(ambient music)
(shovel digging)
(dog barking)
(indistinct chattering)
[Narrator] A family of Afghan refugees
working as brick makers in a refugee camp in Pakistan.
Camps that have been in existence since 1980
when Afghans first fled war in their country.
Since then, millions of people had come and gone,
setting up makeshift lives,
earning a livelihood where they can,
surviving at the border of their estranged homeland,
at the border of an irrecoverable past.
(ambient music)
Some of them have lived in camps for over 20 years.
Others for just a few months.
(ambient music)
I came here in November 2000,
initially to talk with Afghan women
about their experiences of the Taliban.
It was known that the Taliban's rule was a repressive one,
but at that time, there was not much attention
on the plight of Afghan women.
There were women from all over Afghanistan in the camps.
Some out of tradition or fear still wore the burka.
Others felt safer not to.
I began to record their stories.
(indistinct chattering)
(Bibi Gul speaking in foreign language)
(Parwasha speaking in foreign language)
(Sabza speaking in foreign language)
(Koko-shirin speaking in foreign language)
(Parwasha speaking in foreign language)
(Sabza speaking in foreign language)
(Koko-shin speaking in foreign language)
(Bibi Gul speaking in foreign language)
(sorrowful music)
[Narrator] Interviewing many people,
I also learned that the Taliban
was only a part of a much broader story.
The story of how Afghan women have had their rights stripped
from them over the last two decades,
how they have not yet recovered even basic human rights.
Three women in particular allowed me
into their lives to tell this story.
First, there was Shapiray.
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
[Narrator] She and her family had fled the Taliban
and had been in Pakistan for only about a year and a half.
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
(indistinct chattering)
(door knocking)
(metal clinking)
(indistinct chattering)
(children speaking in foreign language)
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
(children speaking in foreign language)
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
(sorrowful music)
(children speaking in foreign language)
[Narrator] A few miles away
in the same camp is another essential service for refugees,
a basic healthcare clinic.
(indistinct chattering)
It was there that I met Dr. Roeena.
She had fled Afghanistan during the Civil War,
which happened from 1992 to 1996.
(Dr. Roeena speaking in foreign language)
(indistinct chattering)
(child cries)
(indistinct chattering)
(upbeat music)
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
(upbeat music)
(Dr. Roeena speaking in foreign language)
(upbeat music)
[Narrator] Both Shapiray and Roeena described
an almost idyllic time.
A time when women in the cities
could move freely without fear.
A time when they could dream of what they wanted to be.
It was during the reign of King Zahir Shah
who came to power in 1933.
Believing that women's participation was vital
to a modernizing society,
he opened up many traditionally male jobs
and professions to women.
Campaigns promoted all kinds of careers to women.
This film encouraged women to become bus drivers.
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
[Narrator] Schools and universities opened their doors.
Women's education was actively encouraged.
By 1964, women had the right to vote.
Forced and underage marriages once common were banned,
and no law governed how women should dress.
Even the king's wife appeared in public without the veil.
But these reforms were confined to the cities.
In the rural areas,
conservative tribal leaders still had control.
They supported the king
as long as he didn't impose his progressive ideas on them,
a bargain made to hold the country together.
But it came at the expense of women in the countryside
who were subject to centuries of tribal law
that held them under male control.
There were regional differences in how they were treated,
but in general, women were regarded as the property of men.
(indistinct chattering)
(birds chirping)
The third woman I met in the refugee camps was Wajia.
(Wajia speaking in foreign language)
[Narrator] She had grown up
in a rural area of Afghanistan.
(Wajia speaking in foreign language)
(plastic bag crinkling)
[Narrator] Wajia was working with a women's rights group,
the Revolutionary Association
of the Women of Afghanistan or RAWA.
(Wajia speaking in foreign language)
(indistinct chattering)
(student speaking in foreign language)
(Wajia speaking in foreign language)
(students speaking in foreign language)
[Narrator] RAWA's goal is to achieve a secular democracy
with rights for all women.
A goal more radical now
than it was when the group first formed in 1977.
The founder, known simply as Meena,
was then just 20 years old,
a fiery and charismatic student in Kabul.
(ambient music)
She wanted to bring rights
that women had been gaining in the cities
out to rural women.
Initially, RAWA's focus was on education
for women and girls,
but they were soon forced
to expand their activities in response
to the dramatic events of the next two decades.
