Action Needed on Rural Women's Rights in Afghanistan

The gap between women’s rights in urban and rural parts of Afghanistan needs to be urgently addressed, according to a recent debate organised by IWPR in the northern Balkh province.

Participants noted some major advances in the field of gender equality since the fall of the Taleban administration in 2001, but stressed that progress was uneven around the country.

Shahla Hadid, head of the Balkh provincial department of women’s affairs, said it was important to recognise the achievements of the last 14 years.

“Although there have been problems, positive changes have been made to women’s lives,” she said.

Civil society activist Zahra Mohammadi similarly highlighted improvements in equality.

“The situation for women is much better now than in the past,” she told the debate. “Projects to support women are in place and they can help reduce women’s problems. In Balkh, because security is better, women have been able to progress in various sectors. They have free access to education, they can find jobs and they can participate in political and cultural discussions.”

Taqi Wahidi, representing the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, agreed that things had got better.

“We see a clear difference in access to education and healthcare,” he said. “Women’s social and political awareness has improved and freedom of speech has given them the courage to ask for their rights.”

However, Wahidi warned that these achievements were threatening by ongoing insurgent violence and the enormous disparity between the lives of women in urban areas and those living in more remote parts of Afghanistan.

One of the debate’s youngest participants, 13-year-old Mursal, agreed.

“We shouldn’t just look at the situation in the cities,” she said. “In most districts of Afghanistan, there are women who were never given the chance to study and are now illiterate. They want to learn how to read and write. I think half of the women in this country have benefited [since 2001] but the rest are still in a bad way.”

Nafisa Rohin, a student and civil society activist, told the debate that after 2001, women seemed poised to take on a greater role in public and economic life.

“However, the ongoing instability means that women’s rights are going backwards rather than forwards,” she continued. “For instance, when a group of travellers are taken hostage or a woman has her throat cut, the security situation creates fear and horror in women’s hearts.”

Campaigning work by advocacy groups and human rights organisations in Afghanistan have led to improved monitoring of abuses as well as legal aid and the creation of a number of women’s shelters.

These services are not spread equally around the country, however, and the level of public awareness remains low.

“Women have not yet gained their rights because men don’t know what they are,” Rohin continued. “Men need to be educated so as to be able to provide these rights, for instance, to give them their rights of inheritance and their ‘mahr’ [payment made by grooms]. We even have religious scholars who themselves have not paid ‘mahr’ for their wives.”

Zeba Samadi, deputy head of the women’s council of Dehdadi district, said the problem went far beyond a lack of awareness.

“Men don’t want women to develop,” she said. “There is violence against women on a massive scale.”

She said that she had personally experienced this kind of behaviour.

“Powerful men seized the plot of government land on which I was planning to build a school for girls, and they also seized land which I owned privately and where I wanted to build a madrassa [religious school] for women.”

Rohin said that the fight for gender equality must continue regardless of the difficulties that lay ahead.

“If women join together and refuse to be afraid, we will advance,” she continued. “Even if Afghanistan is a male-dominated society, women should not go backwards.”

This report is based on an ongoing series of debates conducted as part of the IWPR programme Afghan Reconciliation: Promoting Peace and Building Trust by Engaging Civil Society.