www.afp.com
A three-day Afghan women's "summit" organized here [in Brussels] by several womens' rights groups concluded Thursday with a call for full restoration of civil rights for Afghan women in their war-torn country.

The summit, held in an EU building and backed by Euro-MPs, issued a list of demands for Afghan women's rights in health, education, politics, suffrage and personal freedoms, including birth control, freedom from sexual harassment and forced marriage.

A summit statement called for women's participation in the "Loya Jirga," or vast national assembly that is, according to a multi-party Afghan accord in Bonn on Wednesday, to formulate the country's future constitution.

"For the past 23 years, Afghan people have been living in the dark," said a separate statement issued by the dozens of Afghan women who participated.

"We, the Afghan women, should join our efforts to establish a civil society in our country and bring back democratic values through education and culture," it said.

Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, opened the summit on Tuesday with a call for Afghan women to be "fully represented in future political organs" of their country.

Maj Britt Theorin, chairman of the European Parliament Women's Rights Committee, said the EU should exert pressure for its reconstruction aid to Afghanistan to be channeled toward improvement of women's rights and conditions.

"This time, we shouldn't miss that possibility, as we did in the Balkans," she said. "We need to have the money forwarded to women's issues in health, schools and so forth."

"We have not had a government for the last 22 years," said Sima Wali, an Afghan women in close contact with former Afghan King Zaher Shah, in exile in Italy, "and the Afghan women are the ones who have been providing the services in their communities, including health, education and social affairs."

"The only problem," she said, "has been that their voices have not been reflected in the West.

"This will no longer be the case," she told the summit. "I urge you to support women's work and women's rebuilding in Afghanistan."