Ten Years Later–The ‘Liberation’ Of Afghan Women

 Comments Off
Oct 052011
 

When the United States attacked Afghanistan ten years ago, we were told that not only were we going after those who had attacked us but also that we would liberate Afghan women from the Taliban.  It was a very effective selling point, there is nothing we tend to like better than rescuing helpless women.  But let’s be clear–that was not the reason we invaded Afghanistan–women had been being abused by the Taliban and the warlords before them for quite some time by then.  As we observe the 10th anniversary of what now seems like an endless war, it is important to look at what Afghan women have experienced since the U.S. invasion and what needs to be considered going forward.

ActionAid and Oxfam have both issued lengthy reports addressing these issues.  In a survey of 1000 Afghan women, ActionAid found that,

72% of Afghan women believe their lives are better now than they were 10 years ago, while 37% think Afghanistan will become a worse place if international troops leave. A massive 86% are worried about a return to Taliban-style government, with one in five citing their daughter’s education as the main concern…

…However women’s rights groups in Afghanistan say they are being kept in the dark regarding the talks with the Taliban, as well as being frozen out of an important international conference on the country’s future and transition of power, which will take place in Bonn, Germany in December 2011…

…Women who have stood up for women’s rights in the past 10 years are also worried about their own personal safety if the Taliban returns to power, with some activists making plans to leave the country.

The report goes on to say that today,

  • 39% of children who attend school are girls
  • 27% of MPs are women (higher than the world average)
  • 5% of positions in the army and police force are filled by women
  • 25% of government jobs are filled by women

These achievements are real and should not be underestimated. Yet huge challenges remain and too many women are still denied rights that should be taken for granted. Even now, a woman who runs away from home to escape domestic abuse is seen as dishonouring her family and often loses the right to see her children.

Forced and child marriage are common and only 13% of women are literate (the figure for men is 43%). Eighty-seven per cent of all women in Afghanistan suffer domestic abuse, according to a UN survey and life expectancy for both men and women is around 45 – more than 20 years lower than the world average. The Save the Children index this May described Afghanistan as the worst place in the world to be a mother – one in 11 women perishes in pregnancy (one every 30 minutes) while one child in every five dies before reaching its fifth birthday. This means that every mother in Afghanistan is likely to face the loss of a child. And many women remain isolated. The ActionAid poll found that four in 10 women never leave their village or neighbourhood.

It is important to note, which this report does not, that not only do women run away from home to escape domestic abuse, but all too often they attempt suicide to escape, frequently setting themselves on fire to do so.  The abuse itself is often horrific beyond description, including brutal disfigurement and outright murder.

As for where we are now, ActionAid reports,

“After the fall of the Taliban things got better. But then gradually, after 2006, the situation got worse,” says Selay Ghaffar, executive director of ActionAid partner HAWCA. “All these efforts were undermined because of security and the presence of people who committed crimes and abuses in the past who are still in power. Girls’ schools shut down, acid was thrown in girls’ faces, schools were burnt down.”…

…And despite the early statements from international leaders, women’s rights seem to have been deprioritised as the military operation against the Taliban and other insurgents has been stepped up…

This is  delusional phrasing–women’s rights have never been the priority in Afghanistan except to the extent that they are politically expedient towards other ends.  The report continues,

…In September last year the Afghan government set up a High Peace Council – a 79-member body which is tasked with talking to the Taliban. There are just nine women on the council and many women’s rights activists say they hold merely symbolic positions and are not part of the real negotiations.

…The international community can also support Afghan women through deeper engagement with women’s civil society and community-based organisations. Direct funding to women’s organisations to build their capacity as advocates and leaders will enable funds to aid transformation to a more democratic society, not just facilitate transition without the promise of sustainable change…

…However, providing this support will require a fresh look at funding priorities, and methods to ensure aid reaches women and can address the root causes of women’s inequality. Women’s organisations working to reduce poverty and empower women and girls say they receive little or no funding, forcing them to operate hand to mouth and limit activities to practical services rather than also being able to lobby for long-term changes for women….

…In addition the international community should broaden diplomatic efforts to include consultations and information sharing with women’s organisations. Amplifying the concerns of women’s organisations and ensuring women’s voices are heard is a valuable role the international community can play.

