 Hello, everyone. This is Carol Hinkle, your president. I'm really happy to welcome you today. I hope that you appreciate it's not snowing today, so that's wonderful. A couple of things I wanted to mention one is, don't forget to ask questions at the end, we really need your questions and I say at the end they can be during the lecture. During the question answer period, just hover over the bottom of your screen if you have a computer and you'll see the Q&A icon. Just click on it, type in your question and push send. If you have an iPad, it would be at the top of the screen. So the same procedure. We really count on you to ask questions. Also, the other thing I wanted to mention is, if you'd love to see this great lecture again, look on the email that Glenn sent out to you with instructions on how to do that. So you can start looking for this again next week on CCTV either next Thursday, either on online or on screen. So I'd now like to ask Beth Wood, please, our program chair to introduce today's speaker, Beth. Thanks Carol. It's a real privilege to welcome today's speaker Patricia Weyland. Patricia served as a judge for over 20 years in the United States, and as an international judge in the war crimes chamber of Bosnia and Herzegovina for five years. She was a special advisor to the court in Bosnia and Herzegovina on judicial skills related to war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and gender based violence. Patricia is a founding member of the Afghan judicial education program, facilitating cross cultural judicial learning in the US and Afghanistan. She designed and directed for 10 years, the Vermont Afghan judicial education program. And that's just scratching the surface of her CV. She's here to talk about a lot of those experiences here today and so distinct pleasure to welcome Patricia Wayland. Well thank you. I learned how to unmute myself so I'm starting off on the right foot, I hope. And good afternoon to everyone and thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to share the story of the Afghan judicial project with you. And this project ran in Vermont and also in DC from 2003 to 2014. It was sponsored by the International Association of Women Judges, which I will refer to as the IAWJ. The IAWJ is currently involved in the evacuation of Afghan judges from Afghanistan, and we're hoping to bring some of these judges to the United States. I have titled this presentation, first they come for the judges, because this is what happened in 1995 when the Taliban took control of Kabul. The women were told to leave their jobs, especially women in government employee, but the Taliban specifically came and removed the women from the courts. The Vermont, let me just see if I can get my screen here to go to my next slide, which I'm failing to do. I just need another. Here we go. These are our project partners, and this project was supported and sponsored by these organizations, as well as hundreds of volunteers throughout Vermont, but primarily in southern Vermont where I'm from. The Rural Women Leadership Institute of Vermont consisted of myself and three other women in southern Vermont. We were friends, we were all involved at the time in different fields. My partners were Julie Peterson, who was in government and politics, and Fielder, who worked in healthcare and worked for Planned Parenthood, and Connie Woodbury, who worked internationally at World Education. We were all interested in doing something together internationally, and especially on women's leadership issues. In 2003, I had the opportunity to attend an IAWJ conference in Washington DC. And at that time I met Judge Marzia Bazul, and she was from Afghanistan, and she was there, she was hosted by the White House, and she was somewhat like a poster judge, let's say, representing the new opportunities for women in Afghanistan. And just as a bit of a, you know, history refresher, the Taliban were in power from 1995 to 2001. And if you remember, they retreated essentially after the US bombing for their failure to turn over Osama bin Laden. The new government that took over was heavily supported by the US and Western countries. And that continued until the recent takeover by the Taliban this past summer. Marzia, in 2003, was the first wave of women to have her rights restored. I, when I met her I asked how could I help and she had replied that I could help with judicial training. And we talked a little bit about, like, what would that look like, and what type of training did she think was appropriate. She had already been exposed in DC to some judicial opportunities in the United States, and she felt for the most part that the courts in our larger cities were too would be too intimidating for most of the judges. And in fact at that time I learned that most of the courthouses in Afghanistan did not even have electricity. And I asked her about Vermont and said well we did things at a bit slower pace, and we had very unfussy courtrooms. And I think from on turned out to be a perfect laboratory for learning about the rule of law. My friends the group back in Vermont. They wanted to also do something broader than just judicial education. We wanted them to be interested in sharing our lives with them. And we wanted them to see how we live. So we had them stay in our homes they did not stay in hotels or ends. We wanted them to meet our partners or children, we wanted to share cooking with them, and just see all of the places where we believed we would have common ground. And we also wanted to share our problems, what type of problems we had, perhaps personally but broader as a community, and how we would resolve those problems with