- Women's Rights
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MADRE :: Afghanistan: The Afghan Women's Survival Fund
Comment from the contributor:
Women in Afghanistan are being targeted, attacked, and murdered for demanding their human rights. Afghan women and girls are, by custom and practice, the property of men. 87% of women are illiterate. As many of 95% of Afghan women are brutalized in their homes. 70 to 80% face forced marriages -- the legal age is sixteen, but girls as young as eight or nine are commonly sold to be wed. In the countryside, far from medical care these young girls die from injuries caused by beatings or the ordeal of childbirth at age 12 or 13. MADRE created the Afghan Women’s Survival Fund to enable women who are threatened with violence to escape to safety. The Fund supports an underground rescue network of women committed to providing shelter and secret transport to women who have been targeted because they dare to speak out for human rights.
