Articles

Women in Afghanistan

By Lina Abirafeh

Afghanistan's tumultuous history has left Afghan women with schizophrenic rights, and yet Afghan women continue to persevere despite extraordinary circumstances. Afghan women today look to the heroic women of their past and present, and are determining the direction their new lives will take. Women like Malalai, the ancient warrior, and modern-day General Khatool, made famous for jumping out of airplanes… these are the women that mark Afghanistan's history and inspire Afghan women today.

In the early 1970s, Afghan women's rights were included in the national constitution. Women were seen on the streets of Kabul in skirts, attended university and studied to be doctors. Later that decade, Soviet occupation of the country, coupled with a conservative backlash, stripped women of their hard-won rights. For the next twenty years, as each regime took its turn in Afghanistan, women's rights continued to deteriorate. Both Afghan politics and Afghan women's rights were absent from the international agenda until organisations operating in the country exposed the dire human rights situation.

During the Taliban, Afghan women's NGOs such as the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA, www.rawa.org) brought women's rights to the forefront of the international women's agenda. RAWA's story is both romanticized and immortalized through their martyred leader, Meena. Meena founded RAWA in 1977. The organization grew rapidly, and yet always maintained its secret status. RAWA members often did not know each other. The organization went underground during the Taliban era, but gained prominence through its exposure of women's human rights abuses that gained worldwide attention through their website. Many books have been written about Meena and RAWA. See below for a brief selection.

Organizations like RAWA and others, operating clandestinely in Afghanistan and Pakistan, revealed the horrors inflicted upon women during this regime - rapes, stonings, confinement, etc. They bravely resisted oppression and persevered through home schools for girls, women's clinics, and a network of underground operations.

Women are now starting to share their immeasurable suffering they experienced during the conflict. One example is Anisa, a woman of 27 who recently sought support and training from an international organization in Kabul. Anisa's husband repaired televisions and tape recorders, both of which were banned by the Taliban. During the Taliban regime, he continued to operate the clandestine workshop to support their three children. One day the noise emerging from a broken tape recorder attracted Taliban attention. As a result, he was beaten to death. Two years later, at age 25, Anisa was forced to marry her sister-in-law's 17 year old son, still a student. And now Anisa is pregnant with her fifth child and still has no income to support them.

Almost two years into the reconstruction process, conditions for women in Afghanistan remain challenging- an illiteracy rate of 85%, female-headed households living in dire poverty, and an inability to access training and economic opportunities. The full extent of the situation for Afghan women is unknown due to the absence of reliable statistics and data.

Pictures from the 1920s show Queen Soraya unveiled, and wearing a sleeveless dress. And yet, the streets of the modern Kabul are filled with bourka-clad women. The bourka is not synonymous with progress in women's rights and should not be the only barometer of social change. Many women in Afghanistan continue to wear the bourka for reasons of culture, security, etc. Some women have always worn it and assert that they will continue to do so, regardless of increases in freedom of movement. The majority of Afghan women are more concerned with access to economic opportunities and education for themselves and their children.

The reality is that Afghan women long for choice. The choice to wear a veil, or a bourka, or nothing at all. The issue extends well beyond the actual fabric of the bourka. It is more important to address the psychological bourka, and its progeny - the fear bourka and the poverty bourka. Doing so will give Afghan women the opportunity to make their own decisions regarding such issues. In Kabul and some major Afghan cities, one can see a decrease in bourka-blue on the streets. Yet many women are still afraid, and many have been driven to levels of such poverty that they are more comfortable covered. Afghanistan's former king, Zahir Shah, has said 'Any country that covers the eyes of its women makes itself blind'.

Afghan women's rights are safeguarded in the recent Constitution that was approved by the Afghan Constitutional Loya Jirga (Grand Assemby) in January 2004. This document secures women's rights and ensures equality before the law. And yet many Afghan women fear that these words may not reach the right ears. Human rights and women's rights organizations have begun to identify loopholes in the document where rights may be obstructed.

Afghanistan is also a party to CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, signed without reservation in March 2003. Afghan women are using both CEDAW and the new Constitution to guarantee their rights, but the battle is just beginning.

Despite improvements (largely confined to Kabul), women's human rights are still being violated across Afghanistan. Rates of self-immolation and violence against women at home and on the street have increased in the so-called post-conflict period. Women are still struggling to be heard and trying to find alternatives to living in despair. Only a fraction of women - and only those in Afghanistan's cities - are accessing economic opportunities and are able to support themselves and their families.

Many groups, local and international, are actively working for Afghan women, and are leading the way in providing support and articulating Afghan women's needs- education, health care and access to income generation. These organizations strive to offer women the tools with which they can achieve self-sufficiency, a choice, and a voice.

Now that I have enrolled myself in this organization, I am very happy... It is like a drop of water that a person pours into the mouth of another who is in a dry desert. That is the drop of water that is going to save her life.
Women for Women International - Afghanistan beneficiary

Now through the help of women's NGOs, we can say that we are women, and we are LIVING.
Women for Women International - Afghanistan beneficiary

Women's rights and development are not luxuries; they are fundamental to the success of Afghan society. In a group discussion on the role of women in post conflict reconstruction, women were asked what they would recommend to President Karzai in order to ensure peace in the country. One woman said that she would create a program where all Afghans could trade in their guns for pens. In so doing, education will replace the violence that the country has known for so many years.

Still, Afghan women are now able to share their stories - both in Afghanistan and worldwide. When asked what she would like the rest of the world to know, one Afghan woman said "'tell them that Afghan women are very strong and they will do anything for the future of their country and their children'.

The Role of Education

Education was banned by the Taliban, so the fact that women and girls CAN be educated is nothing short of a miracle in Afghanistan. This is something we should never take for granted. It was so exciting to see girls going to school last year. And they were thrilled to be there. What we could use are more opportunities for education for adult women. After so many ears of war and occupation by one regime after another, there is a whole generation of Afghan women that did not have the opportunity to be educated at all. Most Afghan women are illiterate (as high as 85%, it is said, but we don't know for sure). Education for women and girls has improved in urban areas, but in rural parts of Afghanistan there are still major issues. There is sadly no shortage of incidents with girl's schools being burned down.

Stay Informed!

It is essential to know what is happening to women around the world. It helps put our own lives in perspective. It is also important to be informed and be able to examine such things critically. Also, a well-rounded education in the US can help women in Afghanistan. The future leaders of the country are in school today. The more they know and understand about the world, the better off we will all be. The only way to achieve true peace and a better life for all of us is to understand "the other side" a little bit better, even somewhere as seemingly remote as Afghanistan.

To get more information on women in Afghanistan, try the following books:
· The Sewing Circles of Herat by Christina Lamb
· Afganistan, Where God Only Comes to Weep by Siba Shakib
· The Storyteller's Daughter by Saira Shah
· The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
· Veiled Courage: Inside the Afghan Women's Resistance by Cheryl Benard
· Meena, Heroine of Afghanistan: The Martyr Who Founded RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan by Melody Ermachild Chavis
· With All Our Strength: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan by Anne E. Brodsky
· Women for Afghan Women: Shattering Myths and Claiming the Future by Sunita Mehta (Editor)
· Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan by Sally Armstrong
· Unveiled: Voices of Women in Afghanistan by Harriet Logan

For more information on women in Afghanistan and what you can do to support them, visit Women for Women International's website: www.womenforwomen.org. You can also sponsor a woman by sending a small amount of money every month for one year. You and your sponsor sister can exchange letters, learn about each other, and share in each other's lives. Sponsorship will surely change the life of a woman in Afghanistan, and it will most likely change your life as well.