Improving the status of women in Afghanistan has been one of the key objectives of the international community after the US-led international coalition toppled the Taliban regime in 2001. Hundreds of millions of dollars has been spent over past fifteen years on projects aimed at improving women’s livelihood conditions as well as well as the conservative social approach to the rights and status of the women in the country. However, after years of the efforts to stabilize and reconstruct Afghanistan, the question remains that have Afghanistan and the international community reached the objective to restore women’s rights and improve the status of women in the war-ravaged country? There is perhaps no straight answer to this question as the experiment has been a mixture of successes and failures over the past fifteen years of the collective efforts.
The status of the Afghan women is an extraordinary aspect of the overall situation in the country. In fact, the plights of women in Afghanistan exemplify the woes and chaos that have grappled the country for so long. Women have come a long way and their has remarkably improved compared to the time when Afghan women lived under the Taliban rule. There have been progresses in many areas related to the rights and social rights of the women. However, when it comes to the collective objective over the status of the women, both Afghanistan and the international community has fallen short of delivering the promises to boost the status of Afghan women to the international standards and those of the Islamic communities.
With the international mission in Afghanistan unfinished and the Taliban insurgency ravaging the country, there seems to be an irritating defocus on women’s rights. This has left the campaign lagging behind what was aimed to be achieved and what were to be achieved in the long run. Despite the progresses made, Afghanistan is still considered as one of the worst places for women and mothers where women continue to suffer violence, poverty and other deprivations on daily basis. The women in Afghanistan continue to be the largest group in the society who remain underprivileged in areas of education, health, social equality, financial well-being and financial independence.
Perhaps the most important failure regarding improving the status of women in Afghanistan is the Afghan-style conservatism and male dominancy both in public areas and within the families. Many Afghan women continue to suffer day-to-day domestic violence mostly committed and impost by the male family members. The media regularly reports cases of sever violence against women including harming or even killing women by family members. According to human rights organizations, the trend of reporting domestic violence to the government authorities or human rights groups have been on the rise with the increase of public awareness over the rights of women. Domestic violence is perhaps the most important aspect of violence against women where the government and the human rights organizations cannot do much about it.
But the real problem is the lack of resolve to keep the momentum of the campaign and continue the fight to improve the status of women. With the country continuing to struggle with security and economic challenges and the Afghan government shouldering the burden of anti-insurgency campaign alone, the efforts aimed at improving status of Afghan women have gone into a marginal task. The National Unity Government (NUG) took concrete measures to boost political participation of the Afghan women in governance, politics and public administration in the country. However, the government seems to be overwhelmed by the Taliban insurgency, the deteriorating security, political and economic challenges. This situation is potentially undermining government’s commitment to lead the efforts to improve women’s status.
A real challenge for the Afghan government is the international community’s disengagement from the Afghanistan mission and the fatigue of Western countries to deal with the situation and continue to fund the protracted campaign. With the United States and NATO members focusing on completing the withdrawal efforts, the international community has long become disinterested to any matters related to the mission in Afghanistan. NUG needs to refocus on the campaign to boost the status of the women and redouble its efforts to promote women’s rights in the deeply conservative Afghan society. Failure in this regard is not an option for Afghanistan.
It is crucially important that the government keeps the momentum of the campaign and do not let security or other challenges to derail the efforts.
Education is the most effective way to empower women and provide more opportunities for them. The Afghan government can introduce extensive initiative granting women education and employment opportunities with the aim to boost their presence in education and public sectors. Helping women to educate will work to boost their presence in all other sectors and businesses. The Ministry of Higher Education this year considered some limited privileges for female students who competed to enter state universities. According to officials, the policy helps compensate the low presence of girls in the educational institutions and help more female to get into the state universities.
An important part of the campaign is to improve legislations related to women. The law on banning violence against women is key for the efforts to eliminate domestic violence against women. The government needs to weigh in behind the efforts to enact the law. Many attempts to approve the law have so far failed. The Afghan government and the parliament must continue the fight to pass the crucial bill.