Women's rights in Afghanistan part 1...State Department

Our case study this week is Afghanistan, specifically Women's rights in Afghanistan. To kick off the case study we met with Ambassador Melanne Verveer at the State Department. You can read about here here:

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/122075.htm

To prep for going to meet with her, we read the recent TIME magazine article about women in Afghanistan. On the cover is a women whose nose and ears were cut off because she ran away from her husband's abusive family, which is a crime there. Here's the article if you want to read it:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2007238,00.html

Ambassador Verveere is the Ambassador-at-large for Global Women's issues. Today she talked to us about the women's rights issues in Afghanistan. She was just there a few weeks ago and told us stories about women's experience there that she knows. Most of the time we asked questions, which I liked. As usual, I had alot to ask. I asked her, "In the TIME magazine article they quoted a man who said "We want Islamic rights, not Western Rights." In your opinion, how can we separate women's rights from being an islamic vs. western issue, and make it a global issue?" Or something like that. She answered me by saying that there has been a big push to really put out there that Women's Rights is a global issue. She quoted a Hilary Clinton speech saying, "Women's rights are human rights, and Human rights are women's rights." She talked about how not only should women have rights, but their rights and voices are essential for a functional and growing society. No society can go forward when half of its people are behind.

Talking with her was so cool. It's really not everyday that you meet someone like her!

STATE DEPARTMENT PICTURES:

The bathroom: didn't have time to go in tho :(