Afghan Women to Obama: We Must Be at the Table!

[ensho]

http://womensmediacenter.com/ex/040209.html


United States President Barak Obama unveiled his new strategy for Afghanistan last week. In it he pledged both military and civil support to Afghanistan. “And,” he went out of his way to say, “we will continue to support the basic human rights of all Afghans—including women and girls.” Despite this, Afghan women continue to be absent from the discussion when it comes to their futures and the future of Afghanistan.

As I write this, Brussels is hosting the largest international conference to date on Afghanistan and Afghan women are conspicuously missing. It seems that international rhetoric for women does not translate into any vigorous action.

Ironically, while leaders sit and plan her future, Dr. Masooda Jalal, the only woman who ran for the Afghan presidency, tours the United States discussing a new documentary, FRONTRUNNER, a film that brilliantly illustrates the challenges she faced running for top office.

-long snip-

Dr. Jalal knows her country needs healing and care—not more war. Nevertheless, to secure the space for progress in Afghanistan she is willing to compromise her own country’s interests for those of the United States, whose goals have changed yet again and are now “to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

My question is will the United States compromise its interest just a little bit by insisting that women like Jalal work with them, lead, negotiate and sit at the tables in front of and behind the curtain so they are involved in every decision. “We need women’s channels,” says Jalal and the rest of us must help develop those channels so women can be part of the leadership working for their own rights.
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saying 'pretty please with sugar on it' doesn't work anymore, if it ever did.

raise our voices above the male rumbles. it works.

[stray cat]

1. Its difficult to be against occupation but in favor of dictating the countries government

Women should certainly be involved and the US can encourage it but I don't think we will dictate it. Women won their rights in the US from within and not by the force from another country.

[terisan]

2. The women's movement is worldwide and crosses international boundaries.

The US is intervening militarily in the country of Afghanistan and I see no reason that intervention should not include the promotion and enforcement of civil rights for over half the population;

Human rights are individual rights, not group rights.

[Occam Bandage]

3. An international pan-Muslim women's liberation movement

would tear the beating heart right out of radical Islam.

[ensho]

4. true

nt