2 women take jobs in Cabinet

KABUL, Afghanistan -- One is a surgeon so skilled the Taliban set aside their restrictions on women so she could treat wounded soldiers. The other worked with Afghan refugees in Pakistan during the militia's rule. Now both will be part of Afghanistan's interim government.

An interim administration was cobbled together for Afghanistan on Wednesday that includes women for the first time in decades.

The minister for women's affairs will be Dr. Sima Samar; the minister of health will be Dr. Suhaila Siddiq, a respected surgeon in Kabul, the Afghan capital.

When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, Siddiq was chief of the surgical department of Wazir Akbar Khan hospital. Even though she was recognized as the country's best surgeon, the Taliban fired her and ordered her to stay home.

During the five years the Taliban ruled most of Afghanistan, women were barred from work and school and forced to wear garments covering them head to toe.

Within months of taking power, the Taliban realized the asset they had lost and asked Siddiq to return to work. They sent her to the 400-bed military hospital, where wounded Taliban soldiers were treated.

Samar, the new minister for women's affairs, fled Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion in 1979 and worked as a doctor in a refugee camp in Pakistan, where in 1987 she opened a hospital.

She also ran schools in rural Afghanistan for more than 17,400 students as well as a school for refugee girls in Quetta, Pakistan. Literacy programs established by her organization were accompanied by distribution of food aid and information on hygiene and family planning.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright