| Afghan women continue to struggle for basic rights BY SALLY ACHARYA Doctoral student and human rights worker Tazreena Sajjad painted a grim picture of post-Taliban Afghanistan, but one in which a number of women are defying danger to create change. Women are seen as a potential force against extremism in the troubled country, she told a forum in the Gender and Conflict series, which is part of a year-long series of events marking the 10th anniversary of the International Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) program. But the situation remains bleak in spite of laws expanding the rights of women. Girls’ schools have been attacked and destroyed, and even in Kabul, a progressive area in relative terms, only half of all girls are enrolled in school. Child marriage continues to be widespread, with some 54 percent of girls under 18 married. Honor killings remain common. And women who exercise their legally sanctioned right can be targeted by extremists. “Women involved in the public space are almost always harassed and threatened” and sometimes raped, killed, lynched, or accused of blasphemy, Sajjad said. If women activists and politicians find that violence and threats are common, so do many ordinary women as they seek to conduct their daily lives. An estimated 80 percent of all Afghan women have been accused at least informally of zina, or nonmarital sexual activity, she said, which under Islamic law can be punished by whippings or death. Although zina is considered by many Muslim scholars to have a narrow definition and high standards of proof, in Afghanistan a wide scope of behaviors, from talking to a shopkeeper to resisting a forced marriage, can be seen as zina and serve as excuses for domestic violence or criminal charges. The Afghan Constitution gives a number of rights to women, including political seats, but also prohibits any law or practice that contradicts Islamic values, Sajjad noted. How that can be interpreted in the Afghan context, she said, is “frightening.” Moderator Nawal Mustafa ’08 asked if any organizing is being done by women to address misinterpretations of sharia, the Islamic law being used as a basis for denying rights to women. Sajjad said that while it wasn’t impossible, “tackling sharia is very sensitive.” Women and men who question the extremist interpretation may be able to make inroads over time by showing how sharia can be interpreted to permit education and bar domestic violence. “But you’re working with a cultural mentality here,” Sajjad said. “You can’t change the mentality of men who beat their wives, or brothers who kills their sisters, if men in the police force aren’t getting the training that no matter what they may think, it’s against the law.” In spite of the dangers of participating in politics or pressing to have one’s rights recognized in such an environment, women are taking strides, Sajjad said, in “transcending the private sphere and entering the public sphere.” Hundreds of women competed for the 68 seats reserved for women in Afghanistan’s 249-seat People’s Council under the 2004 constitution, she noted. Younger women in particular, she said, constitute a potential power base for a better future. Sajjad is a doctoral student at the School of International Service and the Afghanistan fellow at Global Rights, a human rights advocacy group. Mustafa is director of International Issues for the Women’s Initiative of AU’s Student Government. The forum is part of a class taught by SIS professor Julie Mertus, Gender and Conflict, and is also open to the public. The talk was sponsored by the Women’s Initiative; the Society for Peace and Conflict Resolution; the Ethics, Peace and Global Affairs Program; the Center for Global Peace; and the IPCR Program. |
