UN sees improvement in Taleban's attitude to women

By Tahir Ikram

ISLAMABAD, March 8 (Reuters) - U.N. officials said on Wednesday that Afghanistan's ruling Taleban movement had softened its stringent attitude on women's access to education and health but had not altogether abandoned its hardline stand.

Acting U.N. Coordinator for Afghanistan Sayed Ahmed Farah, told a news conference on International Women's Day that he saw some ``flexibility'' in the Taleban's policies towards women, which Western critics have dubbed ``gender apartheid.''

Afghan women in areas under Taleban control are largely denied formal education and jobs, except in health, although the Islamic movement says it will provide both when an economy broken by 20 years of war is put back on its feet.

``In terms of attitude, in terms of approach, I am not saying there has been a 100 percent turnaround,'' Farah said.

``But yes, (we have moved) from a very tough and a difficult period to a much more flexible period,'' he said.

He said the Taleban had slowly allowed the reopening of some of the girls' schools it closed after capturing the capital, Kabul, in 1996 and allowed restricted health facilities to women in what he saw as a ``positive change'' of attitude.

The Islamic Taleban, which emerged on the Afghan scene in 1994, controls more than 90 percent of the war-torn country and has imposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Soon after taking Kabul in 1996, they also placed restrictions on women's employment, travel and education, and enforced a strict dress code for them.

The movement also disallowed male doctors to examine female patients, because it said such a practice would be against Islam.

The Taleban initially said some of these restrictions were for the good of women in a country where law and order had eroded owing to several years of factional fighting.

GENDER APARTHEID

The movement says it is not against women's education but it does not have cash to build separate schools for boys and girls.

The Taleban's treatment of women has invited scathing criticism from human rights groups and several western governments.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright accused the Taleban in 1997 of gender apartheid, saying the movement's restrictions on women had virtually confined them to their homes.

Farah said the plight of the Afghan women was better now than it was during the height of the civil war, but the conflict had destroyed infrastructure and the economy and created new hardships in the home.

``They (women) daily fight for survival...They must cope with a situation where basic life is precarious,'' he said referring to the poor living conditions in much of Afghanistan.

Most of the United Nation's relief activities centre on women and children, who Farah said were always the most vulnerable sector of the population during wartime.

Other U.N. officials say the Taleban government, recognised only by neighbouring Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, knows it cannot afford sustained international isolation and has somewhat softened its stance on women.

Farah said international isolation would not be in the Taleban's ``self-interest'' and some concessions on women's issues might have been brought about by that realisation.

But the Taleban say they will gradually allow more women education as the country gets more stability.

Apart from its treatment of women, the Taleban is also criticised for its human rights record, drug trafficking and sheltering terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden, who is wanted by the United States for his alleged involvement in anti-American attacks.

The Taleban refuses to surrender bin Laden for a trial in the United States saying he is a guest of the Islamic movement.