Afghanistan Canada new spirit camera

Peter Stanford 08 Oct 2011 The Telegraph

It had been a regime, rooted in an extreme form of Islam, which had closed girls’ school and even refused women access to medical treatment. Much has been achieved in the past decade – 2.7 million girls are now in education and laws have been passed to ban child marriages, honour killings and the practice of daughters being given away by their families like commodities to settle disputes – but much remains to be tackled, insists Danziger, who has been visiting Afghanistan since 1984.

His most recent trip, on behalf of Oxfam, was to capture images to support its report, launched this week, warning that the gains Afghan women have made these past 10 years are under threat, as behind-the-scenes efforts are made by the coalition to talk to the Taliban. “I met dozens and dozens of Afghan women while I was there,” says Danziger, “and they were unanimous in saying that if the coalition withdraws, if it compromises with the Taliban, then they will suffer and go backwards.

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