Afghanistan Crisis: Human Rights champion Dr.Sakena Yacoobi pleas for help

 

Dr Sakena Yacoobi teaching/Credit: AIL

 

I wanted to share with you this heart-wrenching letter I've received from peace activist and educator Dr Sakena Yacoobi about the crisis going on in Afghanistan. Please read her first-hand account of the chaos and help out in any way you can. 

 

Yacoobi is an amazing woman: people call her Afghanistan’s “mother of education". She has founded the Afghanistan Institute of Learning (AIL) there and dedicated her life to educating women and children. I've interviewed her for a piece in the New Internationalist a few years ago. 

 

Here is her letter: 

 

Dear, Friends, Supporters, and Colleagues,

This is one of the most difficult letters I have ever written. After twenty years, our government collapsed with almost no resistance. The constitution we worked so hard for, the rights our women sacrificed so much to gain, thrown out the window like scraps for the dogs. Our military and the Ghani government fled, leaving our women and children to face the Taliban with no support. The world watched it happen, without care. We begged, screaming for help. So, now we see peace is again made on the back of women and children. It is what it is. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has fallen, and Kabul is in complete chaos. My office and staff are unharmed, for which we thank God. 

The nation of Afghanistan is in turmoil. My schools still stand, as of now, we have been instructed that we can continue as long as we separate boys and girls. The day the Taliban took Kandahar, they planted their flags in the courtyard of three of them. My schools must be important, as they visited the very first day the Taliban took control. Our Women Learning Centers remain open as they primarily serve women. As of now, my staff is unharmed. We hope and pray this remains true. We have been told that Radio and TV Meraj are not to operate until we are given notice, we will wait for that instruction. We hope and pray that the Taliban wasn’t lying when they told the world they did not intend to shut the schools, but our universities have already shut their doors to women and told them to go home. Burqa sales have tripled, as have the prices to purchase them. Women who lived through the Taliban before, go now to purchase these garments, while the daughters raised under the American occupation throw them in the faces of their mothers, refusing to wear them. 

We are a nation at a crossroads, but AIL will do what AIL has always done. We will continue to educate and provide a safe space for children and women. We will continue to offer food and job training and medical care for as long as we can remain in our facilities. When it is no longer possible to remain in those buildings, we will find new buildings, and work from there. Wherever we have schools now, we will have schools next week or next month or next year. AIL was started in secret and it will continue in secret if it must. While we are afraid, we are not defeated. Our mission remains the same. We will set up schools in every province, now that the worst has come. We know what to expect. We know the Taliban very well. There is no question of how they operate, or what they expect. We know how to manage them. We will do so. 

Letter after letter, phone call after phone call, came in this weekend asking how you can help. We need humanitarian supplies. The refugee situation we updated you with last week and the week before has only deteriorated. We have 300,000 internal refugees and 80,000 children who are without shelter and food. Where we were short of supplies, now we are out. Those in need are overwhelming us. Aid agencies have left with the American’s. AIL will not be leaving, so we will expand our facilities to help those who lost everything, including their homes, in the fighting. We need dry milk, clothes, school supplies, medicine, hygiene items, and Covid is still present, so soap and sanitizers are critical. Many of you have asked what else you can do, and to that I say contact the UN and government officials and tell them you want them to use every possible tool they have to protect our women and girls through diplomatic means. Sanction Pakistan for their invasion of my country, and pray for the safety of my people. 

Our democracy may have fallen for now. Ideas do not disappear so easily. One cannot kill whispers on the wind. The Taliban cannot crush a dream. We will prevail, even if it takes longer than we wanted it too. 

