- News>
- Telling As It Is...
Back to the future for Afghan women`s rights
With two seats in the new post-Taliban government, Afghan women are taking a big step ``back to the future`` to regain rights they enjoyed a generation ago.
With two seats in the new post-Taliban government, Afghan women are taking a big step ``back to the future`` to regain rights they enjoyed a generation ago.
But there is still a long way to go to restore the constitutional equality women had from 1964 until anti-Soviet mujahideen holy warriors conquered Kabul in 1992.
Massive international pressure ensured that the four Afghan delegations meeting for nine intense days included a few female members, a small but important concession after women were all but excluded from public life under the hardline Taliban.
Scenes of Afghan widows shrouded from head to toe in burqas and begging because they were not allowed to work stirred public opinion in the west. Figures like US First Lady Laura Bush demanded change as the Islamic extremist Taliban crumbled.
The UN -brokered deal signed on Wednesday expresses the need to eventually establish a ``gender-sensitive`` government and suggests that ``a significant number of women`` take part in a traditional assembly, or Loya Jirga, to be called in six months.
It also reinstates the constitution of 1964, which many cite as a watershed in afghan women`s rights. Winning back jobs, educating girls and improving women`s access to healthcare will be much more difficult than paper equality.
Sima Wali, director of the Washington-based charity refugee women in development, part of the group supporting former king Zahir Shah at Bonn, wore high heels to the signing ceremony and did not cover her hair, in what were likely symbolic gestures.
She helped organise a major women`s conference in Brussels this week at which UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson urged more than just a token political role for Afghan women.
U.N. Special envoy on Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi admitted the inclusion of two women ministers out of 30 was not much.
``It is your right to expect more, but there was none in the list in Afghanistan so it is not a bad beginning,`` he said at a news conference after the deal was struck.
Bureau Report
Massive international pressure ensured that the four Afghan delegations meeting for nine intense days included a few female members, a small but important concession after women were all but excluded from public life under the hardline Taliban.
Scenes of Afghan widows shrouded from head to toe in burqas and begging because they were not allowed to work stirred public opinion in the west. Figures like US First Lady Laura Bush demanded change as the Islamic extremist Taliban crumbled.
The UN -brokered deal signed on Wednesday expresses the need to eventually establish a ``gender-sensitive`` government and suggests that ``a significant number of women`` take part in a traditional assembly, or Loya Jirga, to be called in six months.
It also reinstates the constitution of 1964, which many cite as a watershed in afghan women`s rights. Winning back jobs, educating girls and improving women`s access to healthcare will be much more difficult than paper equality.
Sima Wali, director of the Washington-based charity refugee women in development, part of the group supporting former king Zahir Shah at Bonn, wore high heels to the signing ceremony and did not cover her hair, in what were likely symbolic gestures.
She helped organise a major women`s conference in Brussels this week at which UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson urged more than just a token political role for Afghan women.
U.N. Special envoy on Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi admitted the inclusion of two women ministers out of 30 was not much.
``It is your right to expect more, but there was none in the list in Afghanistan so it is not a bad beginning,`` he said at a news conference after the deal was struck.
Bureau Report