(vehicles rumbling)
In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
The world was outraged
by the seemingly unprovoked act of aggression.
Yet a closer look at events paints a different picture.
The years before had been a tumultuous time.
In 1973, after a rule of 40 years, the king was overthrown.
A series of regimes rose and fell,
each with ever stronger ties to the Soviets.
They imposed radical changes on the whole country,
inflaming tribal leaders who saw the new order
as a violation of traditional ways.
In the United States, with a Cold war in full swing,
the Carter administration was alarmed
by the increasing Soviet influence,
and so began to secretly fund anti-government rebels
in June of 1979.
(indistinct chattering)
(dramatic music)
(vehicles rumbling)
The Soviets were determined
to maintain their influence over Afghanistan.
And within six months, in December of 1979,
they moved 100,000 troops across the Afghan border
and installed a puppet Afghan government.
(vehicles rumbling)
Soviet occupation had begun.
(dramatic music)
(Dr. Roeena speaking in foreign language)
(ambient music)
[Narrator] At first, women in the cities had mixed
feelings about the Soviets.
On the one hand, they benefited from expanded educational
and professional opportunities.
But on the other, they were under a foreign occupation.
(drums thumping)
Afghans increasingly resented the presence of Soviet forces.
Resistance intensified.
At first, the rebels were unorganized,
fighting only with homemade weapons
and makeshift battle plans.
(drums thumping)
The Soviets reacted with an iron fist, bombing villages.
(bomb exploding)
Imprisoning, killing thousands.
(birds quacking)
(Wajia speaking in foreign language)
(sorrowful music)
[Narrator] Millions of people fled to Pakistan,
often with just the clothes on their backs.
Months turned into years.
Years into decades.
Permanent homes replaced tents.
Temporary camps transformed into small towns.
(machine whirring)
(cat meowing)
(machine whirring)
(Wajia speaking in foreign language)
(birds chirping)
(machine whirring)
(indistinct chattering)
(birds chirping)
(sorrowful music)
(indistinct chattering)
(bomb exploding)
(sorrowful music)
[Narrator] The Soviet War changed everything
that Afghanistan once aspired to.
It's a complicated story that tells
how a nationalist struggle was transformed
into a pan-Islamic religious battleground.
How a form of fundamentalist Islam that had never
before existed in Afghanistan rose to power.
With consequences reverberating even now,
the women were afraid to speak of it on camera.
Though details of this history may vary,
the basic facts remain consistent.
The United States embroiled in the Cold War was determined
to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan at any cost.
They drastically increased support
for the Afghan resistance, using them as proxy fighters.
For the first few years, the support was covert.
No Americans in sight,
not even public admission that the US was running guns.
(guns shooting)
The money, weapons, and training didn't go
to just any Afghan rebels,
but went specifically
to the most extreme Islamic fundamentalists
who violently opposed modernization.
They viewed women as a distraction away from God
and were vehemently against their increased rights.
These men had no support in Afghanistan
and fled to Pakistan in the 1970s where they found a friend,
the fundamentalist dictator, General Zia.
Zia secretly managed the transfer
of American military support to the fundamentalists.
(speakers speaking in foreign language)
(gunshots fired)
(audience applause)
I take particular satisfaction in signing today
the commemoration of March 21st as Afghanistan Day
throughout the United States.
This resolution testified...
[Narrator] The Americans were well aware
of the human rights abuses of the fundamentalists
and of their brutal treatment of women.
(dramatic music)
So why did the US favor them over secular moderate fighters?
Firstly, the fundamentalists were better organized,
but more importantly, their religious ideology could
transcend national borders.
Seeing this potential,
the CIA began covertly to brand and sell religious war,
making the struggle for liberation
not just an Afghan cause, but a Muslim one.
Islam was its rallying cry,
and jihad, traditionally meaning
an internal spiritual struggle,
was recast as the military duty of all Muslims
to fight against the godless infidels of communism.
(speakers chanting)
[Narrator] For almost a decade,
the US and Saudi Arabia plied the fundamentalists
with billions of dollars.
Men without prospects, men without jobs,
poor civilians from all over the globe
enlisted in the call to arms,
stirred by an emotional appeal
and a salary they couldn't have dreamed of.
(indistinct chattering)
This alliance between the United States
and the fundamentalists was especially catastrophic
for Afghan women.
Supported by guns and money,
these men began to impose their fundamentalist agenda
on other Afghans.
