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Afghan women excluded from peace talks: Oxfam
Afghan women continue to be excluded from Afghanistanâs peace negotiations and formal talks about the countryâs future, an international aid agency has said
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fghan women continue to be excluded from Afghanistan's peace negotiations and formal talks about the country's future, an international aid agency has said.
'Unless this discrimination is reversed, peace will be unsustainable, Afghanistan's development will be compromised, and enormous human rights gains made since the fall of the Taliban will remain under threat,' Oxfam said in its recently released report made available to The Jakarta Post on Monday.
In its 'Behind Closed Doors' report, Oxfam tracked 23 known peace talks held among the Taliban, the Afghan government and the international community since 2005. It found that no Afghan woman had been involved in talks between the international community and the Taliban. During talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, women were present on only two occasions.
Oxfam said by freezing out women from the peace and development process, Afghanistan's Western supporters were breaking promises made 13 years ago to support women's empowerment.
Unless Afghan women were given an active role, a legacy of the Afghan war would be Afghan women's eventual suppression into poverty, directly undermining the country's future prosperity, it further said.
'The international community used women's rights to help justify its presence in Afghanistan. Having brought about some improvements and investing more than US$100 billion in aid, it would be a tragedy if progress was reversed,' Oxfam's country director for Afghanistan, John Watt, said.
'As donors rush to the exit, Afghans should not have to worry that the world will forget promises made to Afghan women and allow women's rights to be negotiated away,' he went on.
As the possibility of a new round of peace talks gains momentum under a new Afghan government, Oxfam is concerned that a sustainable peace agreement will not be possible if women are denied a stake in negotiations.
'Undoubtedly, with the help of international aid and support, many Afghan women have made enormous changes in their lives in the last decade. Women
are working as doctors, police chiefs, members of parliament and teachers. A record number of girls are in school,' Watt said.
'But millions more women in rural and isolated areas have not seen any changes. In some instances there has
been a roll-back in any rights they may have gained,' he added. (ebf)(++++)