the hope that they would also share theirs. So let's see. Whoops, getting there. So this is a year later after 2003. With with many volunteers over that past year. We began hosting the first group of judges, and these. Oh, you know I have to stop this. Sorry for my inadequate skills here. I want to go back for a minute. This was at hilltop Montessori this was a private school in Brattleboro Vermont. And we took them to both public and private schools and we discussed issues in education. And we talked about how taxation works or doesn't work. Of course, like it was Vermont so we did a lot outside we walked a lot we hiked a lot we were awful in the woods, which was a very new experience for them as these were very urban judges. And, okay. This is also taking place at hilltop. And I put this in here to mostly show you my son. He's the boy that's showing them how they built a bread oven and he was talking about how the oven worked. Standing next to him with the headscarf on is judge Anisa was really. And Judge was really was a very young judge in 2004. She has is the only judge that's been nominated to the Afghan Supreme Court, and in fact, she was nominated twice, once under Karzai, the vote failed by a few votes in their parliament. She was again appointed by Ghana. That vote never came to pass because of the takeover by the Taliban. In this picture. She's also explaining how they bake bread in Afghanistan and they were sharing recipes. The experience stayed with my son. And today he is a software developer, but he created and managed as a volunteer, the huge database that we're currently using of over 1400 people and contains all of their documents which essentially fuels our evacuation. Now one object and goal of this project was actually to create a network among the judges of supportive and lasting relationships, and we since we're all friends with them years later. And I think this, this is one goal we achieved, as well as them beginning to establish their own network within Afghanistan. We wanted to have fun. So we wanted to play sports. We took them bowling we did yoga we played volleyball. It was great fun. We also introduced them to our health care system, and we made sure that they had visits to the dentist doctors optometrist whatever they needed. Now this picture here is really about. I don't know why it's doing that so I have to kind of go back again sorry. This is just an evening at home. This was at my house at the time. And we wanted them to also experience just pretty easy comfortable socializing with men. Which was something that I can honestly say was pretty foreign to them at the time, especially, especially just easy and kind of respectful relationships. They were really curious about, you know what we did for fun. And so we showed them a little bit of Vermont playing music talking to each other. Now, every night we had a dinner, and each night that dinner had a different topic. This dinner was hosted by women judges in Wyndham County. And we would just talk about what our problems are now this dinner here. The focus of that was religion, and we met whoops, let me go back a minute. We met with ministers and Episcopal priests, a rabbi. We brought together different women from different faith communities. This was a very interesting evening because we talked really about our faith as children. What were we raised with as children, and then what were the dilemmas with that faith when we became adults and could perhaps question it or raise issues of, for example, gender equality. And you can imagine that was a very lively conversation. Again in this picture in the red headscarf you see judge was Zooli. Now, I showed you accidentally the picture of driving here we go. They wanted to learn how to drive. This picture was taken in 2006. And at that time, only five years had gone by since the Taliban, and they really were still worried about what would happen if they came back, and they wanted this time to be able to drive themselves and get away. And so we started teaching them how to drive, although about 20 minutes after this picture was taken. We totaled that car, our driving lessons didn't go over that great. The other program was the rule of law, of course, and they witnessed, they came to court with us. They, we exposed them to all of the courts in Vermont, the Supreme Court, the Superior Court, District Court, Family Court. And we really focused on what areas of law that they were interested in and then tried to match them up with hearings. Many were delivered by the other judges in the Vermont system, they gave generously of their time. And I think what was really important here was that especially the lectures given by male judges, where we and we were quite surprised by this, that the respect they got as colleagues from the male judges really had a significant impact on them. The program, as I mentioned, also went to Washington DC. And here they are, they were hosted by the US Supreme Court by the women justices. And here you see Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They were lovely. And every year we did the program, the women justices at the court hosted them and had a specialty for them and it was quite meaningful. Now, I just want to stop for a minute and just explain that in 2007, the Afghan Women Judges Association and the IAWJ sponsored a conference in Afghanistan. And at that time there were 100 women judges, 92 of them actually made it to this conference, which was held in February during very difficult travel. This is myself and the director at the time of the IAWJ arriving in Kabul. This is the old airport, not the current one that you saw in the news in