Vida Samadzai, a dark-eyed brunette of the Pashtun tribe who fled Afghanistan with her family in 1996, stepped out in a red bikini at an international beauty pageant as Miss Afghanistan, professing to make the world aware of “Afghan women talent, intelligence and beauty.” Leading the pack of Miss Earth contestants, she was courageous to have adorned her country’s name on her sash. Hailed by the western press as the brave new face of Afghan womanhood and castigated by her own countrymen for being lascivious, for once an Afghan woman came under spotlight, albeit in a bikini.

The U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan was called “Operation Enduring Freedom”; which for some reason is very difficult to recollect due to the fact that even the Americans have probably forgotten that there is a place on earth called Afghanistan where they have sent troops. In January 2002, George W. Bush said in his State of the Union Address: “The last time we met in this chamber, the mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captives in their own homes, forbidden from working or going to school. Today women are free.…” President George Bush is apparently living in a false world or ill informed.

The Human Rights Watch in a recent study, titled “Killing You Is a Very Easy Thing for Us” have documented various human rights abuses in Southeast Afghanistan by army and police troops kidnapping Afghans and holding them for ransom in unofficial prisons; breaking into households and robbing families; raping women, girls and boys. The worst sufferers of these brutalities have been women.

When we think of women’s rights in Afghanistan, we tend to focus on the ‘Burqa’ or the ‘Hijab’, the veil which covers the face of women. The problems facing Afghan women run far deeper than the Burqa. Food security, access to healthcare, and safety from physical violence are key aspects of women’s rights that the U.S. intervention has largely ignored or in some cases even jeopardized. Afghanistan’s harsh winter returned in November, and thousands of Afghans, devastated by three years of drought and 23 years of war bear the brunt. A recent report released by the U.S.-based Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) entitled “Maternal Mortality in Herat Province: The Need to Protect Women’s Rights” documented 593 maternal deaths in every 100,000 live births, with the majority of the cases in rural areas. This maternal mortality rate in Afghanistan is far worse than that experienced in all neighboring countries. Widows are an especially vulnerable section of the Afghani society. In Kabul alone there are an estimated 40,000 widows who have lost their husbands in the decades of war in Afghanistan. Nationwide, the number of widows is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands.

With the fall of the Taliban, Afghan women heaved a sigh of relief but things are no better as ‘Talibanic’ tyranny is replaced by ‘warlordic’ anarchy. Present day Afghanistan has been divided into fiefdoms run by warlords who maintain large private armies. These soldiers are reportedly targeting women and girls, especially in rural areas, making it impossible for them to attend school, go to work, or actively participate in the country’s reconstruction. In March of this year The Washington Post published a story headlined “The Girls Are Back in Afghan Schools.” One could almost hear the collective sigh of relief across Americaâ€â€