Conspicuously absent in ActionAid’s analysis is the existence of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1889 as  framework for conflict resolution and peace negotiating which are however addressed by Oxfam (see below).

According to Oxfam,

Western leaders have a responsibility toward Afghan women, not least because protection of women’s rights was sold as a positive outcome of the international intervention in October 2001. Ten years on, however, time is running out to fulfill these promises.

The Afghan government and the international community must:

  • Ensure women’s rights are not sacrificed, by publicly pledging that any political settlement must explicitly guarantee women’s rights;
  • Make a genuine commitment to meaningful participation of women in all phases and levels of any peace processes.

The Afghan government must:

  • Enhance efforts to increase representation of women in elected bodies and government institutions at all levels to 30 per cent;
  • Encourage religious leaders to speak out on women’s rights in Islam;
  • Intensify efforts to promote female access to education, health, justice, and other basic services.

The Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defence must:

  • Improve awareness of women’s rights and human rights law in the justice and security sector, and ensure effective imple- mentation of these laws;
  • Increase substantially women recruits in the security and justice sectors.

The international community must:

  • Support expanded civic education programmes to raise awareness of women’s rights at community level;
  • Support efforts to improve female leadership;
  • Intensify support to promote access to education and other key services, and ensure this support will continue at current or in- creased levels even as international military forces prepare to withdraw.

The UN must:

  • Continue to monitor all government actions including the peace processes and provide increased support to the Afghan government on all negotiation, reconciliation, and reintegra- tion processes.

The report points to the dichotomy between the current lip-service regarding Afghan women and the realities of how the issue is being approached,

Publicly, Western politicians are still backing Afghan women. In July 2011, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated her commitment to women, saying: ‘Any potential for peace will be subverted if women and ethnic minorities are marginalised or silenced…And so when we look at what will happen in Afghanistan, the United States will not abandon our values or support a political process that undoes the progress that has been made in the past decade.’ But behind the scenes it is less clear what will happen if the Taliban make demands that require compromise on women’s rights, as the US government prepares to withdraw the majority of its troops by the end of 2014 and seeks a political settlement to bring an end to the fighting. In July 2011, a Washington Post article reported one USAID official as saying ‘gender issues are going to have to take a back seat to other priorities’.This reflects ‘growing realism’ tempering expectations of what they can achieve on the ground after ten years. As one analysis puts it, ‘On this list of priorities, ‘gender’ is generally seen as a luxury to be left aside until the supposedly gender-neutral objectives in the domains of security and governance have been achieved.’ (Emphasis mine.)

Let’s be very clear here–gender issues have always taken a back seat.  This isn’t a question of ‘growing realism’, it is a question of persistent, pandemic misogyny that has infested and damaged life on this planet since the dawn of patriarchy.  It is precisely the stupidity of seeing these issues as a luxury that undermines any realistic achievement of security since the day men first started going to war.  But as Oxfam points out,

The vital role of women in peace-building at the national level and in peace negotiations has been recognised in UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1889, applicable to all UN member states, including Afghanistan. The Afghan government reaffirmed its support for women’s role in peace-building in its national peace plan, the donor-funded Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme (APRP), which began to be rolled out nationwide in early 2011.

Yet women are currently under-represented or not represented at all in the APRP, which augurs poorly for female participation in any future formal peace talks with the Taliban. There are just nine women on the 70-member High Peace Council (HPC), which was created to lead the peace process. Many of the male members are former warlords and powerbrokers who do not take their female counterparts seriously. The APRP has also established provincial peace councils under the HPC, composed of between 20 and 35 members, with a minimum of three women, one of whom must be a representative from the Department of Women’s Affairs (DoWA). However, no council as yet has more than three female members. Women at the community level have little understanding of APRP; their formal role, at the moment, is unclear but is likely to be limited to involvement in community development programmes. According to a provincial DoWA head, ‘although women have great potential as negotiators and peacebuilders, the will and commitment from Kabul to involve them is almost nil.’

