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Women, Peace & Governance Newsletter Women, Peace & Governance Newsletter UNIFEM-Afghanistan The New Resource Centre For Women in Politics Opens! Issue, 1May 2009 providing the women political www.peacewithjustice4afghani stan.blogspot.com . leaders of Afghanistan access to vital tools, dynamic trainings, and In this issue - networking opportunities. The center features a library, a The New Resource 1 computer room, a policy research Centre for Women in Politics Opens unit, and professional meeting Sitara Achekzia, 1 spaces for both large and small Women’s Human gatherings. Designed as a Rights Defender: supportive space for women Murdered outside her Home in Kandahar political actors, the center provides an ideal environment for Afghan Women Defy 2 women leaders to learn from one Odds to Gather in their Closed temporarily due to security related 1000’s to call for Peace another, debate important issues, concerns, the UNIFEM-Administered Resource with Justice in and work together productively to Afghanistan Centre for Women in Politics officially reopened enhance the status of Afghan Shia Personal Status in February 2009. 3 women in all sectors and from all Law Debate Succeeds in Galvanising Men and Based in the heart of Shahr-e-nau, The Resource walks of life. Women Around Center for Women in Politics is dedicated to Women’s Rights 324 Women File to Run 4 A Tribute to Sitara Achekai: Afghan Women’s Human for Provincial Council Seats, while 2 Women Rights Defender. Stand for President On March 17th Sitara daring to prove that struggle, women and men Achakzai, an Afghan women can be leaders for of Afghanistan must work woman’s human rights peace, change and together to demand JOB VACANCIES defender and Provincial equality. women’s rights, and that Council member from equal power would never Sitara was one of three 2 National Kandahar, Afghanistan, was be achieved without a founders and a leader of killed outside her home for struggle. She described Internship Positions, the 2008 and 2009 ‘praying peace as a calm in which for peace with justice’ Women, Peace and the rule of law can be action, leading 1000’s of implemented justly, and Governance Unit: Gain women in Kandahar and described a true leader as a nationally to publicly call invaluable experience, person with a vision for for peace with justice (see equality and change. costs covered. For pg 2). The first time we Throughout our three days more information met Sitara, who returned with Sitara in February of to Afghanistan from please contact this year, she astounded us Germany in 2004, she with her bravery, courage registry.unifem.af@unif discussed her country in and strength. Article depth. She told us that em.org Continued., Page 2— while it would be a long Sitara Achekai, Women’s Human Rights Defender: Murdered outside her home in Kandahar Continued from front page— ‘In other countries, day by day, human rights develop. But in Afghanistan, sometimes it feels like they move backwards.’ Despite this challenge, in 2008 and 2009 she and two friends gathered 2,000 Kandahari women in the heart of Kandahar to call for their vision – a vision of peace with justice, and to hold those in power accountable to the voices of women. Her killing was a cold-blooded act of cowardice, a means of refusing to engage in debate and dialogue, of silencing a powerful majority of the country through fear and violence. Sitara symbolized what Afghan women leaders pose nationally – a vocal minority, asking for change, asking questions about the role of women in Afghanistan, and demanding inclusion in the reconstruction and development of their homeland. The killing of women like Sitara not only has tremendous personal ramifications for family and friends, but profound social repercussions that cannot be understated. Her killing silences the voices of thousands of other women and men in Afghanistan who believe that human rights are not a western imposition, but are central to their understanding of Islam, and to their beliefs and cultures. The remaining people who continue to bravely speak out in defense of human rights, both men and women’s, are crucial to the future of Afghanistan. Attacks on their lives are not spontaneous. They are premeditated and forewarned. Weeks and months before Sitara’s death she was telling anyone who would listen of her fears. An attack on women and men like Sitara is an attack on all human rights defenders. Brave women and men willing to stand up and be heard on issues of human rights must be supported and they must be protected. Violence with impunity must not be allowed to continue, and the Government of Afghanistan and the international community must join in holding the perpetrators of Sitara’s murder accountable to this standard. UNIFEM-Afghanistan, April 13, 2009 