[This time we can stand with Afghan women on their own terms, by
asking them what they want and working hand-in-hand with them to
support their leadership and meet their communities needs.]
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THREE LESSONS TO CHART A PATH FORWARD IN SOLIDARITY WITH AFGHAN WOMEN
 
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Yifat Susskind
September 28, 2021
Common Dreams
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_ This time we can stand with Afghan women on their own terms, by
asking them what they want and working hand-in-hand with them to
support their leadership and meet their communities' needs. _

A number of girls in Herat gather to stage a demonstration demanding
to continue their education in schools and universities, on September
20, 2021 in Herat, Afghanistan. Demonstrators call on the Taliban
government not to discriminate against girls and t, Stringer/Anadolu
Agency via Getty Images

 

WHILE THE TALIBAN WOULD have us believe their promises to uphold
women's rights, reality paints a much different picture. Public
protests by women
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against the Taliban have been violently quashed. A shelter for women
fleeing domestic violence was burned to the ground by the Taliban.
Other women's safe houses across Afghanistan have closed
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and the directors and occupants are in hiding. In rural villages,
girls have been dragged off into sex slavery as Taliban "brides."
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Thousands of women and their children displaced from rural areas by
these threats and by ongoing armed violence have sought refuge in
Kabul, congregating outdoors without shelter, food, or water.

As dire as the situation is for women and girls in Afghanistan, they
have not gone silent. They are organizing. Bravely, fiercely,
tirelessly. While they may be less visible because conditions demand
it, grassroots feminist activists are drawing on their networks,
forged over decades of war and conflict, to meet the urgent needs of
women, girls, and their families around the country. They are
mobilizing to protect each other from the threat of assassination and
provide urgent humanitarian aid to those who have been forced to flee
their homes.

Those of us in the US have the opportunity to support these efforts
and stand with Afghan feminists as they rebuild a strategy to sustain
their movement under Taliban rule. To be effective allies, we must
learn the lessons of the two-decades-long debacle of US intervention
in Afghanistan.

One clear conclusion is that women must be involved in peacebuilding.
For years, women in Afghanistan demanded
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be part of the peace process, organizing their own forums to chart an
inclusive path to peace. Instead, the US, the Afghan government, and
the Taliban refused to allow women's meaningful participation
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and today's disastrous reality is a direct result.

By excluding women, the gatekeepers of the 'peace process' excluded
the priorities and interests of the vast majority of the population.
That's because, when wartorn communities are struggling to survive,
it's invariably local women who step up to meet their needs, for food,
water, safety, and more. By doing this lifesaving work, grassroots
women's organizations build up an invaluable store of the people's
trust. They establish wide, meaningful community-based networks, and
if they were allowed at the peace table, women could better uplift
people's needs and keep people informed about the negotiations. But,
instead warring parties have been the only ones allowed around the
table, resulting in a failed process.

Another clear lesson is that Afghan women's rights were never a true
priority
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for the United States, despite ongoing claims to the contrary. The US
spent nearly 1,000 times more money on military
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intervention than on support for women's rights, and was frequently
willing to trade women's rights away, whether in negotiations with the
Taliban or with its allies in the government. In fact, US-backed
alternatives to the Taliban often imposed similarly violent
restrictions on women
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From the very beginning, MADRE opposed US military intervention in
Afghanistan
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We never believed war would be a sustainable way to win rights for
Afghan women or anyone else. Around the world, we saw how violent
conflict exacerbated gender-based violence and destroyed the
conditions needed for women's movements to thrive. Back then, however,
anti-war voices
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including those of anti-imperialist feminists, were drowned out by
supporters of the invasion. The calls of Afghan feminists
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who knew war was not the answer were completely ignored.

Instead, the voices that were amplified in the war-mongering after
9/11 were those calling for the use of military force to "save Afghan
women" from their terrible men. People like First Lady Laura Bush
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lauded the US invasion as a moral war "for the rights and dignity of
women." And far too many US feminists accepted her racist proposition
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Theirs was the logic of what we now call white feminism
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and it needs to be transformed. War is no way to secure lasting rights
for women. As we near the 20th anniversary of the invasion of
Afghanistan, this must be a third enduring lesson for everyone who
calls themselves a feminist.

There are better ways to stand with Afghan women. We must recommit to
ensuring women are never again used as a pretext for war and devote
ourselves to what really works to protect women's rights and end
abuses: supporting grassroots feminist organizing.

At MADRE, we are in constant touch with our grassroots partners in
Afghanistan and are mobilizing support to reach women where it's
needed most. Their first priority—and therefore ours—is preventing
women and girls from being killed and abused by the Taliban. MADRE is
supporting local Afghan activists with funds to provide security and
protection and sustain an underground escape and relocation network
for those who need to flee their homes.

We're also supporting immediate and lasting efforts to protect women
and families, inside Afghanistan and in countries where thousands of
Afghan women and families have arrived as refugees. We're funding
local organizations to provide much-needed support, including food,
shelter, medical care, and trauma management, as well as long-term
support for resettlement.

Now is the time to begin applying the bitter lessons of 20 years of
war on Afghanistan. This time we can stand with Afghan women on their
own terms, by asking them what they want and working hand-in-hand with
them to support their leadership and meet their communities' needs.

While we can't be sure what the coming months will bring, we will
continue to listen to and follow the lead of grassroots feminist
activists who know best what they and their communities require to
survive conflict and crisis, and to continue the work of advocating
for sustainable, lasting peace.

YIFAT SUSSKIND [[link removed]] is
the Executive Director of MADRE [[link removed]], an
international women's human rights organization. She has worked with
women’s human rights activists from Latin America, the Middle East,
Asia and Africa to create programs in their communities to address
women's health, violence against women, economic and environmental
justice and peacebuilding. She has also written extensively on US
foreign policy and women’s human rights and her critical analysis
has appeared in _The New York Times_, _The Washington Post_, _Foreign
Policy in Focus_ and elsewhere.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel
free to republish and share widely.

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