In their conclusions, Oxfam writes that, “words must be matched with action and firm guarantees,” and this is indeed true but not sufficient.  Our words in regard to Afghan women were used in 2001 as a tool to garner support for the invasion of Afghanistan, not a call on its own merits to address Afghan human rights issues.  Just bringing women to the table will not be enough–it must be insured that the women who come to the table are not puppet window dressing proxies for warlords or the Taliban and that they are allowed to safely speak freely and that their words be taken seriously.

The most crucial point to be made however is that while women’s human rights, progress and security are a huge concern, they should not be construed as a reason for continued, never ending foreign military presence in Afghanistan, which is only aggravating the continuing violence that pervades the country.  Killing and maiming people does not secure human rights, it destroys them.  There is no possibility of living in peace until the violence ends.  It is time to disarm the warring factions within Afghanistan and for the U.S. military to leave–only then will there be a realistic chance for women’s human rights in Afghanistan.

 

DeliciousFacebookGoogle+RedditStumbleUponTwitterPrintFriendlyEmailEvernoteDiggShare
 Posted by Fempeace on October 5, 2011

Looks Like We’ll Have To Invade Tajikistan To Rescue Women There Too

 Comments Off
Aug 092010
 

There has been much discussion in the last few weeks about the difficulties faced by Afghan women.  The horrible similarities in these two news items illustrates that the war against women knows no boundaries.  If helping the women of Afghanistan was truly a priority, by the same logic, I suppose we will now have to invade Tajikistan.

In Tajikistan:

A Tajik official says the high rate of self-immolation among women in southern Tajikistan is related in most cases to domestic violence perpetrated by men, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reports.

Suhrob Salomov, an Interior Ministry official in Khatlon Province, told RFE/RL that 108 cases of suicide and attempted suicide by women have been recorded in the province in 2010. He said 52 people have died as a result and tens of others have been injured.

Salomov added that at least 50 percent of the known cases of attempted suicide were related to domestic violence and violence against women.

In Afghanistan:

Former Deputy Health Minister Faizullah Kakar recently completed a study (published in Dari) indicating that rising numbers of women and girls aged 15-40 are attempting suicide in Afghanistan. His findings were presented at a news conference in Kabul on 31 July.

The study, based on Health Ministry records and hospital reports, said an estimated 2,300 women or girls were attempting suicide annually – mainly due to mental illness, domestic violence and/or socio-economic hardship. “This is a several-fold increase on three decades ago,” said Kakar, currently a health adviser to President Hamid Karzai.

DeliciousFacebookGoogle+RedditStumbleUponTwitterPrintFriendlyEmailEvernoteDiggShare
 Posted by Fempeace on August 9, 2010

A Response To The Ms. Critique Of My Comments About Using The Plight Of Afghan Women To Promote The War

 2 Responses »
Aug 052010
 

Earlier this week, Rafia Zakaria wrote a post on the Ms. Magazine blog critiquing the “left’s” (in which she includes the Feminist Peace Network) response to the TIME Magazine cover and article about what happens to Afghan women  if we leave Afghanistan.  This post is in response to the points that she  raises.  She writes,

First to critique TIME‘s cover has been an American Left so committed to troop withdrawal that any pauses for consideration are instantly rejected as ploys to perpetuate occupation. On the Huffington Post, Derrick Crowe, political director of the Brave New Foundation, described the cover as “TIME’s epic distortion of the plight of women in Afghanistan,” calling it “rank propaganda,” and pointing out that Aisha was attacked while U.S forces were still in Afghanistan purportedly providing “security.” The Feminist Peace Network decried the tired use of “protecting Afghan women” as justification for continued occupation.

To begin with, given that I have oft critiqued the misogyny of the left, I don’t know whether to be amused, saddened or honored that this blog is seen by Ms. as representing the  not so monolithic as that left. But as to the point raised, given the CIA memo regarding the use of Afghan women to promote a continued presence in Afghanistan, I think it is fair to say that in fact it is a ploy.  Zakaria continues,

The Left’s framing is clear: Rescuing Afghan women was a pretext crafted handily by the Bush Administration so it could barge its way into Afghanistan and stay there. And that’s certainly true. Also true, as Crowe points out, is that Afghan women have continued to suffer during the American occupation, enduring both traditional patriarchal practices and newly-minted discriminatory laws. Indeed, assessing the performance of the 10-year occupation in the mutilated-yet-expectant features of a young woman serves as an appropriately graphic visual depiction of our failures in Afghanistan.