Women became acceptable targets
for abuse in the name of religion.
(sorrowful music)
(rooster crowing)
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
(Dr. Roeena speaking in foreign language)
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
(sorrowful music)
[Narrator] Women found themselves
caught between two extremes.
One, an occupying army,
and the other, fundamentalists who wanted
to strip them of their rights.
RAWA had been running orphanages in clinics during the war.
They also rallied against Soviet occupation
and the fundamentalists,
stirring the anger of both.
They faced death threats and were forced underground.
Then in 1987, RAWA's leader, Meena went missing.
Her strangled body was found six months later.
It was determined that the murderers
were paid by both sides.
She was just 30.
Meena's death was a devastating blow to the women of RAWA.
Still, they were undeterred,
resolving to keep up Meena's legacy.
(women chanting)
(vehicles rumbling)
10 Long years of war.
In 1989, the Soviets finally withdrew their forces.
The Americans were jubilant in claiming
a Cold War victory over communism.
Afghanistan was devastated.
One and a half million women, men, and children were dead.
(cars beeping)
Dr. Roeena lives in the city
of Peshawar about a 40-minute drive from her clinic
in the camp.
(indistinct chattering)
(Dr. Roeena speaking in foreign language)
(indistinct chattering)
(ambient music)
(upbeat music)
(rooster crowing)
(indistinct chattering)
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
(indistinct chattering)
(rooster crowing)
(camera flashes)
(child speaking in foreign language)
(Shapiray's husband speaking in foreign language)
(brooding music)
[Narrator] The Soviets were gone,
but the nation did not see peace.
Scarred by 10 years of grueling war,
the fatigued Afghan population couldn't imagine
that things could get worse.
By 1992, the puppet government collapsed
leaving a power vacuum.
The United Nations appointed a government made up
of the same fundamentalists
supported by the US and Saudi Arabia.
(speakers chanting)
But these men were unable to share power.
Forming and reforming alliances,
they fell into fighting amongst themselves,
plunging the country again into war.
(vehicle roaring)
This time, civil war.
(gunshots fired)
Using the vast armaments left behind by their benefactors,
the fundamentalists wreaked havoc on the country.
(vehicle rumbling)
(vehicle hooting)
(Dr. Roeena speaking in foreign language)
(brooding music)
[Narrator] No rule of law.
No effective government.
Rampaging militias terrorizing civilians at will.
A relentless reign of bombs
and bullets over Kabul flattened sections of the city.
It was the most chaotic
and violent period Afghans had ever known,
but the eyes of the world had turned away.
Afghanistan was no longer news.
Only remnants of buildings remain as the markers
of massacres still unacknowledged.
Even denied.
(Dr. Roeena speaking in foreign language)
[Narrator] Women were the first victims
of the fundamentalist anarchy that swept the country.
The burka, which had never legally been enforced,
was now thrust upon women at gunpoint.
Assaulted and abducted by roving militia,
raped for just being visible.
Thousands of women disappeared.
Thousands more were mutilated.
Surviving with missing limbs and memories of horror.
It isn't fully known how many people were killed,
but the families of those missing remember.
(sorrowful music)
(Dr. Roeena speaking in foreign language)
(sorrowful music)
(indistinct chattering)
(birds chirping)
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
(Shapiray's husband speaking in foreign language)
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
(Shapiray's husband speaking in foreign language)
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
(Shapiray's husband speaking in foreign language)
(indistinct chattering)
(ambient music)
[Narrator] In the mid 1990s,
a new group emerged to confront the warlords.
They were called the Taliban.
A decade earlier,
they had grown up in the Pakistani refugee camps
where fundamentalist religious schools operated
by Pakistanis and Saudis
and partially funded by the United States,
offered them food, shelter, and a free education.
The education, however, was actually indoctrination
into an extreme form of Islam called Wahhabism,
previously unknown in Afghanistan.
(children singing)
(speakers chanting)
In the early 1990s, the Taliban crossed into Afghanistan.
Posing as champions of the common people,
they were welcomed as saviors.
They managed to drive out the war laws.
But once in power, they imposed the most repressive laws
Afghanistan had ever seen.
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
[Narrator] Kite flying was banned.
Playing music was banned.
Films and television were forbidden.
Men who didn't pray at the right times were beaten.
(Wajia speaking in foreign language)
(whistle blowing)
[Narrator] RAWA was the only women's group
to document the abuses of the Taliban.
