistance and international family planning. Clinton said, “We will not have strong markets to invest in, or democratic allies to depend on if children aren’t in school, if ethnic cleansing is ripping apart communities and if women are being silenced and brutalized, as they are in Afghanistan.” Currently, the terrorist Taliban militia has taken over 95 percent of Afghanistan and his imposed strict gender apartheid on Afghan women and girls. Women are under virtual house arrest and have been barred from work and school. Under Taliban rule women have been stripped of their visibility, voice, and mobility.
A recent report by independent United Nations investigator, Kamal Hossain, revealed that the Taliban militia’s terrorism and repression of women continues and “cannot be justified under any reading of Islam” and that Taliban militia police “mete out punishment in a rough and ready manner without due process” to women and men alike.