Much love to you all,

Dr. Sakena Yacoobi

 What you can do to help:

Donate to AIL https://www.afghaninstituteoflearning.org/

UK MP information line, simply tell them whom you wish to speak to or give address information to find out the name of your MP. 020 7219 4272

Email the White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Email Number 10 Downing Street https://email.number10.gov,uk/

Request Peacekeepers https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/contact

International Committee of the Red Cross https://www.icrc.org,/en/contact

Meet Sakena Yacoobi – Afghanistan’s mother of education

Sakena Yacoobi in Sayabad learning centre in Afghanistan/  © courtesy of WISE (World Innovation Summit for Education) 

 

 

 

 

I wanted to follow Sakena Yacoobi to remote communities in Afghanistan to see how she teaches women and children how to think for themselves and stand up for their rights.  But here I was at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge Hotel in London on a rainy day. 

Yacoobi is one of my heroes: someone who makes a difference, who makes the world a better place. She is called “Afghanistan’s mother of education” and for more than two decades she has been transforming lives through community-based education. 

I was so excited to meet her, but she was jet-lagged and drained – a small figure a bit hunched, wrapped in black, with a slow, tired voice. But when she started talking about education, she grew taller, her voice stronger, her eyes shone and her whole being was infused with passion.

Yacoobi was born in Herat, Afghanistan, and could have led a comfortable life in the US where she had studied, then settled as a university professor.  But when Russia invaded Afghanistan, she decided to go to Pakistan where many Afghans had sought refuge and set up schools in refugee camps.  She then moved back to Afghanistan where she opened schools for girls in defiance of the Taliban who had banned education for girls and set strict laws dictating what children could learn.   She wanted to “counteract ignorance” and give thousands of girls, women and unprivileged children a  better chance in life. 

She created the Afghanistan Institute of Learning (AIL) in 1995 and her organization now runs 44 learning centers for women and children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as four clinics, a hospital, an orphanage, a program for street children and a radio station that brings education to isolated regions.  

She says she has dedicated her life to promoting education because it is the only way to bring peace. “Conflict is the result of ignorance. International governments spend billions of dollars on weapons – just think what that money could do if it went towards education.”

You can read my interview with Yacoobi in New Internationalist here.

Afghanistan: young woman killed in front of 300 - Stop Violence against Women

Members of Afghan activist group Young Women for Change/copyright AP

Enough!  Stop violence against women in Afghanistan.


Afghanistan has been called the most dangerous place to be born a girl. Violence against girls and women is endemic.   From beatings behind closed doors to targeted attacks on brave women human rights defenders speaking out in public, anything goes. The majority of these crimes go unpunished. Instead, victims are often punished for committing 'moral crimes' like running from abusive relationships, attempting to protect their children from a violent father.

"I work mostly on cases where women have been accused of 'moral crimes', like running away from home after being abused, or where women want to free their children from an abusive father…,” says Masiha Faiz of Medica Mondiale.  “The police and courts don’t want us to defend these victims. They will hide the cases and try to send the women back without investigating. A woman’s word isn’t worth anything to them." 

The killing of a young Afghan woman by her father in front of a large crowd last week - on the grounds that she had “dishonoured” the family - is yet another example of the shocking violence against women and further proof that the authorities are failing to tackle it. 

The woman, who has two children, was shot dead last Monday (22 April) by her father in front of a crowd of about 300 people in the village of Kookchaheel, in the Aabkamari district of Badghis province in north-western Afghanistan, according to an Amnesty International report issued today.

The woman, named Halima, who was believed to be between 18 and 20 years old, was accused of running away with a cousin while her husband was in Iran. Her cousin returned Halima to her relatives ten days after running away with her. His whereabouts are unknown.

The killing came after three of the village’s religious leaders, allegedly linked to the Taliban, issued a fatwa (religious edict) that Halima should be killed publicly, after her father sought their advice about his daughter’s elopement. Halima’s father and the three religious council members who issued the fatwa have reportedly gone into hiding. The local police say they are investigating the case, but no one has yet been arrested in connection with the killing.

Amnesty International’s Afghanistan researcher Horia Mosadiq said:  “The deeply shocking practice of women being subjected to violent ‘punishments’, including killing, publicly or privately, must end. The authorities across Afghanistan must ensure that perpetrators of violence against women are brought to justice."

