Concerns over protecting the health and human rights of women and girls in Afghanistan have grown exponentially since the US withdrawal. The voices of women leaders are mostly missing, especially the ones close to the ground.
Join us on Thursday for a unique webinar event featuring women leaders. Gulalai Ismail, the founder of Aware Girls in Pakistan, started as a teenager to work on girls' reproductive rights at the border area of Pakistan and Afghanistan. She later founded the Youth Peace Network in Khyber Pakhtunkwa Province, Pakistan. She had to leave Pakistan using dangerous terrain, sometimes on foot, to escape persecution. Dr. Sadiqa Basiri transformed an abandoned mosque into a school. Heather Barr, the director of the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, has worked on child marriage, girls’ education, violence against women, refugee, and prisoners’ rights, and trafficking, including in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea. Negaya Chorley, CEO, Results International Australia, has more than 20 years of experience leading organizations spanning refugees, youth development, and women’s rights. Wazhma Frogh is a peacebuilding expert and lifetime campaigner for Afghan women and girls from Afghanistan with over ten years of mediation and conflict resolution experience. Dr. Luwei Pearson, Associate Director, MNCAH, UNICEF, has spent the past 20 years advocating for women’s and children’s health causes in places such as China, Pakistan, Nepal, Ethiopia, Hong Kong, and the United States.
Highlighting women's voices from around the world, this special panel will be chaired by Dr. Vineeta Gupta, Director, ACTION Secretariat. Vineeta has worked on global health programs in over 25 countries, including more than six years supporting child and maternal health and reproductive rights programs in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This all-women panel brings together leading experts across numerous fields bringing deep insights, personal testimony, and rigorous debates of the most critical questions facing health advocacy for women in Afghanistan.
Especially amidst a global pandemic, the international community cannot afford to withdraw financial aid or programming for vital health services. Beyond self-interest, there is also a moral imperative to protect the right to access to health. Please join us to discuss what we know and what we can do!
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