A Call to Action - October 2006

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The death of Safia Amajan and the plight of Afghan women

She was targeted by those opposed to women participating in community leadership and education, according to the BBC's Dan Isaacs.  As reported in the New York Times on September 25, “it was the highest-level assassination of a woman in Afghanistan in the five years since the Taliban were ousted from power.”

The 65-year-old mother of four, former teacher and high school principal apparently had gone “too far”.  What did she do?  She worked to advance women’s education, vocational training, and women’s rights.

A warning:  “Many Afghan women risk their safety if they participate in public life,” said LaShawn R. Jefferson, executive director of the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. “… Afghan women themselves say their hopes for even basic rights have gone unfulfilled.”  (Human Rights Watch, October 5, 2004)

The chilling effect:  Women are again retreating from Afghan community life, girls schools are taking additional safety measures or going into hiding again.  They are afraid.  We have seen this before.

The facts:

What will you do this time?

Afghan women previously endured years of oppression, violence, retribution for speaking out or simply appearing in public.  Those images are in everyone’s mind.

The numbers of incidents targeting Afghan girls and women have been growing, and this may not have international attention.

The death of Safia Amajan should be the ultimate signal that Afghan women need our help.  The world cannot watch while their fragile efforts for human rights are dismantled.  Not this time.

Take Action Now:

Your help is needed.  Please give a voice to the plight of Afghan women and take action!

If the aims of peace and development are ever to be realised in Afghanistan, then women's fundamental human rights must be respected. (Amnesty International, Women in Afghanistan, 1999)

Women journalists, activists and government officials have reported death threats, harassment and attacks for speaking out about sensitive women’s rights issues such as divorce. Through intimidation and armed attacks, local warlord factions, the Taliban and other insurgent forces have forced the closure of women’s development projects, which provide desperately needed education, health, rights awareness and job training to women and girls.  (Afghanistan: Women Under Attack for Asserting Rights, Human Rights Watch, October 5, 2004)

Using threatening phone calls, “night letters,” armed confrontations, and bomb or rocket attacks against offices, factional and insurgent forces are attempting to scare women into silence, casting a shadow on the Afghan women’s movement and governmental attempts to promote women’s and girls’ development. (Between Hope and Fear: Intimidation and Attacks Against Women in Public Life in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch, October 2004)

Afghanistan joined the world community and again ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) treaty in March 2003.  They have yet to report on their findings and their efforts to improve the status of women. (CEDAW: Treaty for the Rights of Women, www.womenstreaty.org)

Currently, due to fear of attacks, the doors of some 330 mixed schools have been closed in Kandahar, Zabul and Helmand provinces alone, according to Saifal Maluk, head of education in Helmand province.

And it's not just the south where primary education is suffering. "More than 200,000 students are shut out of schools across the country because of school closures due to fear of attacks," Deputy Education Minister Mohammad Sadiq Fatman told IRIN from Kabul. (IRIN, Reuters AlertNet, October 2, 2006)

A Plea for Afghan Women