The Challenges to Nation-Building

in Afghanistan continues....

Literacy rates are extremely low and have been ranked at the bottom of the UN gender development index. All political groups have used the status of women as a political tool to claim legitimacy or popularity vis-a –vis other factions. Invoking religion and Afghan culture, most armed groups have made pronouncements on the so-called

appropriate behaviour for women, imposing restriction on their movement, employment and education in the areas they controlled. Women have faced harassment in public for carrying out acts considered ‘unIslamic’.

The most consistent and stringent in their enforcement of restrictions on women was the Taleban who controlled almost 90 percent of the country up to 2001. Their policies on gender discrimination compelled Ahmed Rashid to refer to Afghan women as the “vanished gender.”

Taleban pronouncements on women have been well documented and

the subject has received unprecedented interest and international

attention for the past years.

Since the Taleban takeover of Kabul, women’s issue has been raised with equal fervour by both the Taleban and the international community, both standing steadfast on foundations of fundamental principles guaranteeing the dignity of women, yet both with views poles apart. It must be understood that restrictions against Afghan women did not begin with the Taleban and is unlikely to end with the end of the Taleban regime. Rather it is symptomatic of a much long-standing religious and cultural tensions between traditionalists and modernizers.



Time and again, traditionalists have highlighted the cultural constraints existing for women with interpretations of tradition and religion. Even armed groups have raised this issue at the political level for their selfinterest.



The end of violent conflicts and the return of refugees do not imply an automatic reintegration and stake for women in the process. On the contrary, in many cases, the post-war situations seem more difficult. The Bonn Agreement and the subsequent developments in the country have provided some opportunities for women so to say, under the changed

circumstances.

A thorough gender-mainstreaming approach is being aimed at with all donor activities and in political dialogue with the government.

To be continued...