Women's group concerned at fundamentalists in government

A leading Afghan womens rights group told IRIN on Wednesday that women's rights would not become a reality in Afghanistan until such time as all elements of Islamic fundamentalism were removed from government in the country. Tehmina Faryal, a spokeswoman for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) said that now was the time to put an end to rhetoric and take firm action.

"There are still fundamentalist elements in the interim government," she said, adding that fundamentalism remained the major obstacle to the rights of women. Faryal maintained that some former Northern Alliance commanders who are now members of the new government, despite their opposition to the Taliban, were fundamentalists and that so long as they remained within the government democracy and a secular political culture in the country would remain elusive.

Faryal made the comments in the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Wednesday in response to a statement of solidarity from the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) earlier in the week, which called upon the interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai to encourage women's participation, "as full and equal partners with men" in the reconstruction and development of the country.

CEDAW is an international treaty body charged with the monitoring of human rights of women and girls in 168 states. Afghanistan signed the convention in 1980 but more than two decades of fighting devastated the lives of women.