The problem with these arguments, however, is that they translate our inability to improve things thus far into a prescription for sudden abandonment of the very projects that women just like Aisha made the mistake of believing in: literacy and entrepreneurship initiatives for women, civil society seminars designed to encourage women’s participation and midwifery training projects to reduce Afghanistan’s sky-rocketing rates of maternal mortality. War is horrific, its misery recorded in lurid detail in the tragedy of Aisha’s mutilation. But withdrawing without a plan for safeguarding the women who chose to believe the American promises of empowerment, however deceitfully those promises may have been made, is to live in denial of a tragedy in which we are roundly imputed.

That is a very important point that needs to be addressed.  While advocating withdrawal, I believe it needs to be done in an orderly fashion with substantive attention paid to the protection of the rights and safety of civilians.  However as it stands right now, it appears unlikely that we will leave Afghanistan any time soon, despite how unpopular the war there has become.

The question of abandoning women is a false issue.  We never went there for their protection in the first place and nine years later, we’ve done very little to realize the projects that Ms. Zakaria mentions.  Afghanistan has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world and is the only country in which the rate of suicide for women is higher than it is for men.  Girls’ schools continue to be bombed and women are being excluded from peace talks.

Let’s be very clear that we went into Afghanistan as a response to the 911 bombings to retaliate against Bin Laden and against the Taliban for allowing him a base of operations in Afghanistan, albeit a fully nuanced explanation of our response is of course far more complex than that and well beyond the scope of this blog.  Let’s also be clear that the purpose of the U.S. military is to defend U.S. interests. However misguided a military response may or may not be,  rescuing or empower women has never been at the top of our agenda, if it were, we need to ask questions such as why have we not responded to the desperate plight of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo and why we have not ratified CEDAW.  Continuing with the Zakaria post,

At the same time, I find the sudden elevation of Afghan women’s agency at this juncture to be both self-serving and instrumental in denying just how badly the world has failed them. Saying that women ravaged by war for over three decades, whose capacity for resistance has been depleted by incessant meddling of foreign forces, can now independently empower themselves in the wreckage of the abandoned programs we leave behind is an argument meant only to pacify the travails of our own conscience.

Again, no argument, unquestionably simply abandoning Afghan women is not acceptable.  I also believe that the U.S. bears an enormous amount of responsibility in this regard. However demanding that we live up to that obligation is problematic, and simply saying that we therefore can’t leave Afghanistan is both simplistic and perhaps even further damaging.

While millions of dollars have been poured into reconstruction in both Afghanistan and Iraq, a huge percentage of that money has been squandered, has ended up in the hands of U.S. contractors, war lords and who knows who else, but the bottom line is it hasn’t done much to help civilians.  This isn’t a working model of how to provide aid and support and certainly not while we continue to  kill civilians.

As I pointed out earlier this week, almost completely forgotten in this discussion is that CEDAW and UNSC 1325 provide substantive tools that can be used to create a productive model of empowerment and that while not being a perfect vehicle either, the United Nations is far better equipped to organize the necessary support that would allow Afghan women a chance at empowerment, and the U.S. should support the utilization of those resources rather than continuing to perpetuate a policy that has amounted to blunder and plunder.

Since the TIME Magazine piece came out, there have been a number of excellent responses.  In addition to the ones that I have already highlighted in previous posts (see below), Michelle Chen writes on Color Lines,

Whatever your stance on the Afghanistan war, photos like this are undoubtedly powerful. But ask whose interests are served by the rationalization of war through perverse appeals to gendered, racialized pity. A moving image can muddle more than it clarifies when the background is underexposed. So if Aisha represents anything about what has happened between when the U.S. invaded her country and when it will leave, then we owe it to her to turn the lens back on ourselves for once.

Priyamvada Gopal ends her well-reasoned analysis in The Guardian with,

The mutilated Afghan woman ultimately fills a symbolic void where there should be ideas for real change. The truth is that the US and allied regimes do not have anything substantial to offer Afghanistan beyond feeding the gargantuan war machine they have unleashed.