August. This airport at the time when we arrived didn't have electricity, it was like dark, it was just unbelievable actually. And we were pretty happy to get outside. I was invited to give the keynote speech at the conference. And which was the reason why I was there. We were there for two weeks. And we did, we had many meetings with government officials with their Supreme Court, the Minister of Justice. So the IAWJ had an agenda, we very much at the time wanted to see a woman on the Supreme Court or to improve the status of women judges within Afghanistan. We also had funded through the assistance of the US State Department program for young girls throughout Afghanistan. We went to the high schools. This is one of the students with her diploma. And we did a course that had designed a course that the Afghan judges then taught on human rights and gender equality and the rule of law issues. And this is a particularly poignant, I have many of these pictures. These young girls are now the women that you see demonstrating in Afghanistan on the news. And of course, now these girls who are now women, they're being detained, many have gone missing. It's, it's very difficult time for us who have worked with them. And I just want to remind you that it was US dollars that sponsored these programs and gave these girls, you know, hope for the future, and now that future is erased for them. This is just a picture of the conference itself. And again, you know, since 2003, the US, the EU, the UK, they have put millions of dollars into the training and development of the judiciary. They heavily subsidized the building and establishment of courts, new modern courtrooms were built, and courts were specifically established to fight corruption, terrorism and drug trafficking. These were very serious and intense courts. They also established courts to eliminate violence against women. The number of women judges over this period of time increased to 270. They sat in all these courts and they presided over many. Now, this is a picture of Judge Zipia Harari in 2007 in Vermont on her the last day of her trip in January this past year in January of 2021. She was assassinated on her way to work with another judge. And for me, this marked the beginning of the end for women in the judiciary in Afghanistan. The next nine months after the assassination were filled with, you know, worry confusion. We were all could see that the peace negotiations had failed. Women were inadequately represented on those negotiations. And everyone had fear about the US military withdrawal. On July 15 2021, the IWJ met virtually with about 40 judges in Kabul. And we had been working with the support of the Max Planck Foundation on like a project to revamp the Afghan Women Judges Association itself. And they were they were at an interesting place as an organization aside from everything else. The older judges, many of the judges who came to Vermont and that and I should mention that at the time Vermont, one third of the judiciary actually came to Vermont. And we hosted 35 women during that period of time. They were now sort of the old guard, the younger judges wanted to take over. And we and they were also at the same time exploring what would the what would the future look like what what was their vision for the future. And we had hoped that that was going to be a very hopeful conversation. But of course what took place was the opposite of that. The Afghan judges only wanted to talk about their, what was going to happen to them if the Taliban came back. Absolutely no one wanted to leave. These are women who love their country, but they were worried. The older judges remembered the Taliban, the younger judges did not. And they asked us at that meeting. If Kabul fell to the Taliban, would we help them leave the country. And without ever understanding what that meant. You know, we of course said yes, a committee of seven judges was formed. We got our old interpreter back from our Vermont program. And we set up a hotline for the judges. We thought we were going to have months to prepare. On August 14. Judge Anissa. We had a zoom conversation. And she told me. She said Patty, the Taliban's already here. And I was like, what I just finished watching the news that predicted the fall of Kabul. At some point in time in 2022 that there would be months to be ready. And she said, no, they're here. They're here. It's over. And I asked her. If she wanted to leave. And she said, you know, for myself. No, but she had responsibility for her nieces and nephews who lived with her. And other family members, she said, no, I, she said, we can't stay. She said they're going to come looking for me. And in fact, that turned out to be true. But we what we did is I sent out a message. I said, you know, Anissa says that the Taliban are already in Kabul. We notified our judges. We told them to start uploading all their documents to us. And this is the project that my son did. We were very worried or they were very worried if they were caught with their court IDs diplomas their educational records that that would be used against them. So many of them destroyed those documents or they buried them or they hid them. And we asked them to send all of that to us so we could have it available to them for the future. And so on August 15, as we all know, all hell broke loose. And I assume I assume most of you come follow the coverage at the airport. The first thing we did was contact Senator Leahy and asked him how can we get people out how can we get people into the airport. And he had connected us with someone who actually was on the State Department side that was located inside the airport and