They hid cameras in their burkas to record
what was happening around them.
(indistinct shouting)
(car hooting)
If they'd been discovered,
they would've almost certainly been killed.
(Wajia speaking in foreign language)
(indistinct shouting)
[Narrator] This woman was beaten
because her shoes made too much noise as she walked.
(brooding music)
In Kabul, people were rounded up
and forced to go to a central stadium to witness executions.
(announcer speaking in foreign language)
(gunshot fired)
[Narrator] Though public hangings, amputations,
and violence increased daily,
the world outside took little notice.
(indistinct chattering)
(ambient music)
(Shapiray's husband speaking in foreign language)
(brooding music)
[Narrator] Though most of the world
did not recognize the Taliban
as Afghanistan's official government,
in May 2001, the United States gave the Taliban
$43 million in aid.
Four months later, September 11th.
Almost 3,000 people were killed.
Osama bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire
and CIA confidant during the 1980s was held responsible.
He was living in Afghanistan
under invitation from the Taliban.
[George W. Bush] On my orders,
the United States military has begun
strikes against Al-Qaeda terrorist training camps,
military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
[Narrator] To capture him, a bombing campaign was launched
on the entire country of Afghanistan.
(brooding music)
(bombs exploding)
[Narrator] Returning to the area in November 2001,
I went to visit a hospital in Peshawar.
It was full of people injured by the US bombing.
This man was a farmer who'd been tilling his land
when a bomb struck.
One of his legs was blown off instantly.
The other leg had been amputated because of gangrene.
At the time of this filming,
he didn't yet know that his two legs were gone.
(sorrowful music)
About 80,000 people once again fled Afghanistan.
New refugee camps sprung up to accommodate them.
Revisiting the camps,
I came across a landmine awareness class for children,
an everyday activity.
(indistinct chattering)
(refugee speaking in foreign language)
(sorrowful music)
[Narrator] It's now December 2001.
(helicopter whirring)
It's taken less than six weeks
for the Taliban regime to fall.
The US used their old friends from the Soviet era,
the fundamentalist warlords,
now known as the Northern Alliance, for help on the ground
to route out Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
November 13th, the Northern Alliance just rode into Kabul
and took over.
And now the United Nations and the US has rewarded them.
They've given the warlords critical positions
in an appointed interim government.
(speaker singing)
[Narrator] The record shows
that the newly chosen President,
Hamid Karzai is clear of wartime atrocities.
But with a warlord surrounding him,
he can have little real authority.
(indistinct chattering)
History is replaying itself
in the eyes of the Afghan people.
Once again, they must watch
as a new government is installed by foreign hands.
The familiar faces of oppression back in power.
(audience applause)
Instead of being tried for war crimes,
these men have been re-empowered
by the international community.
(RAWA chanting)
[Narrator] RAWA was the only group to publicly protest
the return of the warlords.
(RAWA chanting)
Good afternoon. Can we leave this?
Can we leave this?
I don't think that it's appropriate
to receive women with a barrier.
Just leave this.
I will jump on your side because this is...
It'll take an hour.
I'm Dr. Wasser, the head of UNFP.
[RAWA Member] I am a member of RAWA.
Every year we hold demonstration on the 10th of December,
which is the Human Rights Day,
and our aim in this Human Rights Day
is that we don't want the domination,
the power of Northern Alliance once again in Afghanistan.
We don't want them that they repeat their crimes
that they did from 1992 to 1996 in Afghanistan.
[Dr. Wasser] Yes.
[RAWA Member] And the United Nation must send
its peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan to, first of all,
disarm all these Northern Alliance groups that...
I don't want to get involved in Northern Alliance.
What is important for us, United Nations,
is that women are part of the process
of reconstruction of Afghanistan.
So I'm glad that we have
two women in the interim government.
[RAWA Member] But these two women,
they cannot represent the women of Afghanistan
because one is this-
I think that the first important step is
that you have women.
[RAWA Member] No, what kind of women?
What kind of women?
They are women from Afghanistan,
so this is the...
No, but let's see...
[Narrator] The UN official deflected the argument
away from the reinstallation of the warlords to power.
RAWA's warnings went unheeded again.
(airplane whirring)
(suspenseful music)
I came back to the region
because I wanted to see if the lives
of the three women had changed
after the fall of the Taliban.
Reports in the press had been optimistic
saying that women were now free,
and that reconstruction was well underway.
