We had an opportunity to speak with both Dr. Jalal, who was a former candidate for the presidency of Afghanistan, and Dr. Sima Samar, from the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. It was an interesting perspective.
We always talk about the progress in Afghanistan vis-à-vis what happened during the Taliban period, and we always put it in the context that in terms of cultural sensitivity it would take time, for example, for women's rights to be improved and so forth. Yet many of them told us that when they were young, they had full freedom in terms of education. They didn't have to wear the head scarf. They could go out in public without any problem. What happened was much more restrictive with the Taliban. But they did have more progressive attitudes towards women some time ago.
So I think we in the west sometimes make the mistake of saying we have to be culturally sensitive to them, and it takes time. I think that's a false argument out there, and I think it's perpetuated by a male-dominated society in which the males want to have control over the females. So they project to the west and to the leadership of the west that in fact it does take time to bring about change, which is not the case.
I think all of them are saying that if we're going to bring about change, more women have to be involved. But they were also concerned about the Taliban. We know the Taliban is in cooperation in some parts of Pakistan as well and in the border areas. There are a lot of concessions being made towards the Taliban that really concern women's rights, because they know that every concession the Karzai government makes to the Taliban is basically at the expense of women's rights. It's always about taking women's rights away. It's never about doing anything for women. So that was their plea.
I would also argue--and I think you would agree with me, and I wanted to get confirmation of that--that the women's groups we met also would like Canada's presence there. They actually felt that it was beneficial for Canada to be there. They had issues with some other NATO countries. They had issues about some of the military operations. They had severe issues with the Karzai government.
They also mentioned the fact--even though now it's in the news, Dr. Jalal mentioned it a long time ago--that Karzai was receiving cash money from Iran. Also, Dr. Jalal mentioned in testimony before this committee as well that only recently is it coming out in the papers, but we knew that evidence long before.
So there's corruption going on in the government, but I think all of them, I would say, that--