through many conversations. We learned that if we could get our judges into the airport. They would be able to get them out and into the United States. The team at the time just so you know who the seven judges were. We were internationally. A group of the, the head of our team is the president of the IWJ Susan Glaceburg and she's on the Supreme Court of New Zealand. We had judges from Australia. UK, Spain, Canada. And I have another partner judge in the United States, Judge Vanessa Rez, who is on the DC Court of Appeals, and Vanessa as well had. She was worked in the DC part of the program for the same years that that I did. And we all knew these judges. I think between all seven of us we knew most of the judges in Afghanistan. You know, we just had no idea what we were doing. And I think that was true for most of the civil society groups that were attempting to get out their friends or their colleagues from Afghanistan. And the truth was, we were doing the work of governments, and there was no government, at least initially that was willing to help us. So this is what it looked like. We were told to get our judges to the airport. What it looked like on the outside, they were had to go through a gauntlet of Taliban at different stages. This particular what you're looking at here is Taliban just arbitrarily they're beating that old man with a whip. They have these flat boards that they were threatening women and hitting women we did have judges that were beaten. It was, you know, I every time I look at this picture I also think of our military and you know we have the one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world, but ultimately they were defeated by whips and boards. This is what it looked like on the outer perimeter of the airport I mean just huge crowds. And you begin to see that among these crowds. It was extremely difficult for women and children they were just crammed in there. We were told that they needed to get to a gate. And, you know, how could, you know, women and children really do this. And if you look at this picture here and I've looked at this picture so many times. I mean, this is like the enter the how you would begin to enter towards a path to a gate, and I can't even see any women and children here. It was just, it was quite difficult for them. This is a picture at the night at night and somebody standing in the sewer, and I'll talk a little bit about that. The average time to get to a gate was between 20 and 28 hours. Very, very difficult experience. If you can just imagine. First of all just standing for that length of time. Alone. Now I don't know if this is going to I'm going to try to do this. This one may not work. I have. Oh, here we go. I have that's in front of the hotel Baron that later was the site of the bombing that took place at the airport. But I wanted to show these to you. Let me show you this one, mostly because the pictures I'm showing you the airport are obviously silent pictures, but the noise the gunfire the confusion that was going on was constant it was the whole 24 seven that while people were trying to push their way into the gate. This is what they were hearing. And hopefully I can get this going as well. It was really terrifying. This is a closer picture of the sewer. As people got closer. They actually had to get into this. This is an open sewer. And as you can see for adults, it's up to their knees. And children there was no way children could get through this. If they walked in the sewer they could drown and parents could only get through if they had enough arms to carry their children and some of these families had four or five children and it was just impossible to do that. And these were open sewers so it was filled with exactly what you expected to be filled with. It was just pretty disgusting. Again here people carrying children standing in the sewer. Trying to continue to make their way to a gate. And once you got closer to the gate, and you can see the crowd further on in this picture. You began to see soldiers for the first time. And what we were told was they needed to get the attention of a soldier. There's an excellent article written in the Atlantic by George Packer, which explains everything that we went through and we experienced at the airport, on the point of view of military veterans who were trying to help their friends left behind in Afghanistan. It's a really amazing article and I would urge you to read it. People that were in the military that were trying to assist other SIVs or other people that they were trying to get out of Afghanistan. They had the advantage in that they could actually contact these soldiers on the wall. They could, you know, call up find somebody that knew somebody that was on duty and get their attention that way. We didn't have those resources. None of us were in the military. But we did get help and assistance from the Polish special forces. And that was because a judge and lawyer actually in Poland offered to help us and had contacts with the Polish military. This here was the bridge and you can see the soldiers standing on the bridge and they're clearly looking for people. They're calling out to people. They're holding up some sort of card or ID. I don't exactly know what that is. They might actually have a list so they were calling names out if anybody responded to the name. It was a very chaotic scene. We were told we needed some sort of code, some sort of way to get the attention of the Polish soldiers. They instructed us to have our judges and their family members write this symbol that you see, which is the first letter for judge in Polish. And also to put a PL outside their names. Now, night