Women of Afghanistan; protecting achievements, combating extremism, promoting peace and pluralism
The 154th Goftegu – Dialogue – meeting of Armanshahr Foundation/OPEN ASIA was held at the European Union Delegation premises in Kabul on 10 December 2015, in collaboration with and with the support of the EU, the French Embassy, the French Institute Afghanistan, UN Women in Afghanistan, and the Swiss Cooperation Office Afghanistan. The title of the Dialogue was: “Women of Afghanistan; protecting achievements, combating extremism, promoting peace and pluralism.” In conclusion, recipients of the 4th Simorgh International Peace Prize were announced. Furthermore, Master Waheed Kaacemy gave a concert to mark the 19th anniversary of Armanshahr Foundation’s establishment.
Afghanistan is still the worst country for girls
Mr Franz-Michael Skjold Mellbin, EU Special Representative and head of the EU Delegation in Afghanistan, opened the meeting on the final day of the Human Rights Week. Excerpts: I wish to speak beyond Afghanistan. The Heart of Asia Conference was an important opportunity but had its shortcomings. Their declaration did mention peace but not the women’s role in peace, whereas I consider women’s presence in peace to be vital. If we forget women’s role, we fail to consider the international experience. We do believe that the government of Afghanistan is committed to women’s rights, but we cannot close our eyes to what is happening against women. Afghanistan is still the worst country for girls. There is still much to be done to achieve equal rights and opportunities for women. At least five women have been stoned. Hard-line medrassa give education to the girls and women. The negative traditions still prevail. Women are still given in exchange for settlement of disputes. Despite all that, there is still hope. There is hope that the international community’s support would improve the situation. There has been progress. We see a large number of women in politics and economy; women who have fought. They have also played a strong role in the civil society and the government. Their progress can be a model for other countries in similar conditions, where women do not enjoy their rights.
Subsequently, Parviz Kaveh, panel’s moderator and managing editor of daily 8 Sobh, welcomed the participants and called the speakers to begin.
Where there are arms, women’s rights are easily violated
The first speaker was Member of Parliament Fawzia Koofi. Criticising the present conditions, she said: “The word and practice of the government must not be different. There were only men and no women from Afghanistan in the Hearth of Asia Conference. However, there were women representing the Pakistani government at the conference.
“The society is in part moving radically toward fundamentalism. Terrorist groups have grown from the money given for the mujahedin. When war and arms come to the fore, freedom of expression will go away and women’s rights are easily violated. The Talibanite fundamentalist mentality still exists. We cannot compare today with the Taliban era. However, the pre-Taliban era was by far better than today. Even though women were killed then, it was not as bad as today. We have to establish the culture of non-violence in education. We need a society where non-violence would replace violence. The day when women’s freedom is restricted, civil rights and freedom will also be restricted. Freedom of expression will also be limited. If you wish to retain these achievements, you should come to terms with the women of Afghanistan.”
We must build a perspective to defend human rights
Nasrin Garrouss, cultural advisor to Chief Executive Officer of Afghanistan, was the second speaker. She preferred to address the vital issue of human rights. “My heart breaks every day when a person is killed in war or by suicide. Most of the casualties are the young men of this land. We have not built a perspective to defend human rights yet. We do not know in what conditions Afghanistan will be in five or 10 years and where it will lead to. I call on all civil rights activists, women and young people to help build this perspective. Human rights are violated extensively, but we do not know how much we have progressed.”
Criticising the present state of the government, she emphasised: “We have spent more than 50,000 working hours in the ministries, thousands of hours in the parliament, embassies etc. and hundreds of articles have been written. But, our time should not be wasted on relatively small matters. Our ministries must become active. Human rights will not take root fundamentally so long as we do not combat illiteracy of the 80% of the population.”
People of Afghanistan are victims of wars which they never started
The next speaker was Horia Mosadiq, Afghanistan researcher of Amnesty International, who began by asking “What status do women have?” and went on to elaborate: “Even though women’s right to equality, the right to health and political participation have improved relatively in the past 14 years in comparison with the past and we did not have these achievements even at time of peace, we did not face the present-day challenges either.
“Rights of men and women are equal in the Constitution and Afghanistan is a party to international conventions, but those conventions have not been integrated into the domestic legislation and not implemented.”
Referring to Fawzia Koofi’s speech, she commented: “When the West supported the mujahedin in the 80s, they knew whom they were supporting. The abundant money that was invested in fundamentalism was not a coincident. When the US Senate allocated the biggest funds to the fundamentalists, they knew what they were doing. It was with the help of the same funds that the schools burnt down at the time. What the ISIS and the Taliban are doing today, the mujahedin did in the past. Schools were burnt and government officers were killed at that time as well. Only the suicide attacks are more frequent now. We are victims of wars, which we never started. We did not build the rockets and bombs, which are dropped on us. Since the Russian invasion to this day, most victims have been women. As the main and foremost victims of the Taliban, where do we stand in these talks?”
Criticising the peace process, she said: “In the peace process, we have more questions than answers. Neither the government has answered these questions, nor the international community, nor any other authority. When there is talk of peace negotiations, we as victims of the Taliban, want to know where the red lines of the government are. Unfortunately, we are still victims of political games.”
Mosadiq also criticised the international community: “The international community can play a role in determining priorities of the Afghanistan government, because they provide most of the funds. When it is called an Afghan process, with decisions taken in Washington, women must be involved in that process.”
On the government’s role, she said: “Also the government must specify to whom it is talking: The Akhtar Mansoor branch, Mulla Rassould branch, the Haqqani network, the Islamic Party, or any other group.”
Finally, she concluded: “If the first perpetrators who brought out the whips had been brought to trial, we would not bear witness to the killing of Rakhshana today. When two people are executed on charge of kidnapping at Nimruz and the president’s legal advisor takes pride in it, these things are sure to happen.”
