Celebrating International Women’s Day….. Afghan-style

Celebrating International Women’s Day….. Afghan-style
By Carolyn Reicher, President, Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan
March 8, 2009

What is your image of a woman in Afghanistan? Shrouded in a veil? Beaten by her husband? Poverty? Hopelessness? While this certainly is the case for many women in Afghanistan, there is another truth that we seldom hear or see. Afghan women have cause to celebrate International Women’s Day, and they do so with courage and conviction amidst the ongoing work of securing their human rights.

In the fall of 2001, when the world finally paid attention to the human rights catastrophe in Afghanistan, the only girls attending school were those lucky and brave enough to find a clandestine school in someone’s home. Teachers risked death by providing math, science, and history lessons to girls in small groups. Despite threats from the Taliban, more and more children came, desperate to fill an insatiable hunger for learning. Today, more than two million girls attend schools through the Ministry of Education and women are upgrading their skills, learning English and computers, and paving a way to a more secure future.

During the 1990s, Dr. Sima Samar (now the Chair of the Independent Afghan Human Rights Commission) ran a refugee school for Afghan girls, defying the Taliban to “come and get me” as she educated girls the same as boys. Now, 85 of these same young women are some of the first female graduates from Kabul University.

Jamila Afghani is another symbol of the courage and struggle of Afghan women. Jamila contracted polio in her first year of life and walks with one leg in a brace, suffering severe back pain from untreated scoliosis. At the age of 14, she was shot in the head by the Soviets, leaving her with chronic pain in her ear. Yet, she was determined not to be a burden on her family, and so worked to secure several university degrees and founded the Noor Education Centre in 2001 to provide literacy and education to young women. The Centre’s programs include education in gender, human rights and children’s rights, English classes, literacy training and health information. Vocational training and special classes such as sign language are offered free of charge. It also hosts the Nazo Annah Library and Internet Café, available to the public.

The success of programs like these, are due to the unfailing resiliency of Afghan women, and the assistance of the international community. With the support of Canadian donors, Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan http://www.w4wafghan.ca has provided $2 million in support of women-focused development projects in Afghanistan since it began in 1996. These grassroots projects are defined and delivered by Afghan women themselves. Most importantly, they are making a real, and lasting difference in the lives of Afghan women and their families.

The celebration of International Women’s Day, therefore, is not taken lightly in Afghanistan. It isn’t a one-day event, but rather, a week of celebration and significance. While that may seem odd, given the misogynist history of the country, it is precisely the ongoing challenges that face women in Afghanistan that have earned them the right to truly celebrate the victories they have secured. Of the total estimated 32 million people in Afghanistan, over 70% are women and children under the age of 18. Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman. It has the highest maternal mortality rate, one for the highest rates of domestic violence, and is perhaps the only country in the world where suicide rates are higher among women than men. It is a place where women set themselves on fire in appalling numbers to escape brutally abuse domestic lives, where girls as young as eight years old are married to elderly men and where 60% of marriages are forced. The life expectancy is just over 44 years and only 8% of rural women over the age of 15 can read and write.

Despite the push to educate girls, half aged 7-12 are not in school. The rate of completion of primary school for girls is only13% with the average length of attendance across the country at only 4 years for girls compared to 11 for boys. Only 1 out of 9 girls who finishes elementary school will go on to the equivalent of junior high, few still to high school or beyond.

Celebrating International Women’s Day in Afghanistan is therefore not about basking in the achievements of their mothers and grandmothers. It is about the hard-fought day-to-day successes of every Afghan woman who manages to educate her daughters… Every small, grassroots organization that provides literacy training to women… Every family who decides that having an educated daughter is more important than marrying her off at the age of 12… Every woman who decides to vote in the upcoming election, to make her voice heard.

It is true that Afghan women have been very long suffering, but they are not just a nameless, faceless entity, shrouded in misery. The reality of Afghan women is one of strength, resilience, courage, hope and solidarity. Despite the fact that the international community has invested only 1/25th the military support and 1/50th the humanitarian aid it invested in Bosnia and Kosovo, change for the better is happening in Afghanistan because of the women. Children are fed because of the women. Education is achieved because of the women. Health care and hygiene become priorities because of the women. Most importantly, human rights are discussed, promoted and respected because of the women. Afghan women are working hard to shape their lives and create a future where each can fully and openly celebrate International Women’s Day.

Carolyn Reicher is the President and Co-founder of Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan. She is the recipient of the Global Television’s Woman of Vision Award and co-recipient of the YMCA Calgary International Peace Medal Award.