美国国家公共电台 NPR Opinion: As U.S. Seeks To Withdraw Troops, What About Afghanistan's Women?

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

I bought a burqa in a market when I covered the war in Afghanistan in 2002. I showed it to my wife when I got home and pulled the blue garment over my head to look through the single thin eye slit¹ that allowed an Afghan woman's only view of the world. That's when I truly understood why the Taliban had forced all women in Afghanistan to wear the burqa. It disguised, depersonalized and confined them.

This week, it was reported that the U.S. and the Taliban have agreed in principle to a plan that could end the war and bring home U.S. troops. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative, told The New York Times the Taliban has agreed not to permit Afghanistan to become a home for international terrorists. He did not mention any negotiations² regarding the rights of women, but I doubt any Afghan woman forgets the terror the Taliban created for women when they ruled the country.

Under the Taliban, women couldn't leave their homes without a male relative. Women couldn't go to school or work. They couldn't speak in public. They couldn't be treated by a doctor. They could be beaten for reading a book. If so much as an inch of a woman's flesh was exposed, like a flash of an ankle beneath the burqa when they walked, they could be beaten. Many women were beaten and raped³ and stoned to death. An unknown number of women took their lives. Several women told us how they had tried. They simply couldn't see an end to the misery⁴ of living under the cruel iron rule of the Taliban.

I remember going to the first soccer game in the Kabul stadium after the Taliban collapsed⁵. Every few minutes during the game, we'd hear a cheer from different parts of the crowd each time a woman stood up and threw off her burqa to show her face and show she had survived and triumphed.

Americans have grown pessimistic about the war in Afghanistan. More than 2,400 Americans have died there over the past 17 years. More than 45,000 Afghan security personnel have been killed just since 2014. The constitution Afghanistan adopted in 2004 enshrines the rights of women. And today, 27 percent of the members of the Afghan Parliament are women. But as many as two-thirds of school-age women in Afghanistan may not be in school because they live in areas where the Taliban is powerful.

Will the U.S. work for an agreement that will not only let U.S. troops declare victory over terrorism and go home but also help Afghan women live free from the terror of oppression?

1 slit   

n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂

参考例句：

• The coat has been slit in two places.这件外衣有两处裂开了。
• He began to slit open each envelope.他开始裁开每个信封。

2 negotiations   

协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过

参考例句：

• negotiations for a durable peace 为持久和平而进行的谈判
• Negotiations have failed to establish any middle ground. 谈判未能达成任何妥协。

3 raped   

v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的过去式和过去分词 )；强奸

参考例句：

• A young woman was brutally raped in her own home. 一名年轻女子在自己家中惨遭强暴。 来自辞典例句
• We got stick together, or we will be having our women raped. 我们得团结一致，不然我们的妻女就会遭到蹂躏。 来自辞典例句

4 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

5 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。