Betrayed
They said we were there to save Afghanistan’s women. So how come we haven’t?
By Valerie M. Hudson, Patricia Leidl | Published by Foreign Policy Magazine
Foreign Policy
One day in November 2009, in Helmand province's capital of Lashkar Gah, a group of Afghan widows and divorcees met with Patricia, who had been commissioned to write a series of success stories for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). All the women were in their 20s, 30s, and 40s but looked to be in their 60s. Until very recently, none of them could work because they possessed no marketable skills, could neither read nor write, and were at risk of being killed if they left their homes. A number of women said that, before the program -- which focused on tailoring and basic literacy - their children used to weep at night from hunger.