was coming on and we were pretty worried that no one would actually see this, despite the fact that they would be waving their hands. We were worried that this wasn't enough. So the Polish soldiers gave us a code word to use. And it was Krakow. And the soldier at the time said to me, yes, Krakow he goes because we'll never forget. And I think at that point that just the enormity of what we were doing and trying to do. It was just overwhelming. It was really the only time I broke down and just sob really. This is what got the attention of the Polish soldiers and did allow some of our judges to get through. Here we are inside the airport. I understand the airport was just, I mean there was over 100,000 people inside this airport. This small section here was where the Polish soldiers were staying, and they gave their costs to the people they rescued. Now, just let me maybe just go back for a minute here. We were able to get about 10 judges and 50 members of their family out through the help of the Polish special forces. Another eight judges got through with the assistance of other groups such as Team America, and those judges were able to come to the United States. The judges got assisted, were assisted by the Romanian government there had been a project that Romania had sponsored on commercial courts, and they needed to evacuate their entire staff that was in Afghanistan, and they took many of the people that worked on this project as well many of the Afghans. There were a few judges that had visas to the UK, and they were also able to get into the airport and were evacuated. All of these evacuations were miracles. They were really a testament to their, the judges perseverance and frankly luck. Now, since the airport closed, all the judges are in hiding. The Taliban is hunting them all and it goes in spurts. Almost immediately after we got Judge Brazzoli out she, and I just should say here, I'm really grateful to Poland, because they were not able to get out themselves by getting to a gate in the airport. They had too many small children. They're primarily women and children. They, but the special forces came out into the city and grabbed them and took them and brought them into the airport. And we're very grateful for that. Again though, since the airport closed, all the judges are in hiding that are that remained in Afghanistan. And this is one of the judges homes after the Taliban came in and searched it and, you know, looking for the judge who fortunately was not there. Their bank accounts are frozen. Relatives of theirs have been detained and beaten and in some instances even killed. And this letter from the Supreme Court to notifying another court that the Taliban has ordered and one of the judges there to be assassinated. And this is quite common. We have several of these letters. Very disturbing. Almost immediately over the takeover of Kabul, the Taliban took over the Supreme Court itself. So they had all of the personnel records of the judges. Now, I just want to say that the, what we've done since this time is very complicated. We have gotten out approximately 160 judges and their families that that the total group of people is about 800. Most of them are in temporary stays in countries awaiting visas for permanent resettlement. Since the withdrawal, the US has not let any women, any of the women judges into this country. We have 90 judges still in Afghanistan with about 500 family members. So this is for us an unfinished story. Our, our team continues to fight. We have it now it's visas visas visas, we are going everywhere looking for visas. We have visas in countries from Korea to Brazil to Albania, Kosovo, Greece, and the UAE. None of these are permanent and Poland, and none of these are the judges there are there for permanent resettlement. Most of them speak English and they want to go to English speaking countries and it's primarily Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Canada and the US. So Australia and New Zealand have been taking judges and they take a few all along. I'll also many judges want to go to Germany they have family there and as well. Germany is just beginning to again take a few more. The UK. We're hoping that they will take a few more judges. All of this is very difficult. I mean we're five months. We can't get them to open their doors. Canada is just beginning to take a few judges. I'm very hopeful that the US will eventually give us a path forward to get our judges into the United States. But as I said before there's been no judges allowed entry into the United States since the airport is closed. We actually I should take that today actually we had one judge that she's in the air but I assume she's going to land this evening in San Francisco. She's a recipient of a fellowship program at Berkeley. And she was actually given a J visa which was very unusual. And the judges and Nisa Rizuli as well as Judge Nafisa who's president of the Afghan Women's Judges Association, both of them have teaching fellowships at Yale University, which we can't get them in. Either can yell. So I just want to leave with a few hopeful pictures here. This is Judge Rizuli in Poland. They, Poland has been really great to our judges and there have been very kind to help them with resettlement issues. She also wants to come and has host families and everything waiting for her in Vermont, and that's where she wants to be. These are two judges that were resettled in Ireland, the front, the judges in the front or Irish judges that are their sponsors. And in the back you see the two Afghan judges. This is, these are just pictures this week. This is a little girl that arrived in Vancouver