In response to continued news reports that California-based UNOCAL has been negotiating with the Taliban militia to build a gas pipeline through Afghanistan, the Feminist Majority Foundation joined a coalition of human rights, women's rights, and environmental groups to demand that the California attorney general revoke UNOCAL's charter to do business, because of their crimes against humanity and the environment.

"If UNOCAL thinks it can do business with the Taliban, a regime that, in effect, denies women their right to exist as human beings, then we think UNOCAL's privilege to exist as a corporation must also be denied," said Kathy Spillar, National Coordinator for the Feminist Majority Foundation.

The coalition presented a petition to California Attorney General Dan Lungren at a press conference, documenting UNOCAL's abuses, including: initiating business dealings with the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, which has virtually imprisoned Afghan women and girls in their homes; profiting from forced labor in Burma, where UNOCAL is constructing a pipeline; and oil spills and hazardous waste spills in California.

Law professor Robert Benson, who co-wrote the petition, commented: "People mistakenly assume that we have to try to control these giant corporate repeat offenders one toxic spill at a time, one human rights violation at a time. But the law has always allowed the attorney general to go to court to simply dissolve a corporation for wrongdoing." Attorney General Lungren rejected the 127-page petition just five days after it was presented to him, with no explanation or legal analysis of the rejection. The coalition may seek a court order to compel the Attorney General to act.

UNOCAL is the leader of the CENTGAS consortium formed to build the pipeline through Afghanistan. Other members of the consortium include Saudi Arabia's Delta, and companies in Japan, Indonesia, Korea, and Pakistan. In May, for the first time, the full CENTGAS consortium met with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The cost of the pipeline has been estimated at two billion dollars. The Taliban regime stands to earn up to $150 million annually from the proposed pipeline.

Earlier this summer, the Feminist Majority led protests outside UNOCAL's headquarters in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, including a protest at UNOCAL's annual shareholder's meeting in early June. The National Organization for Women, the Women's Alliance for Peace and Freedom, and other women's rights organizations also joined the protest to demand that UNOCAL end all business dealings with the Taliban.

While the protest was going on outside, Feminist Majority board member Mavis Leno attended the UNOCAL shareholder's meeting and asked UNOCAL chairman Roger Beach questions about the company's involvement with the Taliban. Five days after the shareholder's meeting, UNOCAL ended its $1 million contract with the University of Nebraska to train Afghan men to build the pipeline. In August the company circulated a press release acknowledging, for the first time, the concern about the treatment of women in Afghanistan.

Other corporations are also getting on the Taliban bandwagon. A New Jersey company has signed a $240 million contract to do business with the Taliban. Telephone Systems International will build a cellular phone network for the Taliban, including access to the Internet. However, the Taliban has demanded that special software must block citizens' access to all Web sites except Taliban sites. One of the company's owners is from Afghanistan.

The Taliban, which controls 85% of Afghanistan and recently took over the northern city of Mazar-I Sharif, continues to press for U.N.recognition as the official government of Afghanistan. The U.N. accreditation committee meets in October, and U.N. recognition would pave the way for international funding for the pipeline.

The Taliban has ordered over one hundred home schools for girls to close. Many of the schools are supported by foreign relief agencies and teach vocational skills to girls and women. According to the Taliban, girls may receive education only up to age eight, and schools for girls must teach only lessons on the Koran. UN spokesperson Sarah Russell said that these restrictions violate an agreement formed between the UN and the Taliban last May in which the Taliban promised to create a joint consultative committee to discuss issues such as female education. The Taliban refuses to honor the agreement, despite numerous UN requests. In a related development, European Union officials announced a freeze on new funding for humanitarian aid projects in Kabul to protest the Taliban's treatment of women.

Doctors and humanitarian workers in Afghanistan report that more and more women in Afghanistan are committing suicide in response to the Taliban's laws banning women from working, going to school, or leaving their homes without a close male relative. A recent report by Physicians for Human Rights, which surveyed 160 women in Afghanistan, found that 21% of the women had frequent suicidal thoughts. Most women commit suicide by taking caustic soda, causing a slow, painful death. Many other women suffer from depression and other mental illnesses. Most of the women treated at Kabul's mental hospital are former government workers who are no longer allowed to work.

The Physicians for Human Rights report also found that 69% of the survey respondents said that they or a family member had been detained by the Taliban, mostly for not adhering to the dress code, which requires women in public to be completely covered by a "burqa," with only a mesh opening to see through. Seventy-one percent of the women said their physical health had declined in the past two years, because women are not allowed to see male doctors unless chaperoned, and few female doctors are permitted to work.

To take action against gender apartheid in Afghanistan, go to the Feminist Majority Foundation Online: .