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) documented more than 4,000 cases of violence against women in a six-month period last year (21 March-21 October 2012) - a rise of 28% compared with the same period in the previous year. The AIHRC has also criticised the Afghan police in Baghdis for recruiting suspected perpetrators of such violence, including a Taliban commander and his 20 men implicated in the stoning to death of 45-year-old widow Bibi Sanuber for alleged adultery in 2010.

In August 2009, Afghanistan passed the Elimination of Violence againstWomen Law, which criminalises forced marriage, rape, beatings and other acts of violence against women.

“Afghanistan’s law for the elimination of violence against women is a very positive step, but it will not be useful unless it is properly enforced - something we haven’t seen so far,” said AI's Mosadiq.

Amnesty is calling for people to ask their MPs to stand up with women in Afghanistan and pressure the UK Government to support practical steps to tackle the abuse – steps like supporting women’s shelters or facilitating specially trained domestic abuse representatives in the police force. 

With international troops leaving next year, peace negotiations with the Taliban and upcoming Presidential elections, it is a critical time for Afghanistan. “We need our Government to act now to ensure gains made since the fall of the Taliban are not lost, and that women are protected from violence in all its forms,” says Amnesty.

Sign the petition here.

Afghanistan: what about the women?

credit: Women for Women International 

Ten years ago this week, the US and allies including the UK invaded Afghanistan - a move they justified in part with promises to defend women’s rights. A decade on, Afghanistan remains one of the most difficult and dangerous places in the world to be a woman.

Now, the countries that led the invasion back in 2001 are attempting to sit down at the negotiating table with the Taliban. And Afghan women fear that Western governments will sacrifice their rights and safety to reach an elusive deal with the Taliban.

In December, Foreign Secretary William Hague will represent the UK at discussions about the Afghanistan peace process. Organisations, such as  Amnesty International UK, CARE International UK, Oxfam GB and Women for Women International UK,  are urging the Foreign Secretary to ensure that Afghan women’s hard won but fragile rights do not become a bargaining chip to be traded away in the name of peace and that Afghan women are included in peace negotiations.

Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK said "The peace process in Afghanistan mustn’t mean putting a price on women’s rights. These are non-negotiable. They’re the ‘red lines’ that the Afghan community, Nato and countries like the UK must insist on."

Millions of Afghan women and girls have seen progress in their lives since 2001: two and a half million girls are enrolled in school, women can work outside their homes, while the constitution grants women and men equal rights.

Yet Afghanistan remains one of the most difficult and dangerous places in the world to be a woman. Their rights are weakly enforced, most women still have limited access to basic services such as healthcare and education, and they face risks from violence and conflict. This is particularly true for the brave women who are active in public life; they face intimidation and the threat of violence on a daily basis.

In addition, women’s voices have been largely silenced in the search for a peace deal.

Shaheen Chugtai, Humanitarian Policy Advisor, Oxfam GB said: “A just and lasting peace is necessary in order to improve the lives of all Afghans. We have to remind William Hague and the international community that the best way of achieving such as peace is by making sure that Afghan women are meaningfully involved at all levels of negotiation and that explicit guarantees of their constitutional rights are built into any peace deal.” 

Amnesty is urging all of us to take action and tell our government not to trade away women’s rights. You can do this here.

 Besides Amnesty International UK, CARE International UK, Oxfam GB and Women for Women International UK, the coalition of organisations are members of Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS). They also include ActionAid UK, International Action Network on Small Arms, Northern Ireland Women’s European Coalition, Saferworld, Soroptimist International UK, United Nations Association UK, UN Women UK, Womankind Worldwide and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. GAPS campaigns under No women, no peace and is petitioning the UK to honour commitments to women’s rights in Afghanistan. 

Supporters will wear green scarves and participate in candlelit vigils on 31st October in solidarity with women in Afghanistan. Click here for more details.

Afghanistan is world’s most dangerous place for women – followed by DRC, Pakistan, India and Somalia

Afghanistan, Congo and Pakistan are the world's most dangerous countries for women in 2011 due to a barrage of threats ranging from violence and rape to dismal healthcare and "honour killings", an international expert poll showed today. India and Somalia are the next worst places to be a woman.