meeting a relative. This is the first judge we've been able to get into Canada. And this is the family here arriving. So I wanted to leave this on a very hopeful note. But the truth is, as I said before, this is an unfinished story. And we have a long way to go with a lot of unknowns. Thank you. Thank you, Patricia. And we have a number of questions. For starters, how are the Afghan women informed about opportunities for them in legal careers, and how did they receive a legal education in Afghanistan. Well, they, there's universities in Afghanistan, Kabul University is a well known school. And they are, it's a civil law country. So they train their lawyers bit differently than we do here. Usually it's an undergraduate program so person goes to the university, they major in law, they come out with a degree in law. And then they have a two year clerkship within the judiciary itself. And at the end of that two years, they're assigned to a court. They may not necessarily be a sitting judge at that point. They may do legal research they may have other type of administrative job jobs, working within the court, but eventually they reach the trial level and are, you know, become a trial court. The real issue is once we get them out can can they be retrained and the National Center for State Courts in the US is involved in looking at ways to do that. There are some projects, some states allow special practice rules. There's all sorts of different opportunities for them here. But the younger judges most likely if they want to practice as attorneys will have to go to US law schools. It's a little bit different in Europe depending on where they go in Ireland. They can do a one year masters program and be eligible to be a solicitor there. So depending on where they go it's, it's a different question. Was there any resistance to them becoming lawyers or judges in Afghan initially. Oh, well I think. Yes. I mean, do when the Russians. You know they had many opportunities for women to study and do advanced study. So the older judges went to school and and studied laws. There was Sharia schools law. They were very well educated. And so after 2001. There were positions available to them and you know the Taliban in the six years that they ran the country. They appointed many many judges that were by and large mostly illiterate. And I don't think it was. It took them years to actually change the law in Afghanistan to say if you're going to be a judge you have to know how to read and write. But our judges, they knew that already all of the women judges were highly educated. It was not uncommon for them to. At first, be sitting in a panel of judges, and they would be the only literate person in the panel the two male judges would, neither one of them would know how to read or write. I think it was. I'm not right sure what I don't really remember what year they changed the law and required everybody to have a university education in law and go through this training program. But the judges that first came over in 2004 and five clearly were sitting in those kinds of situations. So yes, of course, and there was tremendous discrimination against them. They really had to, you know, be strong, and they were, I mean they they're incredibly resilient women. When they came, when they came to Vermont, that was the thing that I remember the most about it they were just so amazed at how easy we were with colleagues and that there was no issue of gender. In fact, they got our Chief Justice, you know, met with them and, you know, did. I think he did a constitutional law program for them. And, you know, that was what they said they said it just treats us with respect. It was really telling. I think that has obviously with time, all of that has changed. And that's pretty, this is the tragedy the younger women judges who do not remember the Taliban are raised in this educated class of Afghan women and again they are an educated group of women which is not reflect everyone, all the women in the country. But I think they're very assertive and they have. You can see them in the news clips of women demonstrating against the Taliban, you know, they want their rights. The truth is now, though they've been crushed by violence and, you know, violence wins in the short run, but I don't think it wins in the long run. So all of the women judges who came to America speak English, and if so how did they learn it. No, actually, I don't think any of them spoke English. We had two interpreters with us. And they were with us all day long during the programs. We communicated. We communicated very easily and, you know, when I look back, you know, we, you know, everybody knows how to cook a carrot, you know slice of carrot, you know we would get on dinner. You know there was a lot of times when we didn't have the interpreters and we actually did pretty well. The younger judges by and large are learning English. They learned English in school, they understood it was if they wanted to have international opportunities. It was a good second language to have. So it's different for them. Judge Anissa now, she actually understands quite a bit of English but she's studying away and pull and getting ready for Yale. And, but you know it's impressive. What types of cases did the judges rule on in Afghanistan, the women judges. Well, they were appointed. I guess I can. I was going to take off this. The PowerPoint, they sat in all courts. The only court that there wasn't a woman on was the actual what they call the Supreme Council, the Court. They were in the toughest of courts, including the courts of background, you know, which tried terrorism tried the ISIS terrorists