STATEMENT: Asila Wardak: "We should Not Let Anyone use the Problems of Security as an Excuse to Prevent Women from Participating in the Political Life

Asila Wardak Jamal is a women's rights and civil society activist from Afghanistan and one of the founders of the Afghan Women's Network. She has been working in the Asian Development Bank as a gender and social development specialist for two years. She has previously worked as a safety and social development specialist for the World Bank, the UNDP, UNAMA, CARE and the Canada Fund.

Ms. Wardak is committed to protecting human and women's rights and civil-society empowerment. She actively participated in peace jirga, a national consultative body in Afghanistan that brought representatives from all segments of society to discuss the future of Afghanistan.

Ms. Wardak spoke to EWI's Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention about women's rights and women's empowerment in Afghanistan.

PN: Before peace jirga sessions began, it appeared that the government would appoint the jirga's female representatives. Do you think the government appointments would restrain the council's ability to speak out on women's rights?

AW: At the beginning I was a little bit concerned about the fair female representation because the secretariat of jirga did not want massive participation of women and only 20 seats were allocated for women. But after a number of advocacy meetings, negotiations and consultations with different levels of the government, international community and the parliament, we managed to select 50 women. We were not, however, satisfied with this number so we kept on our pressure to allow more women into jirga.

By the time of the peace jirga session, we counted 384 women. Women accounted therefore for 23 percent of the jirga, which was a great achievement. And what is more important, they were not only from the government, but from the parliament, senate, from women's activist groups, civil society groups, educational institutions, youth groups. The selection committee consisted of the Minister for Women's Affairs, the Minister of Health, the Minister for Social Affairs and a representative of the Afghan Women's Network. So I can say that it was a transparent system and women were not appointed only by government, but were selected according to their merits and commitments.

Another problem was that a number of women came to Kabul for the first time from the provinces. Some women did not feel very comfortable speaking out in front of men. But thanks to a two-day national consultation meeting arranged by the Afghan Women Network, we managed to encourage women to speak out. At the end of the peace jirga, 28 committees had been created and based on election process. One of the committees was headed by a woman and about 75 percent of the deputies of the committees were women.

PN: The High Peace Council will be organized as a new negotiation body after the peace jirga. Will women also take part in it?

AW: This peace council, or the Peace Commission, as they call it, was supposed to be made up of 28 heads of committees. But then the president decided to have people from women's groups, civil society groups, parliamentarians, etc. At the moment they are looking for people to be included into the Peace Commission. And we, as women activists, are still trying to have more women in the Commission, at least five.

PN: What will be the objective of the Peace Commission and what role will be assigned to female representatives there?

The role of this commission is to follow up on the jirga's outcome. A number of recommendations and suggestions have been brought up during the jirga. This commission has the mandate to implement all these recommendations. We are now trying to secure places for at least five women there because women in Afghanistan account for more than 50 percent of the population. We don't want to become victims of bargaining between the government and the Taliban. Women in this commission will make sure that rights of women won't be compromised. We want to be part of every formal and informal talk.

PN: What conditions do you need to set up to facilitate the reconciliation process?

AW: Although both the international community and our government promised to safeguard women 's rights and civil liberties, we still want more opportunities for women to take part in policymaking. And we want those who violate women's rights to be prosecuted and not released from jail. The Afghani women have reached some significant achievements and we don't want to lose it quickly. And a quota of at least 30 percent female representation in all peace and security negotiations should be established. Afghani women must be consulted on all issues at all times.

PN: What are the obstacles for female participation in the peace process?

AW: Unfortunately, Afghan women are at the moment fundamentally excluded from any decision making, they are excluded at the top level. We should not let anyone use the problems of security as an excuse to prevent women from participating in the political life. They forget that women can be good peacekeepers.

We should not also forget that Afghanistan is a male-dominated society and women have few chances to take part in discussions, both a family and a political level. The domination of men at the top political level precludes women from being part of the peace process.

PN: There are fears that these bold promises to protect women's rights and grant civil liberties could remain on paper. How can you ensure that all these measures will be implemented? And do you think the difficulties empowering women in Afghanistan can be overcome in the near future?

AW: Unfortunately, the final statement of the jirga did not mention anything about protection of women's rights. Women's concerns have been, however, included into the attachment to the declaration. Although we are doing our best to lobby for women's rights, we would like to ask the international community not to leave us alone in this struggle. The government of Afghanistan should be put under more pressure to allocate more seats and quotas for women in the policymaking institutions.

However, the situation has significantly improved compared to year 2002-2003, for example. The role of women in the elections, in the parliament and in the senate has increased. Women go to schools, an advocacy group for women has been established, and we see some improvements in terms of employment, in terms of civil-society empowerment, family law reform and decrease in violence towards women. There is also a national action plan for women of Afghanistan. These are very good achievements. But what we still lack is the implementation of these laws.

Another cluster of problems is that there are few women involved in the decision-making. We have only one female minister at the moment. One person among 34 male ministers has no leverage to promote women's leadership and women's issues. 28 percent of MPs in Afghanistan are women, but unfortunately they are not very well organized. There is no coordination among these female MPs, their voices are ignored because most of these women became MPs due to the support from the male MPs and they have to agree with everything that male MPs are saying. .

And then we should keep in mind overall security problems in Afghanistan. Of course, it's important for both male and female MPs but some extra security measures are needed for women, if they, for example, run for elections and have to travel to their constituency. The National Action Plan for Women (NAPWA) includes many measures for them, but no one is implementing it. The resource allocation from the international community is also not fair. All these international donors, such as USAID, the World Bank, ADB, UN offices, etc., do not take gender issues into consideration. They are not interested in women's needs. They seem to be interested in big infrastructure projects which will let them show off on a global level rather than taking into account the gender problems. We are also suffering from the fact that only few projects or few programs are nationalized in Afghanistan. If there is more control over a program from the national authorities, the implementation will be much better. We need to ensure that the projects are implemented and monitored by Afghanistan's citizens.

2010 has been an important year for people of Afghanistan. We had the peace jirga, we will have a Kabul Conference and finally the parliamentary elections in September this year. And we will make sure that Afghani women are not excluded from all these events and I hope we will enjoy support from the international community in it.