Swat Valley

There is a sense of relief as we prepare to leave Afghanistan and many wonder what is going to happen after we are gone. There is no certainty as to what will happen but we can look at Pakistan in 2009 when they agreed to turn over the Swat Valley to the Taliban in order to end the fighting. The Taliban immediately set up Sharia Law which meant that the progress toward women’s rights would come to a swift end. Here is just one example of what one may expect. “From January 15, girls will not be allowed to attend schools,” Mullah Shah Doran, the Taliban second in command in the scenic Swat Valley, announced in a recent radio address. Mullah Doran said educating girls is “un-Islamic.” Subsequently 120,000 girls were put out of school and 300 girl’s schools were burned to the ground. Are the women’s rights advocates here in the US going to express their concerns about this matter? Are we as citizens concerned?