Women view opposition promises with caution

Comments by Northern Alliance leaders to the effect that women would be able to participate fully in their homeland were met with caution by Afghan women's groups on Thursday. "They are talking about women and their situation, but we should note that women's lives were also destroyed under the Northern Alliance," Fatana Gilani, the president of the Afghan Women's Council based in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, told IRIN on Thursday. The reaction follows an announcement on Wednesday by the UN Coordinator for Afghanistan, Michael Sackett, following talks he had with the Afghan foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, in the Afghan capital, Kabul. "Dr Abdullah welcomed Afghan women's full participation in society, and confirmed to us that there was now no restriction on the employment of Afghan women by UN agencies," Sackett told reporters in Islamabad. Under Taliban rule, women were not allowed to work, and girls were banned from education. All females were required to cover themselves with a burka (traditional Islamic cloak covering a woman from head to toe). However, Abdullah had also agreed that the burka was no longer necessary, and said a headscarf would be acceptable in public. While the UN has welcomed the move, Gilani said the Northern Alliance leaders were only trying to appease the west, and that their ideology on women was quite the reverse. "We have already heard conflicting reports about the treatment of women by the commander who has taken over the western province of Herat," she said. She explained that women had little trust in either the Taliban or the Northern Alliance, and considered both to be hypocritical. Gilani called on the UN to ensure that women's rights would upheld in the future. "This task should not be left for the commanders to implement as [then] it will never happen," she maintained. As for women participating in a new Afghan government, Gilani said not enough was being done to ensure that they were involved in initial talks on the political future of Afghanistan. "We have heard that one women will be taking part in the talks in Germany next week, but this is not enough. We should have equal representation," she said. The UN confirmed on Tuesday that a meeting between the Northern Alliance and various other Afghan factions would take place near Bonn next week to discuss the political future of Afghanistan, with the participation of some Afghan women. Gilani's views were echoed by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). "The Northern Alliance have said this to deceive the west," Sahar Saba, the spokeswoman for RAWA in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, told IRIN on Thursday. "We don't believe they will carry out their word." Saba said Abdullah did not have the right to talk about women's rights when he himself was part of the Northern Alliance and "had blood on his hands" of all the Afghans killed and tortured over the years. RAWA, one of the most prominent Afghan women's groups, has an underground network of some 2,000 women working to promote their rights in Afghanistan. However, the group was not invited to take part in the talks in Germany next week, despite being involved in initial discussions with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi. Saba questioned the choice of possible female candidates to attend the Bonn meeting, saying they could just be puppets of the warring factions. "We don't know much about these women and where they have been for the last 10 years," she said, adding that the candidates could be out of touch with what was happening on the ground in Afghanistan.