A woman’s role in laying a foundation for a nation’s change

GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were the major figures at the Afghanistan conference in London last Thursday.

The delegation from Kabul did not contain any women – they were told this “is not ladies’ business; it is about security”.

The conference agreed to stop fighting the Taliban by paying them to hand over their arms with the help of a €350m fund to be raised by the countries engaged in the war over the past eight years.

Like many before them the current western alliance has decided there is no easy way to beat the Taliban and any gains for doing so are not worth the effort.

The public was told in 2001 that part of the reason for going into Afghanistan was to liberate the country’s women, banned from education, holding office or having a say in their own lives.

Despite this the conference setting up the government in Bonn in December 2001 did not include any Afghan women, just the warlords who had reduced the country to rubble and women to slavery.

Thanks to international pressure however, Afghanistan has more women in its government than most other countries, at 28% following the 2005 elections – more than the 25% minimum dictated by the constitution.

It has two million girls of the 7.5 million under 18 years of age at school – a sizeable percentage in a country where just 10 years ago education for women was banned by the Taliban that controlled 95% of the country.

But all this can disappear overnight if, as seems likely, the country is to be handed back to the Taliban. The hard-nosed politicians and military reckon they are the only force in Afghanistan that can give the country stability – something its powerful neighbours including Pakistan need to improve their own stability.

But no real foundation for change has been laid in the country. It has the highest infant mortality rate in the world with more than a quarter of babies dying and many more before the age of five.

Just a few kilometres outside Kabul women are not seen without the burka, marriages are early and forced, and women have no rights.

President Karzai is not going to jeopardise his power base to change this. Despite the west championing him as the face of moderation and modernity in the country, he barely hides his contempt for western demands. His election has been criticised as fraudulent and much of his government are viewed as corrupt.

Even with the UN and the west active in the capital, he has shown he is willing to sacrifice the human rights of women through additions to the constitution reducing women’s place; the failure to prosecute men for the sexual violence against an estimated 17% of women; the huge number of women in jail for the crime of running away from home; and the killings of women visible in fighting for justice and even those employed in the police.

With the west strengthening the hand of the Taliban there will be even less pressure to consider women despite Chancellor Merkel and Secretary Clinton getting several references to the need for gender equality in the London conference declaration.

Unfortunately, behind the scenes the EU and the US acknowledge they have no bargaining power in their hand over to the Taliban. The Taliban have proved themselves impervious to the views of the greater world, and with 1.5% internet access in the country of 28 million people they will have little difficulty in shutting out the world again.

As the Afghan Women’s Network pointed out, “we are not in the exit strategy”. Unless some way is found to force their hand, hope is about to be shut down again for Afghan women.