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Urge the US government to support the rights of the Afghan women

Urge President Obama and the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry to continue to press the Afghan government into upholding its’ commitment to the Afghan Constitution and the international treaties and conventions it has signed, including The Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

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Message Recipients

Karl Eikenberry - Ambassador

Barack Obama - President

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Subject:*

Dear (recipient name),

I would first like to thank you for the latest release of 23 million USD to benefit Afghan women.  I know that there has been improvement on women’s rights, specifically in rural areas.  This is most markedly so with regards to access to healthcare and schools.  There are also several seats held by women in the Afghan Parliament.

The work, however, is far from done.  In spite of eight years of involvement from the US and its allies in Afghanistan, the situation for most Afghan women remains dire.  This is a travesty, and one you and your staff should have the courage to speak about in public as well as in private.  This is especially important when you and your staff speak to the Afghan government on the subject of assistance.
 
I would like to draw attention to the disparity between the aid money going to Afghanistan and the investment in Bosnia’s reconstruction.  Bosnia receives far more, even though Afghanistan ranks as the fifth poorest nation in the world.  The extreme poverty of Afghanistan makes many young men vulnerable to joining the Taliban and other armed forces.  This could be prevented, if young men had other ways of feeding their families.

Additionally, many Afghan people have expressed that they would support the presence of international forces, as long as it was clear that those forces were present to help protect the human rights of the Afghan people.  To that end, I encourage you to include human rights benchmarks in the Afghanistan Strategy.

You and your staff are in a unique position.  You have improved the image of the US in the world, but the only way to win the hearts and minds of both the Afghan and the American people is to show a strong commitment to the people of this war-ravaged country.  Military action will do little if we, as a nation, do not seriously invest in improving the lives of the most vulnerable victims of war and conflict: the women and children.

Thank you for your time, and I hope you consider these grave matters, as they are of great concern to us all.

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