I agree with the others who feel that they should be grateful for ANY aid and if they want female aid workers banned - don't send any aid workers. Let them figure it out themselves. That may change their tune.

I'm not surprised by the religious overtones against women. Its been going on for centuries as first "Authorized in the Old Testiment. Religions have given us stonings, witch-burnings, crusades, inquisitions, jihads, suicide bombers, gay-bashers, abortion clinic gunmen, and mothers who drown their kids so that they can be happily united in heaven. Rather than demanding evidence, most people are easily swayed by totally illogical belief systems. And the masses continually get spoon fed, when will we ever wake up?

Ah, I bet they take them off to Islamabad "for their enjoyment". Kind of like your good buddy Yusef Ramzy used to do before we caught up with him.

Hey JB do not say The "democratic west" when you mean USA, even Canada has had a female Prime Minister!

When you're in another country, you're a guest, and you follow the rules of the house. There are plenty of places on earth where female aid workers are allowed, they'd be better served to go there anyway.

You don't forsake the needy because the government is close-minded. Be the bigger person, that's what separates us from some of them anyway.

"...they will organize violent protests and cause damage to local property."

Uh, and whom will that inconvenience?

Maureen Ann... you can't be serious that women in the West still have a long ways to go to be liberated. Women in the West now have more rights than men. Western women are the most protected, right-full people on the planet. As far as the Muslim clerics are concerned...they are out of sync with history. The world -- seven-eights of it non-Muslim -- is leaving them behind. The world is not going to stop educating females, the world is not going to rewed government and religion, the world is not going to let Israel die. The very thing they think will save them -- hardline Islam -- is the very thing that dooms them. Their battle is already lost. The world is not going their way. What we are witnessing are the desparate violent tantrums of a lost cause.

There were Cuban medical teams working with the earthquake victims - a large proportion were women. They were welcomed by the population, they lived in the deep mountains setting up mobile hospitals and providing medical services to people who had had little access to such care. This is an on-going project and there has been no problem with the gender of the Cuban doctors or nurses, who carry themselves with professionalism and respect for the customs of these isolated people. Either this story about the banning of female aid workers is a fabrication, or it is based on a single incident where a foreign female NGO acted in an irresponsible manner (and blown all out of proportion) or more sinister, it is part of 'black propaganda' to incite attacks on the Cuban medical workers who have done what the Pakistani government could not or would not do -- provide needed care to the hardest hit refugees. Remember, in the 1980's the US CIA/mujahadeen operations in Afghanistan specifically targeted female health workers and teachers working in the Afghan countryside for murder (for the bogus crime of having 'insulted Islam').

Ignorant priests even in US say ignorant things like terminating the gays. This is blatantly dishonest media reporting by saying "Pakistan" has banned it. How can ABC editors allow such obvious distortions to occur?

This is just another example of what I've been saying for a couple of years. The problem with Islam is that it is a religion of devout people led by herotics who use their position to forward their personl agendas and increase their personal power.

To Jim,

they are following Islam and the Koran. That's just the problem.

Pakistan is the root for all terroriest activities....

And what about likes of the christian cleric who have been forcing women to marry old guys polygamously?

I don't know why we are knocking what they believe in. Our nation/culture bans same sex marriage out of religious bull crap beliefs. What gives us the right to condemn another nation for thier religious beliefs.

I am a Pakistani.My mother is a microbiologist,my grandmother is a high school science teacher .My grandmother went to college in the 1950's .Several of my female relatives are teachers,physicians and even school principal .They have their say in family matters ,actually more than other people can imagine .I am a male professinal in my thirties living 20000 miles away from my grandmother and I have to ask her permission before any major desicion in my life.They dress and behave different from western women but that does not make them backward.They say their prayers ,practice Isalm and it has not hindered them so far.now ,their are people in Pakistan who wants to control other people by keeping them uneducated but that has nothing to do with Islam

Agree that title is misleading - THE GOVERNMENT OF PAKISTAN?

>>"Such views about women are by and large secular tribal views fully endorsed by the feudal lords for their own benefit.">"Leaving the people of Pakistan without aid would be a severe punishment simply for being born in the same country as a few crazed mad-men with the ability to make a lot of noise."<<

The few crazed madmen who make the rules! Muslims SUBMIT to terror as long as the terror is in the name of Islam.

The real issue is that THESE WOMEN are DANGEROUS to the society. Having INDEPENDENT, FREE THINKING WOMEN around the local women sets a very bad presidence! The local women might start QUESTIONING and DEVELOPING their own THOUGHTS, and then they will have to be BEATEN back into SUBBMISSION! These POWERFUL INDEPENDENT women are also a source of POWERFUL FANTACY for the local men and therefore a source of concern for the easily diverted MORALITY of the males.

(thought provoking comments I'm sure), can see see the light at the end of the tunnel? My son just passed away and I was sad although through this time I learned to look in different prospectives, and I grew stronger in ways.
I read the tibeten book of the dead a vision of what lies awating us at the opening of a newer dimension. the occurens of the mention of EGO suprised me as it should most the EGO = SELF the self you or me and/or everyone has a self an ego. The tibeten book of the dead that I read, for there are others, metioned that in passing away we are confronted by the LOSS of the EGO. and become again one in the "Om" of life. may we all?

Please read between the lines carefully, what it says that employment of "LOCAL POOR GIRLS OF THE AREA'as aid workers, who are needy, and who do not know how to protect themselves against those WOLVES as opposed to western girls who know their rights and can keep those kind of men at bay....I wish those so called aid worker employer have best interest of the needy, and not taking poor, ignorant girls for their sexual wants.. K. Shaz