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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Doesn't look good for Afghanistan. Bombing Outside Afghan School Kills at Least 30, With Girls as Targets

23 replies

nickymanchester · 08/05/2021 20:12

This is being reported in a number of US news websites. This is an extract from the New York Times.

Women's lives in Afghanistan really are not going to get any better when the US forces leave it seems.

Bombing Outside Afghan School Kills at Least 30, With Girls as Targets

KABUL, Afghanistan — Powerful explosions outside a high school in Afghanistan’s capital on Saturday killed at least 30 people and wounded dozens more, many of them teenage girls leaving class, in a gruesome attack that underscored fears about the nation’s future after the impending American troop withdrawal.

The blast — and the targeting of girls as they left Sayed Ul-Shuhada high school — comes as rights groups and others have raised alarm that the American troop withdrawal will leave women, and their educational and social gains, particularly vulnerable.

The hope surrounding the U.S. withdrawal deal with the Taliban was that it might open the way for a lasting cease-fire, and a respite for civilians who are being killed in horrific numbers. But the reality as American troops depart is being driven home by massacres like this one — there has been more chaos than accord, and more fear than hope.

[...]

Sayed Ul-Shuhada hosts classes for boys in the morning and for girls in the afternoon. The attack occurred around 4 p.m., as the girls were leaving and the streets were packed with residents preparing for the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Dr. Mohammad Dawood Danish, the head of the Mohammad Ali Jinnah hospital in Kabul, said that 20 bodies and more than 40 wounded people were transferred to his hospital. Most of them were students, he said.

“The health condition of a number of girls is critical,” Dr. Danish said. Tariq Arian, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said 52 people had been wounded in all.

OP posts:
thepuredrop · 08/05/2021 20:14

Distressing and enraging in equal measure.

EmbarrassingAdmissions · 08/05/2021 20:20

I am concerned about the impact of this abrupt withdrawal and what it means for the safety and fragile gains of women and girls.

Did Biden do any form of wider impact assessment?

StrawberryLipstickStateOfMind · 08/05/2021 20:21

This is awful- it just doesn't bear thinking about. To send your children to school with the risk of such horrendous attacks happening. And to target girls, because they were being educated. It's heartbreaking and infuriating.

The cuts made to the ODA budget by the UK government will also make the lives of women and girls so much harder in countries like Afghanistan and many other fragile states and LMICs. Despite girls education supposedly being a priority.

BaronessWrongCrowd · 08/05/2021 20:23

That’s heartbreaking. Those poor girls and their families. All because they want an education.

FlibbertyGiblets · 08/05/2021 20:35

Horrific.

Whatwouldscullydo · 08/05/2021 22:44
Sad

Just awful

OppsUpsSide · 08/05/2021 22:46

I don’t think Biden cares too much about women and girls.

ErrolTheDragon · 08/05/2021 23:09

Awful, and horribly predictable.

What utter evil bastards.

Thecatonthemat · 08/05/2021 23:14

Awful news. So many promising young women. Entirely predictable .

BernardBlackMissesLangCleg · 08/05/2021 23:26

so bloody terrifying

this was Afghanistan in the 70s. How have we got here?

Doesn't look good for Afghanistan. Bombing Outside Afghan School Kills at Least 30, With Girls as Targets
persistentwoman · 08/05/2021 23:33

Terrible and depressing. I've taught a number of girls who are refugees from Afghanistan - most of them unable to attend school at all until they reached the UK. They all really value the education they get here.

jellyfrizz · 08/05/2021 23:33

@BernardBlackMissesLangCleg

so bloody terrifying

this was Afghanistan in the 70s. How have we got here?

It’s horrific that a large section of humanity thinks it’s ok to treat women in this way.
jellyfrizz · 08/05/2021 23:34

People that have mothers.

emi93 · 08/05/2021 23:35

My cousin in law was at university in Kabul when it got attacked a few months back...

She's still traumatised now.

They are targeting the future of Afghanistan. The students, they want to keep everyone uneducated so there is no prospects.

humanitariancisis · 09/05/2021 06:54

Unsurprisingly hasn’t made the BBC headlines.

ArabellaScott · 10/05/2021 09:04
Sad
UppityPuppity · 10/05/2021 09:08

Sickening. Why is this not getting more coverage in the press??!!!

RufustheBadgeringReindeer · 10/05/2021 09:34

It is just horrific

andyoldlabour · 10/05/2021 10:26

"this was Afghanistan in the 70s. How have we got here?"

Because the US thought it would be a better idea to support the Mujahideen (Now the Taliban) against the Soviet Union (who were supporting the government, who allowed girls to be educated safely). Had the Soviet backed Afghan government flourished, then women would have probably still be walking around like the ones in that photo.

InJest · 10/05/2021 10:35

Truly awful

peadarm · 10/05/2021 10:41

@persistentwoman

Terrible and depressing. I've taught a number of girls who are refugees from Afghanistan - most of them unable to attend school at all until they reached the UK. They all really value the education they get here.
Operation Cyclone was a major reason. In December 1978 the left-wing Afghan government signed a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union, and as a result the CIA poured colossal amounts of money into jihadist groups. with the intention of defeating the local leftist government and shrinking the Soviet area of influence. Returning Afghanistan to a feudal theocratic system was part of the plan, General Zia, Pakistan's military dictator, was a key ally, and Salafists in the Gulf states also shovelled huge amounts of money into the region to support the mujahideen.

The USA has of course switched sides since, but their former allies in Gulf countries and Pakistan remain major sponsors of the war on girls and women.

Jannetra17 · 10/05/2021 11:28

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