Afghan Women Defy Odds to Gather in their 1000’s to Call for Peace with Justice in Afghanistan March 8 th , International Women’s Day - On the same day that U.S. President Barak Obama announced his willingness to en- gage in talks with Taliban moderates, 11,000 Afghan women across the nation came out of their homes in a public prayer for peace with justice in Afghanistan. Wearing blue scarves as a symbol of the need to keep human rights central to any peace settlements, the women stood in solidarity with a unified vision in a nation torn by long-standing and volatile ethnic, tribal, and linguistic divisions. The scarves challenged the world to see “beyond the burqa”—the image most familiar to the world of Afghan women—to recognize the agency of women and their right to claim a public presence for peace. “We are the victims of war, but more importantly we are the messengers of peace,” read the public statement of the women peace activists. “We must be included in building peace in our “Afghan women are tired of being subject to egregious acts of violence, country. Only the bird with equal wings can fly.” we are tired of watching our family and friends killed, and we refuse to Peace talks with the Taliban have thus far excluded women from accept the pervasive political, cultural, and economic violence which the negotiating table. Given the gender ideology of the conser- woman face on a daily basis both in our homes and in our pursuit to vative Taliban, women’s human rights are feared to be negoti- participate in public life,” said Rangina Hamidi, an activist from Kanda- ated away as means of ending the insurgency. har. “We cannot gain peace only through guns, through bombs, and This year, young and experienced grassroots Afghan women peace ac- through killing people. If that were the case, we would have had tivists gathered to plan and strategize how to spread the peace action peace by now. Real peace relates to security, but it also relates beyond the confines of southern Afghanistan, to indicate to the coun- to equality, justice and access to services,” said a young woman try and the world that women are ready to be equal partners for peace. peace activist from Mazar. The action defied all expectations, erupting in seven provinces of the country, bringing together 11,000 Afghan women. The action began in 2008 in Kandahar, the spiritual heartland of the Taliban and one of the most violent part of the country, ‘Participation was higher than we ever expected. I cried when I saw all where last March 8 th a large crowd of women came out of their women united, many who had come a long way, to show their solidar- homes to pray for peace. In Afghanistan, something as simple as ity to their fellow women, and to the world,’ said Aziza, one of the or- coming out of your home can be deadly dangerous if you are a ganizers in Herat. ‘This action is the beginning of a movement of Af- woman, as the recent public beheadings of two women in ghan women—we will no longer be silent, still, invisible,’ added Nabila Ghazni province and the acid attacks on a group of school girls in of Mazar. The action is yet another testament to the fact that Afghan Kandahar, demonstrate. women are ready, willing and able to take their rightful role in the de- velopment of their country. Shia Personal Status Law Debate Succeeds in Galvanising Afghan Women and Men Around Women’s Rights The signing of a controversial Shi’a Personal Status Law by President Hamid Karzai in March 2009 has created a firestorm of national and international outrage, while also succeeding in galvanizing women and men around issues of women’s rights in Afghanistan. Article 131 of the Afghanistan Constitution allows for a separate code of family law for the Shiite sect, which makes up approximately 10 percent of the population of the post-conflict country. The majority of the Shiite population supports such a law, and there is no dispute as to their right to such a law. Yet, the bill signed by the President includes controversial provisions that human rights advocates—Shi’a activists leading the charge—cried foul, highlighting that the law includes provisions not in conformity with Islam, the Constitution’s equality clause, or international treaties to which Afghanistan is a signatory, including CEDAW without reservation. Described by many as a staggering setback for the women of Afghanistan, the law would place severe restrictions on a woman's freedom of self- determination, denying her the right to leave home without her husband’s permission and requiring her to meet his demands for sexual intercourse, among other provisions. Supporters argued that the law simply represents the realities of many cus- tomary household practices in Afghanistan, which confine the freedom of women to male discretion.
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