School Bells from Bombshells
By Maha Muna

WFP Photo/Khaled Mansour

Information about Afghanistan - its history, its people and the combined effects of war and drought, particularly on women and children - is available today more than ever before. Yet, the media, policy papers and programme agendas fail to capture the power of the Afghan woman. Instead, they are often portrayed as victims of circumstance or government policy, or both. The Afghan mother who has carried her family through refugee flight is absent. So, too, is the Afghan woman who has built a local non-governmental organization (NGO) capable of managing annual budgets of hundreds of thousands dollars for humanitarian assistance. A trip to refugee camps in Pakistan reveals both types of women. Their work is the basis for optimism for a future of reconstruction, peace and security in Afghanistan.

As the world focuses attention on Afghanistan, with the aim of destroying a terrorist network within, eliminating a repressive regime notorious for human rights violations, including against women, and rebuilding the country, commitments made in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and in United Nations conventions and resolutions should inform decisions on women’s rights and their role in post-conflict reconstruction. Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security, passed unanimously, calls for heightened protection for women during armed conflict, their greater participation in peace negotiations and peace-building, as well as gender equity and the integration of gender perspectives in UN policies and programmes.

WFP Photo/Khaled Mansour

Women have already played a key role in peace-building in Afghanistan. Three women actively participated in the Bonn meeting that elected the Afghan Interim Administration, which includes two women in ministerial posts (for health and women’s affairs). Three women NGOs attended the recent Ministerial Conference on the Reconstruction of Afghanistan, held in Tokyo, Japan. However, there is still room for improvement. For example, only two women have been nominated to serve in the 21-seat Loya Jirga, mandated to pave the way for the new government of Afghanistan. In a recent interview, the Minister of Women’s Affairs, Dr. Sima Samar, suggested 50 per cent of the Loya Jirga be women, but noted that since that was unlikely, at least 25 per cent would be preferable. The Beijing Platform for Action has established a precedent for at least 30 per cent representation by women. Along with Dr. Samar, Afghan women’s organizations and international women’s groups are! monitoring these issues as true tests of international commitments.

Everyone - adult, adolescent and child - will play a vital role in reconstruction. In a meeting with World Bank staff held in Peshawar last December, Afghan women NGOs made it clear that they were prepared to manage education, health and community development projects in Afghanistan. They advocated for a strong NGO sector, but stressed that an even stronger government was essential. The NGOs called for a clear government development plan, one that they could feed into and would ensure professional standards for humanitarian assistance. It was clear that the government plan would enable NGOs to hold the Government accountable during the coming stage of financing and aid.

WFP Photo/Khaled Mansour

Afghan women NGOs emerged in the 1980s in response to humanitarian needs in Afghanistan. In the 1990s, women’s groups formed and grew in the Pakistan refugee camps, often at great personal risk to those involved in running the aid programmes. In 1990, an Afghan nurse working in Pakistan, considered by some to be an “activist”, was killed, mutilated and delivered to her family in a box [Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children delegation report, Afghan Refugee Women: Needs and Resources for Development and Reconstruction, 1990]. Links to western-led assistance were a threat to women leaders, and therefore there was an even greater imperative to develop and strengthen their own management and programme capacities. With international donor and organizations’ support, Afghan women’s organizations managed their programmes and ensured delivery of services for refugee women and children. Notable success was made in the area of education, wher! e school attendance for girls quickly increased from only hundreds in the 1980s to tens of thousands a decade later. They also gained greater access to secondary education.

In the future, women will continue to face security risks and any reconstruction package for Afghanistan must therefore take into account the security concerns of local women’s organizations. Mainly Pushtun, Tajik and Hazara, some of the most successful women leaders emerged out of the powerful family and clan traditions which existed in Afghanistan before the refugee flight. As refugees return to Afghanistan to take part in national reconstruction, the women NGOs can play a vital role to support reintegration. Local groups offer access to the most vulnerable people and to networks that can enhance conflict resolution, which will, in turn, increase security throughout the country. Some women NGOs are already beginning to plan for offices in Kabul and in their native provinces. Their efforts should be assisted, particularly to ensure a channel of outreach for and support to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, and also to support the work of sector ministries, such as h! ealth, education and justice.

WFP Photo/Mike Huggins

While the emphasis is increasingly being placed on reconstruction and development in Afghanistan, the fate of over 5 million refugees, living mainly in Pakistan and Iran, must not be ignored. Council resolution 1325 (2000) recalls and reinforces refugee protection mechanisms and highlights women’s particular concerns in the refugee context. In Jalosai, a camp in northern Pakistan outside Peshawar, women and their families are enduring winter weather in tattered makeshift tents, many sharing communal fires and exchanging pots and utensils for cooking meager meals. They spin wool, barter and exchange, and care for their children, often alone, while their husbands and older children eke out a living in Peshawar’s marketplace. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) does not have government permission to register the refugees and can offer them assistance only if they relocate to new camps set up in the tribal areas on the Afghan-Pakistan border. On! ly a few thousand refugees have elected to move to these camps. Why? Many have used up their resources to travel to Jalosai, and depend on the camp’s proximity to Peshawar markets for household income.

Meet with the women in their tents and they would say that they do not want to remain in Pakistan. They long to return to their land and homes, but they want to remain in Jalosai until it is safe to return directly to their villages in Afghanistan and do not want to suffer the risks and difficulties associated with moving again. Women are concerned that the new border camps are far from town and are situated in insecure areas - the local governor agreed to the camps on condition that UNHCR install fences, which some Agency staff are now supporting for the refugees’ protection.

Meanwhile, Afghan women NGOs have been funded to establish education and other community service programmes in the border camps. However, their access to the camps - and that of the international NGOs working there - is often impeded by security concerns and no agency is able to maintain an overnight presence there. Assistance and services in the border camps are still not at full capacity. Recently, an NGO of Afghan women sent out a plea for clothing for infants born in the harsh winter cold of the border area since the families simply do not have resources to buy clothing, which is one of the many items not included in assistance packages being distributed.

After decades of war, Afghanistan is still a country where one can find a school bell made of an exploded bombshell. An end to the conflict, and any hope for peaceful reconstruction in the country, will depend on mobilizing all its resources for peace. Women and girls represent 50 per cent of the workforce and citizenry. A peaceful Afghanistan will be one where human rights for all are ensured and where women will be afforded opportunities to determine their future.

Links:
UNIFEM: Women’s Leadership Role in the Reconstruction of Afghanistan

Maha Muna is Deputy Director of the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, a non-profit New York-based advocacy and public education organization dedicated to speaking out on behalf of refugee and displaced women and children around the world.