What The Saga of the Afghanistan Girls Robotics Team Can Teach Us About Girls Education Worldwide Coby Jones July 19, 201716 years ago, a girls’ robotics team from Afghanistan could not even exist. During the brutal rule of the Taliban, Afghan girls were not allowed formal education. At all.Yesterday, a team of Afghan girls who participated in an international robotics compet...
Refugees who have fled the carnage in Afghanistan are being deported in record numbers Kimberly Curtis June 23, 2017This has been a particularly bloody "fighting season" in Afghanistan. Now that winter has ended and the opium poppy harvest is over, the annual summer “fighting season” is in full swing in Afghanistan. This year, the normal uptick in violence overlaps with Ra...
What’s Next for Afghanistan Mark Leon Goldberg April 27, 2017When I reached former UN Dispatch contributor Ahmad Shuja in Kabul, the country was still reeling from the deadliest single Taliban attack since the start of the insurgency nearly 15 years ago. Some 160 young soldiers--mostly recruits-- were massacred in a...
The ICC May Prosecute Crimes in Afghanistan. (Including American Officials Accused of Torture?) Kimberly Curtis November 21, 2016The International Criminal Court made waves last week with the release of its annual report on preliminary examinations, the first stage of the court considering to take on a new situation and opening a formal investigation. Many of the 10 situations undergoin...
A journalist-turned NGO leader-turned scholar explains how corruption fuels terrorism Mark Leon Goldberg October 21, 2016Sarah Chayes was a reporter for NPR working in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Then, in early 2002 she decided to give up her career in journalism to help rebuild the country. She joined the NGO world, eventually founding an Afghan-based NGO. Du...
UN Dispatch Q and A: Dominic Medley, Spokesperson of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan Javier Delgado Rivera April 20, 2016On 19 April Afghanistan made headlines again after the Taliban staged a coordinated assault on a key national security agency that killed at least 64 people and left almost 350 wounded in the deadliest attack in Kabul since 2011. The attack amounted to the beg...
What it’s like to be smuggled out of Afghanistan in a car trunk (Video) Mark Leon Goldberg January 13, 2016This is an intense video from UNICEF, shot in part by young teenagers as they were fleeing the Taliban. These children fled for their lives, and risked their lives as they fled through Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and across the Mediterranean. ...
Is this Afghanistan’s Tahrir Square? Alanna Shaikh, MPH November 11, 2015In Afghanistan, an estimated 10,000 people have marched on Kabul’s presidential palace in Pashtunistan square, demanding better peace and security. The protest began as a funeral procession for seven people of Hazara ethnicity beheaded by alleged ISIS militant...
The Killing of Farkhunda Georgina Rannard September 1, 2015A new BBC Our World documentary tells the shocking story of Farkhunda Malikzada, a young Afghan woman who was lynched in central Kabul earlier this year. Using audio footage recorded on phones at the scene of Farkhunda’s death, and interviews with Farkhunda’s ...
