The Progress of Women is the Progress of Afghanistan

There is no doubt that the current war in Afghanistan will not be won by a military solution alone. Therefore, a reconciliation process that is built on national consensus is needed to quell an expanding insurgency. Like the public in NATO countries and their governments, Afghans too are desperate for an end to the ongoing violence.

However, the larger challenge facing Afghanistan is addressing the regional dynamics of the ongoing insurgency, whose leadership rests in Quetta, not in Afghanistan. This is one of the main reasons for the skepticism from Afghans to the government's Peace and Reintegration Program Plan that aims to focus on the fighters inside Afghanistan rather than on regional-level negotiations.

Many Afghan critics believe that the Reconciliation and Reintegration Plan is predicated on a polarized comprehension of the insurgency, and are not confident it will bear any peaceful results for Afghanistan.

Reintegration of men fighting for various reasons is important to establish some level of trust between the government and the militants. But the rising concern among Afghans is that the reintegration should not also come to mean more impunity, and a lack of justice for those who have terrorized, killed or otherwise had their rights violated by the Taliban and other insurgent groups. If an unjust Reintegration and Reconciliation process is put forward to integrate Taliban militants, other segments of Afghan society will revolt, potentially leading to more violence.

It should not be forgotten that the Taliban movement actually first gained ground supposedly when they confronted a corrupt warlord ruling Kandahar in the 1990s and won enough support to take power, amidst the lawlessness and injustices of the environment at that time. It is also the fear of Afghan women that their hard gained rights won over the last eight years could be overwritten by unjust compromises made with insurgents for short-term political expediency.

In the last few years Afghanistan's stability is no longer seen as the end objective, replaced by the drive for temporary stability by appeasing the militants. Therefore the long-term institution-building needed is being sidelined by the desire of NATO countries for a speedy exit from Afghanistan, even if it means setting adrift the more ambitious promises it once made to the Afghan people. It’s a cold view of security, a band-aid fix, and one that will ultimately not succeed when the Taliban come home to roost. It also privileges militants over peaceful civilians.

The Prisoners Review Commission, for instance, established right after the Consultative Peace Jirga has so far released more than 20 prisoners. Many women fear that the Commission does not have the required legal mandate nor the capacity to accurately and fairly review the cases from a legal point of view, but are rather making political decisions as per the governments’ inclinations towards shaking hands with the militants.

We have heard from international community members on numerous occasions that NATO countries are not responsible for securing women's rights and other democratic values. But since women's human rights are respected as a core principle of the NATO home countries, we Afghan women have to ask, why can't it be the same for Afghanistan?

The reintegration and reconciliation plan would provide an exit mechanism for international forces, but would the international community members accept the return of the oppression of Afghan women as part of this process? In a recent editorial, the Kabul weekly magazine argues, "indeed, the Consultative Peace Jirga was the first step in legitimizing a power-sharing agreement with the Taliban and their terrorist cohorts.

Maybe high-ranking officials believe that a fair deal with Taliban and power sharing is in the interest of their political survival, but this deal is not fair nor just. For one, the deal is being struck between the Taliban and a network of government officials. Social justice will be sacrificed in this deal. Moreover, the Taliban won't agree to a power sharing deal for long. Before you know it, they'll take control of the government entirely".

As reported by Human Rights Watch this month, the “night letters” (threatening letters left at night by the Taliban), death threats, and assassinations of female politicians and activists are all squarely the doings of the militants. If anyone at all in the West remembers the oppressive regime of the Taliban’s that was in power until 2001, how can we ignore the current barbaric treatment of women and girls in the militant controlled areas? How many women and girls are able to go to school in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand anymore?

Not only there, but in provinces like Wardak and Logar, which are are only an hour away from the capital, the doors of education and work have closed for women. How could anyone believe that the same militants who controlled the country from 1996-2001, if back in political power in the not so distant future, would respect the Afghan Constitution, which the Taliban have made clear they vehemently despise?

While the Peace and Reintegration Plan has already started releasing militant prisoners without any proper legal scrutiny, 476 women languish in one of Kabul's jails, most of whom should never have been imprisoned in the first place. According to a recent BBC report, half the women are jailed for so called ‘moral crimes,' like adultery or running away from home.

Meanwhile the militants kill, behead and torture Afghans and these are not considered ‘moral crimes'. President Hamid Karzai calls them merely ‘angry brothers', as he did in a recent speech. This is the political dilemma of Afghanistan, and the ethical responsibility of the international community.

Yet, civil society still looks towards the international community, perhaps vainly, to speak out against the injustices that afflict them. Many in Afghanistan were disappointed that the United Nations went ahead and removed the militants’ names from the UN terrorist list. We had hoped at the very least to get some reassurance from the UN that none of those whose names were to be removed were those responsible for burning down schools and killing women. No such reassurances were forthcoming.

A medical doctor from Malalai Hospital in Kabul asked me recently, "If the plan to throw us back into the darkness is acceptable to all foreign actors involved in Afghanistan, why can’t they be honest about it? Why have they shown us the dreams of freedom and progress when in the end its really about political deals. The international donors provide more than half of the government’s budget. Why is it that they are somehow powerless to resist its foul policies?"

As the Afghan Government wraps up the Kabul Conference in the coming week, the important matter of social development, including women’s rights, needs to be taken seriously. International donors should ensure that the gender indicators which form part of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy are followed through on, if they want the trust of any women in any proposed political settlement.

Contributed by Wazhma Frogh, an Afghan women’s rights activist, and a Chevening Scholar. She is currently completing a graduate degree in International Development Law and Human Rights at Warwick University in the UK.