Afghan Women Wary Of Overtures To Taliban
Taliban rule was a dark period for women in Afghanistan, and they want to make sure their fears are not forgotten as the new government in Kabul tries to find ways to make peace with the Taliban.
Shafiqa Quraishi, an Afghan police colonel, had her career disrupted by the Taliban rule from the mid-1990s to 2001, when women were brutalized, kept at home and not allowed to work.
"The Taliban, during those six years when they governed Afghanistan, they have left such memories that it is unacceptable by the Afghan women for them to come back," she told NPR in an interview.
Quraishi is in Washington to receive a Women of Courage Award at the State Department on Wednesday. She is in charge of gender issues at Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, where she also runs a U.S.-funded program to recruit more female officers, working toward a goal of President Hamid Karzai to have 5,000 women on the force. Currently, there are just 944.
A past recipient of the State Department award, Suraya Pakzad, says a big problem in Afghanistan today is that "women are not considered as a core part of the agenda."
Pakzad says women aren't involved enough in decision-making on Afghanistan's development or on security matters. For example, she says, only one woman has been invited so far to Karzai's planned peace council, or jirga, to discuss reintegrating insurgents into society. She and her colleagues are pushing for more representation.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the U.S. is supporting a program to find alternative jobs for Taliban fighters, especially for those who joined the cause not for ideological reasons but simply because they were well paid. Clinton has been much more skeptical about broader reconciliation efforts.
During the Taliban years, Pakzad, a 39-year-old mother of six, ran a secret program to educate girls. Now she sees threats coming not just from the Taliban, but from local warlords where she lives in Herat.
"My life is at risk because I'm a women's rights activist," she told NPR during a trip to Washington sponsored by the advocacy group Women Thrive Worldwide.
Pakzad, who runs two shelters for women, said sometimes local commanders call to demand that she return their daughters, wives or other relatives. She says violence against women is still a major problem in Afghanistan.
"I'm committed," she said. "I can't do that."
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STEVE INSKEEP, host:
While Marine commanders try to rally the local population to support the fight against the Taliban, the Afghan government is looking to talk with Taliban leaders. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has described it as a move toward re-integration and reconciliation.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Still, for women in Afghanistan, making peace with the Taliban may be especially difficult. Some activists are worried that the brutal days of Taliban rule and how much women still have to struggle will be forgotten. At the State Department later today, two of those activists will be honored with this years International Women of Courage Award.
NPRs Michele Kelemen has this profile.
MICHELE KELEMEN: Shafiqa Quraishi doesnt see herself as a hero. She's a soft-spoken policewoman, who, through an interpreter, described the State Department award she's receiving today as one for all of her countrywomen.
Ms. SHAFIQA QURAISHI (National Police Colonel, Afghanistan): (Through translator) This award is for the Afghani women who survived. For 30 years, they were in constant war. They were subject to all kinds of torture or all kinds of hardship.
KELEMEN: Colonel Quraishi runs a U.S. funded program in Afghanistan's interior ministry to recruit more female police officers. There are just 944 now, she says. Her own career was interrupted by the Taliban rule from the mid-1990s to 2001, which she called the dark years when women were brutalized, kept at home, and not allowed to work.
Ms. QURAISHI: (Through translator) The Taliban, during those six years when they governed Afghanistan, they have left such memories that it is unacceptable by the Afghani women for them to come back.
KELEMEN: But that's what she and many others are worried about when they hear talk about reconciliation with the Taliban. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the U.S. is supporting a program to find alternative jobs for Taliban fighters, those who join the cause not for ideological reasons but simply because they were well paid.
Clinton has been much more skeptical about broader reconciliation efforts. But Afghan President Hamid Karzai is promising to hold a peace counsel or jirga and women activists in Afghanistan want to make sure they're at the table.
Ms. SURAYA PAKZAD (Women of Courage Award Winner): That peace jirga, we want to have our presence. And now they are agreed that one woman will be about to be part of member of the peace jirga and we try for more.
KELEMEN: That's Suraya Pakzad, a past recipient of the State Department's Women of Courage Award. She came to Washington recently on a trip sponsored by the advocacy group Women Thrive Worldwide.
Ms. PAKZAD: The big problem in Afghanistan today I see is that women are not counted as a core part in the agenda; in the security issue women are not invited, never. In the development women are not counted there as a key part. And just when the woman issue is there, they try to have one woman representative.
KELEMEN: The 39-year-old mother of six ran a secret program to educate girls during the Taliban years and now she sees threats not just coming from the Taliban but from local warlords, where she lives in Herat.
Ms. PAKZAD: My life is at risk because I'm a women's rights activist. I'm running two shelters, two safe house, because my work is sensitive. And because of that work and because of the women who are living in our shelters, there's of course some of them belong to local commanders, that are relatives, wives, sisters, sister-in-law, somehow they have a relation with them. And (unintelligible) send them back. But as I'm committed, I can't(ph) do that.
KELEMEN: Pakzad says violence against women is still a major problem in Afghanistan. Colonel Quraishi, the policewoman who's receiving the State Department award today, is trying to make sure that issues like domestic violence are addressed by Afghanistan's interior ministry. And she's trying to persuade more women to join her in this cause.
Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