And how could they? In the affluent west itself, modernity is now about dismantling welfare systems, increasing inequality (disproportionately disenfranchising women in the process), and subsidising corporate profits. Other ideas once associated with modernity – social justice, economic fairness, peace, all of which would enfranchise Afghan women – have been relegated to the past in the name of progress. This bankrupt version of modernity has little to offer Afghans other than bikini waxes and Oprah-imitators. A radical people’s modernity is called for – and not only for the embattled denizens of Afghanistan.

While being highly problematic in intent and approach, the one thing that can be said about the TIME piece is that it has provoked some excellent and necessary dialog, including the Ms. response even though it is somewhat predictable given that Ms. is now run by the Feminist Majority which early on supported the call to rescue women from the Taliban in the run up to the invasion of Afghanistan.  Certainly referring so generally and disparagingly to the “left”  is both inaccurate and a disservice to many hard-working dedicated activists.

If you have not already, I urge you to read the following earlier FPN posts on this topic and to look at the many links in those posts to other commentary and I invite you to share your comments below (that said, the internet is out in my office and I’ll spare you my rant about the perils of communications deregulation, but I may not be able to respond or post comments in a timely fashion).

–Lucinda Marshall

DeliciousFacebookGoogle+RedditStumbleUponTwitterPrintFriendlyEmailEvernoteDiggShare
 Posted by Fempeace on August 5, 2010

CEDAW, UNSC 1325 And Afghanistan

 Comments Off
Aug 042010
 

In the ongoing reaction to the use of Afghan women’s lives and voices to make a pitch for a continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan, it is worth noting that unlike the United States, in 2003, Afghanistan ratified CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, widely recognized as a human rights declaration for women, which states,

The Convention defines discrimination against women as “…any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field.”

Despite that, back in February, at a conference discussing negotiations with the Taliban,

Afghan women were not included in the Afghan Government’s official delegation to the London conference and only one Afghan woman was permitted to speak on behalf of civil society as part of the official conference program.

That is emblamatic of the lipservice that is being given to women’s human rights under the U.S. backed Karzhai government.

The U.S. and Afghanistan are also bound by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for,

  • Increased participation and representation of women at all levels of decision-making.
  • Attention to specific protection needs of women and girls in conflict.
  • Gender perspective in post-conflict processes.
  • Gender perspective in UN programming, reporting and in SC missions.
  • Gender perspective & training in UN peace support operations.

The Kabul Declaration from July, 2009 amplifies what this means in the case of Afghanistan and reads:

Women’s Participation in the Peace Process

The participants agreed that peace is defined beyond the military strucures of Police and army and in more comprehensive analysis could be described as rule of law in conformance of national constitution and international human rights.

Building on the comprehensive definition of the peace and security, the government and the international community should ensure that security is provided in its more comprehensive definition considering the special needs and interests of women and children.

• The government and the international community should ensure the implementation of International Humanitarian Law during the conflict.

• In order to increase the number of women in law enforcement agencies, the government and international community needs to pay special attention to capacity development, affirmative action special need and protection measures for women.

• Any peace negotiations should ensure women participation and protect the Constitutional human rights of the women.

• Serious disarmament should be initiated by the Government and supported by the international community to mitigate the threats that prevent women participation.

Women’s Political Participation and International Development Assistance

The meeting agreed that in confirmation with the Afghan National Development Strategy (ANDS), 30% of government and political leadership positions should be reserved for women who are effective and committed to the women cause, at all levels inclduing the high level leadership. The Afghan women movement is committed to assist the government in identifying these women.

• The Government should take concrete measures to ensure the proper implementation of the ANDS to improve women’s participation in accordance to the above mentioned commitment.
• The international community should mainstream gender concerns in all the programmes it supports and should also lobby for more women’s participation in senior positions with in the government.
• A percentage of development funds should be agreed on for women-specific programmes es and initiatives.
• Civil society organisations should strengthen their capacities to coordinate and network more effectively for gender empowerment.
• The capacity of the parliament should be strengthened to understand and support gender matters in order to effectively monitor and hold accountable the executive agencies of the government.

