2001, 2003
Active in Afghanistan since 1999, V-Day co-sponsored the Afghan Women's Summit for Democracy in Brussels in December 2001. The blueprint that emerged from the Summit outlined Afghan women leaders' vision for their future starting with immediate priority on education, culture, healthcare, refugees, and human rights.
In March 2002, in Kabul, V-Day followed up with a 3-day series of workshops and roundtables that convened 80 Afghan women leaders, lawyers, activists, and teachers. To create an infrastructure for continued communication among the women and organizations, V-Day delivered 13 satellite phones equipped with solar chargers and free airtime. In support of the work of Afghan women's organizations, V-Day spotlighted the plight of Afghan women during V-Season 2002 and donated a percentage of the funds raised from benefit performances held in communities and college campuses across the world, spreading the message "Afghanistan Is Everywhere."
With the buildup to the US invasion of Iraq, international attention turned away from Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the removal of the Taliban from government did not necessarily restore security for Afghan women. Re-opened schools for girls have faced a series of 26 arson attacks.
[1] Local warlords allow crimes against women to go unpunished. Nearly 60% of girls and women are married by the age of 16
[2], often forced into marriage, beaten by in-laws, even setting themselves on fire to escape domestic violence or forced marriage.
[3] When women and girls flee forced marriages, they risk imprisonment for running away or an 'honor' killing for bringing shame upon their family.
Nevertheless, hope and change have come alive in Afghanistan. Although the literacy rate is only 14% for women (and 43% for men), girls now represent 34% of students enrolled in primary schools.
[4] Sadiqa Basiri told V-Day she returned home to open a village school in Goda, three hours from Kabul. On the first day 35 girls had arrived by 6 a.m. for class at 8, dressed in their best clothes and hungry to learn.
[5]
The women's organizations of Afghanistan have forged ahead. V-Day returned to Kabul in March 2003 in response to their request for leadership training. Nearly 60 grassroots women leaders from 35 organizations gathered with us on International Women's Day to envision an Afghanistan free from violence, and to develop plans for action. Over the next 18 months, members of the Afghan Women's Network organized 154 workshops on gender-based violence attended by 4400 women across Afghanistan; held a legal rights workshop for women lawyers who then succeeded in winning the release of two women and two children unfairly imprisoned in Kabul Jail; and collected signatures on a petition calling for restoration of peace and security for Afghanistan and asking directly for disarmament.
The women's working group on disarmament set a goal for 20,000 signatures from Afghan civilians on their petition. Through the effort of 30 organizations, more than 128,000 signatures were collected in all 32 provinces.
At present, Afghan women are still enduring intimidation against their activism, receiving death threats by phone and bombs exploding in front of their homes.
[6] Members of the Taliban were frequently present at voter registration polls in the summer of 2004, threatening women as they approached to register. [
7] A bus carrying female election workers was the target of a rocket attack in June 2004, killing four women and wounding 12. The UN estimates that only 19% of the registered voters in southern Afghanistan for the October 2004 election were women, deterred due to the lack of security.
[8] Although conditions in Afghanistan are better than before, women still face significant risk in asserting their political rights.
V-Day partners such as the Afghan Women's Network are taking their curriculum on gender violence and women's rights into six provinces, involving both male and female trainers. The Women & Children Legal Research Foundation is holding a conference to address harmful traditional practices in Afghanistan, and focusing on women's and girls' rights when imprisoned for 'running away.'
"
I will never forget the assistance provided from V-Day, which enabled us to start our program. I would say that for every further improvement the credit will go to V-Day as well." – Hangama Anwari, Women & Children Legal Research Foundation. WCLRF has released a comprehensive report on the traditional practice of 'Bad', in which a local jirga requires a defendant charged with murder to give a sister or daughter to the victim's family as a form of compensation for the crime. The girl is typically forced into labor or marriage; if she flees, she risks imprisonment for 'running away' or death for bringing shame upon both families.
Another V-Day partner organization is the
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), whose secret footage of public hangings and shootings ordered by the Taliban was captured on video cameras hidden under RAWA members' burqas. In Pakistan and Afghanistan today, RAWA remains unflinchingly vocal and active for women's rights and opportunities.
A hospital for Afghan refugees that closed in 1996 was re-opened by RAWA in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, and now serves 250 patients a day. RAWA also opened 15 schools in Pakistan and have offered hundreds of literacy courses for Afghan girls and women in 12 provinces of Afghanistan. Many women and girls in their literacy and sewing classes come because they are either too old to attend the reopened schools for girls or their families will not let them attend schools out of security concerns.
Long before September 11, 2001, V-Day played a vital role in bringing RAWA to the U.S. public's attention and raising funds for RAWA's efforts. Eve Ensler's sold-out celebrity benefit performance of
The Vagina Monologues at New York City's Madison Square Garden in February 2001 was attended by 18,000 people, and featured RAWA member Zoya in an especially triumphant moment. Zoya returned as a guest of V-Day to speak at the 2004 V-Day conference with the Omega Institute, "Women and Power: Our Time to Lead."
Afghan Women's Network
In addition to the petition and campaigns against violence, AWN registered 3200 women voters for Afghanistan's elections. With other Afghan women's NGOs, they drafted a Women's Bill of Rights and presented it in person to President Hamid Karzai. AWN has consulted on gender awareness for government Ministries, and held a gathering of 500 women to call for the Constitution Commission's attention to women's rights.
Afifa Azim
www.afghanwomensnetwork.org
Hangama Anwari has served as a law professor at Kabul University, an activist underground during the Taliban regime, and as a member of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission during the transitional government.
Hangama Anwari
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan
RAWA was established in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1977 as an organization of Afghan women fighting for peace, freedom, democracy and women's rights in Afghanistan. The founders were a number of Afghan woman intellectuals under the leadership of Meena who in 1987 was assassinated in Quetta, Pakistan. RAWA also runs orphanages and mobile health teams in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan, and produces songs, publications, and demonstrations to advocate for human rights and social justice in Afghanistan. Current activities include trainings for Afghan women on leadership and political participation.
www.rawa.org
AWLPA was established in Mazar-e-Sharif in 1998 under the Taliban regime. While the Taliban were in power AWLPA operated secretly with the women lawyers moving between houses under cover of their burkhas. No longer underground, AWLPA has over 100 members in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, and other provinces. The group works on women's legal cases and provides trainings about Afghan women's legal rights, the Afghan constitution, and CEDAW.
Suraya Paikan
1 As of October 2004, UNICEF has confirmed 26 attacks, mostly on girls' schools (Human Rights Watch).
2 According to a survey by the Afghan Ministry for Women's Affairs and Afghan women's NGOs (Human Rights Watch, 'Status of Afghan Women,' October 2004).
3 Jean Arneaux, UN Special Representative in Afghanistan, reported by Associated Press in The San Francisco Chronicle, "Afghan Women Still Struggling Against Prejudice, Culture of Violence," March 8, 2004
4 Human Rights Watch, 'Status of Afghan Women,' October 2004.
5 "Afghan Women's Leadership Program," V-Day press release, March 2003
6 Human Rights Watch, "Afghanistan: Women Under Attack for Asserting Rights," 10/5/2004
7 Feminist Majority Foundation, 10/4/2004, www.feminist.org/news
8 ibid
