Govt talks with Taliban make women jittery -- Clancy Chassay

The Afghan MP Shukria Barakzai receives regular death threats for speaking out on women’s issues. ”Barakzai receives frequent but cryptic warnings about planned suicide attacks on her car, but no help from the government. Officials advise her to stay at home and not go to work, but offer nothing in the way of security assistance, despite her requests. She said warlords in parliament who received similar threats were immediately provided with armoured vehicles, armed guards and a safe house by the government.

The Islamist group is just one of the many threats facing Afghanistan’s few outspoken female MPs. “Our parliament is a collection of lords,” said Barakzai. “Warlords, drug lords, crime lords.”In parliament, she says, she is often greeted with screams of “kill her” when she stands up to speak, and she has had no shortage of personal threats from fellow MPs.

According to Afghan commentators, President Hamid Karzai, desperate to win next year’s elections, has been bringing former mujahideen commanders into parliament in the hope they will support him at election time.