Security Reforms

The meeting participants agreed that security has many complex dimensions such as physical, psychological, societal and military. Poverty aggravates insecurity in the population, including among women and children.
• Government of Afghanistan should speed up the establishment of a national action plan for the implementation of UNSCR 1325.
• The governmnet of Afghanistan should on urgent basis, initiate national policy and mechanism to eliminate the sexual harassment in all governmental and non governmental working, educational and public places.
• The government and international community should recognise the role of communities and civil society groups to determine and take ownership of any local development plans for creating security in their lives.

The regional meeting proposes to the United Nations to assign a UN special rapporteur for the monitoring the implementation of United Nations Security Resolution 1325.

The participants from the five countries committed themselves to follow-up on the implementation of the above recommendations and will also pursue the establishment of a regional monitoring body to oversee the progress of UNSCR 1325 in Afghanistan and the region,

It is abundantly clear that neither Afghanistan or the United States in its presence in Afghanistan are in compliance with these accepted international frameworks of women’s human rights, including the now documented use of women’s lives as a justification for  military action by the U.S. If we are truly concerned with the lives of Afghan women and women throughout the world whose human rights are under siege, we must demand that substantive steps be taken to adhere to CEDAW, UNSC 1325 and other human rights declarations and resolutions.

DeliciousFacebookGoogle+RedditStumbleUponTwitterPrintFriendlyEmailEvernoteDiggShare
 Posted by Fempeace on August 4, 2010

More On Using Afghan Women To Sell The War

 1 Response »
Aug 022010
 

Last night I spoke briefly on Pacifica’s KPFA about the TIME Magazine article (see links below) and the using of Afghan women to sell the war. Here is the clip, my few seconds of fame starts after the 24 minute mark. And yes, they got my name wrong. The entire interview from which this was taken will hopefully air at a later time.

The KPFA Evening News (Weekend) – August 1, 2010 at 6:00pm

Click to listen (or download)

One of the things that I mentioned in the longer version of this was that Afghanistan is the only country in the world where the suicide rate for women is higher than for men. Shortly after we taped the interview, I came across this horrifying story on the RAWA site:

The advisor of the president of Afghanistan in health matters estimates that each year 2300 Afghan women and girls, aged between 15 to 40 years who suffer from depression, commit suicide.

Mr. Kakkar said that on the basis of the above information the rate of suicide among women is 5 out of every 100,000. Mr. Kakkar said that the continuation of civil wars and violence in Afghanistan, immigration, early and forced marriages, rape, domestic violence and widespread poverty in families are viewed as the main reasons for mental illnesses and depression in Afghanistan.

This isn’t from 2001 before we went in to rescue Afghan women while coincidentally squashing terrorism, killing Bin Laden and routing the Taliban. This is now. So NYT, McClatchy and TIME sob pieces not withstanding, forgive me for not understanding just why our continued presence in Afghanistan is beneficial to women.

Anna Clover has additional excellent commentary about the TIME piece here,

Through presenting the image of a young women who has been brutalised and maimed, the magazine is inducing within the viewer not only compassion for its subject, but confirming the understanding that she is ‘other’. That America is all this image is not…Coupled with the near unbelievable heading that ‘This is what happens when we leave Afghanistan’, Time has successfully managed to project an imperialist view over the event occurring in Afghanistan, and through deliberately using such an upsetting image, leaves the reader feeling emotionally swayed towards the message of the piece. Which is essentially, the barbaric people of Afghan need us to be there so they will stop chopping up their women. Never mind that this has absolutely nothing to do with the original reason for invading Afghan. Never mind that this event actually occurred whilst American and British troops were supposedly helping the Afghan people. And nevermind as well, that in supposedly civilised countries such as Britain, The Donkey Sanctuary receives more funding than all Domestic Violence safe houses put together. Like so many cases before, the image of the woman has been conjured up as a means through which a war propaganda machine can keep on churning.

Please also see my earlier posts regarding the TIME piece on Afghan women and the issue of using these women to sell the war here, here and here.

DeliciousFacebookGoogle+RedditStumbleUponTwitterPrintFriendlyEmailEvernoteDiggShare
 Posted by Fempeace on August 2, 2010
 Older Entries