The global report is shocking and also depressing for showing dismal lack of progress. When will things change? Most of these terrible situations, statistics and suffering are well documented – what more do we need?

The survey has been compiled by the Thomson Reuters Foundation to mark the launch of TrustLaw Women, a website aimed at providing free legal advice for women's groups around the world.

Not surprisingly Afghanistan is named as the world’s most dangerous country for women because of its high levels of violence, poor healthcare and poverty. And the war was supposed to improve the plight of Afghan women…

“Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. That aside, it is also a context that gives a woman minimal opportunity for education, health access, reproductive choice, etc. The lack of hope of the situation of women improving in the near future, as opposed to countries such as Sierra Leone and Southern Sudan, makes the situation comparatively even worse," says Dhammika Perera of International Rescue Committee.

Continuing conflict, Nato airstrikes and cultural practices also combine to make Afghanistan a very dangerous place for women. "In addition, women who do attempt to speak out or take on public roles that challenge ingrained gender stereotypes of what is acceptable for women to do or not, such as working as policewomen or news broadcasters, are often intimidated or killed," says Antonella Notari, head of Women Change Makers,  a group that supports women social entrepreneurs around the world. 

 

The second worse place goes to the Democratic Republic of Congo for the staggering level of sexual violence in the lawless eastern part of the country. One recent US study claimed that more than 400,000 women are raped there each year. The UN has called Congo the rape capital of the world.

Pakistan comes next on the basis of cultural, tribal and religious practices harmful to women. "These include acid attacks, child and forced marriage and punishment or retribution by stoning or other physical abuse," the poll finds.

The fourth worse place goes to India, which is more surprising for a country emerging into an economic super-power and a country not at war. India’s inclusion to the danger list is due to its high level of female infanticide and sex trafficking.

And Somalia completes the list. The country, in a state in political disintegration, suffers high levels of maternal mortality, rape, female genital mutilation and limited access to education and healthcare.

The poll asked 213 experts from five continents to rank countries on issues like overall perception of danger, access to healthcare, violence, cultural discrimination and human trafficking.

"This survey shows that 'hidden dangers' like a lack of education or terrible access to healthcare are as deadly, if not more so, than physical dangers like rape and murder which usually grab the headlines," Monique Villa, chief executive of Thomson-Reuters Foundation, says.

For more information, go to the TrustLaw website, which provides in-depth information, statistics, interviews and videos on the study. Also read the Guardian’s article by Owen Bowcott. The piece also provides links to case studies in all five countries.

 

Afghan women need equal seat at peace table

I went to an interesting lecture by Zainab Salbi at the LSE about the need for women in Afghanistan to participate fully in peace negotiations in their country. Salbi is the founder and CEO of Women for Women International, a grassroots humanitarian and development organisation helping women survivors of wars rebuild their lives. 

After a decade of war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, US and UK governments are talking about bringing their troops back in the near future.  As the Taliban is unlikely to be defeated, the Afghan government has started negotiating with hardline militia.  And Afghan women fear this will be at the detriment of their hard-won rights.

While the treatment of Afghan women at the hands of the Taliban was cited as a key reason for invading the country, women’s rights are now seen as a secondary issue.

Salbi, who has testified before the US senate, says: "There is a clear, clear opinion (among US politicians) that women's rights were a) not that relevant and b) irreconcilable with peace in Afghanistan."

Women are excluded from taking full part in the peace negotiations, which will determine the future of their country.   “But progress and peace start with women,” said Salbi, who grew up in Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war.

 “There is no peace without women.”  Not only women bear the brunt of war, but they are the ones who keep families and communities together. They bring stability and help rebuild countries.

Women for Women International is demanding that women have an equal seat at the negotiating table and an equal voice in determining their future and the future of their country.  WFWI is circulating a petition, which will be presented to your Foreign Secretary of State, calling for urgent action so that Afghan women can play a full part in the peace negotiations.

Sign the petition here.