Imagine if someone presented the following arguement:
"We don't have to worry about [the much higher levels of] violence in Asian-Australian communities or Aboriginal communities because it is mainly Asian-Australians or Aboriginals who are commiting acts of violence against members of their own communities."
We would have no trouble indentifying the blatant racism of a statement like this. Yet when someone says that:
"We don't have to worry about [the much higher levels of] violence against men because it is mainly men who are commiting acts of violence against other men."
we seem to be blind to the blatant [anti-male] sexism of this second statement.
WHY?
Here is a press release which graphically highlights our callousness towards men.
Special Report: THE SELECTIVE BRUTALIZATION OF MEN IN AFGHANISTAN
Since the emergence of the Taleban in Afghanistan in 1994, it is clear that men and boys have been the target of severe civil rights abuses, including widespread killings directed at civilian men. While Afghan women have had their rights to education and employment curtailed and in a number of cases have been killed, it is clear that it is men who have been selectively targeted for widespread detention, torture, and execution.
These civil rights abuses have been eloquently documented a series of media advisories and annual reports compiled by Amnesty International, which can be found at
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/COUNTRIES/AFGHANISTAN?OpenView&expandall
These human rights violations are summarized here (date of report is indicated in parentheses):
• In 1996, Amnesty International (AI) issued a report titled, "Grave Abuses in the Name of Religion." The document stated, "Hundreds of men, possibly over one thousand, have been taken prisoner and continue to be held in arbitrary and unacknowledged detention, while dozens of men have been beaten in the streets to make them attend Friday prayers in the mosque (November 12, 1996).
• In July 1997, AI reported, "the Taleban has rounded-up as many as 2,000 men from the Tajik and Hazara minorities from their homes in Kabul over the past few days...There have been no reports that these men were involved in fighting...These men are living in appalling conditions. They have limited access to food, and there have been reports of beating and ill-treatment in custody" (July 25, 1997).
• On August 8, 1998, the Taleban took over Mazar-e Sharif. After taking control of the city, thousands of ethnic Hazara civilians, mostly males, were killed. The men were killed in their homes, in the streets where the bodies were left for several days, and while attempting to flee the city. According to the Amnesty International report, the Taleban "entered Hazara houses one by one, killing older men and children and taking away young men without explanation" (September 3, 1998).
• In August 1999, the Taleban forcibly recruited hundreds of children and young men from destitute families in Kabul to cut vine trees and seal irrigation ditches. In Bamiyan, "Estimates vary widely, but hundreds of men, and some young women and children, who were separated from their families and taken away, remain unaccounted for at the end of 1999 (International Report 2000).
• On January 7, 2001, 300 unarmed men in Yakaolang were massacred by the Taleban. According to eyewitness accounts, Taleban forces began to arrest and execute Hazara persons after recapturing the Yakaolang district from Hezb-e Wahdat armed forces (March 28, 2001).
• In 2001 Amnesty International issued a major report, "Afghanistan: Making Human Rights the Agenda." The report notes the "Taleban are reported to have killed thousands of civilians in massacres and indiscriminate attacks." The report further reveals that children (presumably boys) have been used as child soldiers (November 1, 2001).
• Twenty-five men, alleged supporters of former Afghan king Mohammad Zahir Shah, were arrested on November 1, 2001. The men were to be executed the following day. The Taleban did not indicate what the charges were or whether there had been a trial (November 2, 2001).
Amnesty International is not the only organization to document the civil rights abuses of men. Recently, United Nations personnel in Afghanistan wrote a 55-page report that documents the killings. The report notes that in Nayak, Taleban fighters in eight pickups entered the village. Over the next five hours, "the Taliban search party rounded up all of the males they could find [and] shot them in firing squads" (Chicago Tribune October 12, 2001).
CONCLUSION:
Various reports issued since 1996 have documented repeated and flagrant human rights abuses by the Taleban. While the Taleban has deprived Afghan women of their right to education, employment, and freedom of movement, it is also clear that the Taleban has selectively targeted men in a series of forced detentions, torture, and executions. Thus, thousands of innocent men have lost the most precious right of all: the right to life.