Focus on women emerging from the shadow of the Taliban

On the eve of International Women's Day Afghan women are beginning to celebrate their gradual emergence from the shadows of the Taliban rule. They want to become more active players in their country's reconstruction and demand better security and an end to warlordism. Emboldened by the Taliban's departure, and hoping for a better future, they are more visible on the streets and in offices and women's groups meetings, narrating their harrowing experiences, and demanding a more active role in the future. More of these voices will be heard on Friday, when hundreds of Afghan women gather in the dusty capital city of Kabul to mark International Women's Day, being celebrated by an Afghan government for the first time in 11 years. "As wives, as mothers, as daughters and as sisters, women in Afghanistan suffered the most," a UN official told IRIN in an interview in Kabul. "First, during fighting, losing male members of their families, and later during the Taliban rule," said Chandni Joshi, Regional Programme Director for the South Asia regional office of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). The Sunni Muslim ultra-orthodox Taliban, routed from power in November last year, enforced stifling curbs on women, banning them from employment, denying them education, and preventing them from travelling alone. "They had literally confined women indoors," an international aid worker who travelled in Afghanistan during the Taliban rule and worked for women rights told IRIN. The end of Taliban rule in Afghanistan was marked by sweeping changes, many of them unimaginable during their reign. Some women shed the all-enveloping, head-to-toe burka - though many still wear it in keeping with Afghan culture. Women are now appearing on television, opening beauty salons, returning to school, working for national and international offices, and even joining the interim government. A poetess, writer and women's rights campaigner, Jamila Mujahid, described to IRIN what it was like when they heard that the Taliban had fled Kabul on a cold November day. "It's really hard to express in words the sentiments of that day. I wanted to cry and tears would not come, I wanted to speak, and words wouldn't come. I wanted to speak to my friends, but could not think of their phone numbers, I was so overwhelmed emotionally," Mujahid said, who was the first female to be heard over post-Taliban Kabul Radio. "When she spoke on the radio for the first time, hundreds of phone calls came. They had not heard a woman’s voice for years," said Fakhria Sarosh, another Kabul resident, who, along with Mujahid, has set up a nongovernmental organisation to try to give Afghan women a voice in the international media. "The technicians at the radio station were laughing, giving me the phone, saying speak, so that they actually believe they heard a women," recalled Mujahid. "One girl was crying, saying: now that you have spoken on the radio it will be possible that I will be able to go to school again. The day I will remember for the rest of my life," she added. Many women have other interesting tales to tell. Anifa Wahed, a 33 year-old teacher, told a women's group meeting in Kabul over the weekend that she had operated a clandestine school for girls during the Taliban years. "We told our students 'please hide your books' so that the Taliban wouldn't see them." Now, she said, women could study and teach openly. In the view of many aid workers, women have been more hard-pressed and traumatised during the last 23 years than ever before, because, even though the hardline Islamic militia did bring some security in regions under their control, they confined women to their homes, denying them the peace dividend enjoyed by Afghan men. Most Afghan women are concerned about the future. "As long as there are factions and warlords as part of the society, women will continue to be afraid. As long as they are armed, women will continue to be afraid. Women will be confident if there is real peace, if there are armed guards on the street," said Jamila Mujahid as her friend nodded in agreement. "What we ask from the international community is to increase the number of peacekeepers. As long as there are peacekeepers - a significant number of peacekeepers - they will be confident," she added. Kabul residents say many warlords are working to undermine the Loya Jirgah (supreme national tribal assembly) expected to be convened in the summer to decide on a two-year transitional government to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan. "But the warlords do not want that to happen. They will try to get power through their arms," Sarosh said. For the first time, Afghan women, are demanding to be part of the peace and reconstruction process. "We want to share in the good work that is being done," a university student, Fatima, told IRIN, asserting that women should be given jobs in the government and included in the entire political exercise of the Loya Jirgah and the transitional government. UNIFEM's Joshi said women's role in the reconstruction conferences was a serious subject of discussion, and that was one of the reasons that UNIFEM with the help of the Afghan government was organising a women's convention in Kabul to hear what they had to say about the country's future and their own role. "We are talking about building a nation and for building a nation, we are talking about equal participation of men and women. That’s why we are holding this conference - so that they can voice their concerns. We thought, let's bring women from the provinces and ask them what the strategy should be," said Joshi. A UN statement in Kabul said the Afghan authorities were officially celebrating International Women's day in Kabul for the first time in 11 years. Interestingly, the theme for International Women's Day is: "Afghan Women Today; Reality and Opportunity". Up to 800 Afghan women from across the country are expected to attend the meeting, which is to be held at a destroyed cinema in Kabul - roofless, and its walls pitted with bullet-holes, it's a reflection of the country as a whole. Joshi said she found Afghan women very strong and determined. "I also find them very articulate, they really know what they want," she added. "What I want is to grow up normally like any other woman in the world, but they [the world] have to help us," Fatima said. Joshi said all UNIFEM's programmes were focused on women involved in governance at the local level, the economic empowerment of women to link them with global markets, and on examining the overall livelihood issue. "What I really think is that what [aid] is coming into Afghanistan at the moment, women should have access to that. They should really get a chance to build their own country. She should have a say in terms of nation-building. She should have a say in keeping peace," Joshi added. Aware that women need to be heard and given a stake in the future politics, the commission set up under the United Nations initiative to convene the Loya Jirgah plans to involve a lot of women. Muhammad Ismail Qasimyar, head of the commission, told IRIN in Kabul last month that a significant number of the Loya Jirgah members would be women. "I am sure it will be unprecedented. It will be more than 100, at minimum, out of an approximate 500 members," he said. A positive commitment from