Yet two of the three women,
Roeena and Wajia were still in Pakistan
having decided not to return to Afghanistan.
I wanted to find out why.
I first went to see Roeena in New Shamsitu Camp.
It was a dramatic change to see many
of the refugee homes destroyed and abandoned.
(indistinct chattering)
But many Afghans were still there.
When we caught up with Roeena,
she was making sure children in the camp had,
had their polio vaccinations.
(Dr. Roeena speaking in foreign language)
(speaker speaking in foreign language)
(Dr. Roeena speaking in foreign language)
Basically, I want to know if there is some child,
some missed child or not.
Like there was a missed house.
The last one, it was a missed house,
but I don't know if it's a missed house
or it didn't reach there.
(indistinct chattering)
(Dr. Roeena speaking in foreign language)
(sorrowful music)
(cars hooting)
(indistinct chattering)
[Narrator] After saying goodbye to Roeena,
I went to see Wajia.
I found her just as she was leaving
for her own fact finding mission to Kabul,
the first time she would be returning there in 25 years.
(Wajia speaking in foreign language)
[Narrator] Wajia is taking her son, Hareem with her,
his first time out of the refugee camp.
(ambient music)
(cars hooting)
(Wajia speaking in foreign language)
[Narrator] Though I knew that Afghanistan
wasn't a war zone,
everything around us made it seem as if it were.
(helicopter whirring)
(indistinct chattering)
It was a relief to arrive safely in Kabul.
(ambient music)
(cars hooting)
The next day, Wajia was met by a RAWA member,
introducing herself as Naseem.
She had her face covered when being filmed
to hide her identity.
She took us on a tour of the city.
(Wajia and Naseem speaking in foreign language)
(brooding music)
(wheels crinkling)
[Narrator] Shapiray and her family had returned
to Afghanistan a year earlier.
When I went to meet them, they were back in their own home.
Luckily, it hadn't been taken over by militias
who had commandeered many houses in the area.
(rooster crowing)
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
(Shapiray's husband speaking in foreign language)
(shovel digging)
(broom sweeping)
(indistinct chattering)
(birds chirping)
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
(metal clinking)
(upbeat music)
[Narrator] The next day I went back to see Wajia.
She was visiting RAWA members who'd lived in Kabul
throughout the rule of the Taliban.
(Wajia speaking in foreign language)
(group laughter)
(indistinct chattering)
(RAWA members speaking in foreign language)
(indistinct chattering)
[Narrator] Many refugees have returned to Kabul
and its economy is much more active than before.
But overshadowing the city are gigantic images
of the slain Northern Alliance leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud.
They're significant in that they're not of the President,
Hamid Karzai, and sign who's really in charge.
(helicopter whirring)
I was told by many that the relative peace
that exists in Kabul is due to the presence
of international peacekeepers who patrol the city.
Though many, including Karzai and the UN,
called for them throughout the country,
the US opposed their deployment.
The result?
The very same warlords responsible
for the Civil War have taken over the countryside.
They still receive US and British funding
to fight remnants of the Taliban,
but the money serves to pay for their own private armies.
They haven't cooperated in international disarmament efforts
and are once again terrorizing their citizenry.
(cars hooting)
Human rights groups have documented their involvement in
extortion, kidnapping, torture, rape, and drug trafficking.
The escalating violence was even being acknowledged
by the Karzai government.
It set up a commission in 2003
to monitor human rights abuses.
I sat in on a radio discussion with members
of the commission.
(members of the commission speaking in foreign language)
(sorrowful music)
[Narrator] Knowing that they can't get any help from
the law or government,
some women are organizing their own support groups,
coming together to do whatever they can
to address the dire situations they face.
Wajia is at a meeting held by RAWA.
(RAWA members speaking in foreign language)
(sorrowful music)
[Narrator] Since 2002, a new phenomenon has emerged.
Women are setting themselves on fire.
The rate is so high in some areas that hospitals have had
to open special burn wards to accommodate those who survive.
(sorrowful music)
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
[Narrator] Although she had not taught
in Afghanistan before,
Shapiray was now teaching at a nearby school.
(Shapiray speaking in foreign language)
[Narrator] Wajia decided not to stay in Afghanistan.
Instead, she's returning to the refugee camp in Pakistan.
(Wajia speaking in foreign language)
(sorrowful music)
(sad music)
(upbeat music)