that were arrested and held by the military. They were in the drug courts, the corruption courts. These are very dangerous courts because these are courts that deal with corruption within the administration itself within the government itself and not easy, not easy courts that in. No, they stepped right up in 2000. I think it was in 2010. They created courts against that were specifically about violence against women, you know, dealing with those kinds of crimes. They, the interesting thing right now is the judges that are most at risk or judges that sat in family court and the reason why is because when the Taliban took over they let all the criminals out of jail, and those children who had been arrested, perhaps they murdered their wife and were sentenced to prison for that in the family court proceeding the judge may have given custody of those children to the wife's family and those children are now hidden from those men and they're released and they want those children back. So, they feel the way to get those children is to come after the judge, because they think, and it's probably erroneous that the judge will know where those kids are. So, they're under a lot of risk at risk. But at the same time, they put. I mean just to give you an example. The day the Taliban came to some of the provinces judges were still sitting in court. And one judge told us that she did her, even though she knew the Taliban was literally in the town. She sentenced a member of the Taliban for criminal some sort of criminal behavior. And he said to her okay today you sentence me tomorrow I sentence you. And she didn't even go home. She called her family and said, pick me up and leave and they left that village for another part of Afghanistan. So, they're pretty brave, brave ladies. Absolutely. To what degree were the Afghan judges on under surveillance and have their, were they having their phones and their online activity monitored before and after the fall. Well, that's a really good question. We communicate with them through signal. Which is a, you know, more heavily encrypted text program, and you can call as well on that. You know who knows my, my feeling right now is that the Taliban, the type of institutions they need to run a country and one of those is security and intelligence. Services. I don't think they're running to this up to the same degree yet. I think if they were our judges would be much more at risk than they are at the moment. Having said that, there's several layers to the Taliban and there's, they're just the sort of people that are roaming the streets. You know, they're, they're at that risk. We know they come to judges homes repeatedly hoping to find them. We know that that level is, is going on. You know, some of it, it's a little unclear about the basis for detaining people. Some of it's just that they don't rob them. I essentially they'll pick them up in their family, they hold them hostage and their family has to come and pay ransom to get them out. There's quite a bit of that going on. Do you see any glimmers of hope for girls education in the future in Afghanistan. What I believe in is you're not going to hold women back. It just isn't going to work. I don't know what it's going to look like, but those young girls that are now young women. You know they're not going to. I don't think they're going to stand for this. You know, I don't know what that looks like or what that means. I think that right now, there's some preliminary. You know, I lost electricity during this and I don't know if you're hearing that everything we're hearing you just fine. Okay great everything is sort of turning on around me like no we can see you in here. The, you know, there are some schools are being allowed to operate it's very random. The Taliban has, I believe said they that girls can be educated up until the sixth grade but probably only in certain subjects. Some of the universities are operating partially where women have to be. They decided the classroom, and they're divided by curtains, and they have to be covered. Totally. I mean it's all sorts of, you know, things like that. You know, it, I think what it's going to depend on who actually gets control of the country because there's different factions within the Taliban right now. I'm certainly not an expert on this to talk about it. But I think those those factions could be easily explained as slightly more liberal or what they call the Taliban 2.0. But also what we think of as the original Taliban were violent more restrictive. And it's, I don't know who's going to win that battle. But apparently it's, it's going on. I mean that's part of the problem we just don't know what the future is going to bring. But ultimately, I think the oppression of women is not going to serve them. You know, not to mention the practical aspects of how many women in the country actually worked and did the work of government. And they are, they've deprived themselves of that entire workforce. The passport offices, you know they have a hard time staying open and I think that's because many of them were staffed by women who actually knew how to issue a passport. I mean, you know. Really, I think we're out of time, but thank you for just such thought provoking presentation. Patricia, we really, really appreciate it. Well, thank you for the opportunity to really, really good to have you cover this material and give us an inside perspective. Thank you. I agree. Amazing. You are an angel, a true angel. Thank you, Patricia. And good luck. Keep us posted. I will. I want to know how this, how this unfolds. Thank you again. See you everybody and happy Valentine's Day. Bye everybody. Bye bye.