Hello. Welcome to Mansfield College and this evening's Mansfield Public Talk.
Those people don't know me. I'm Helen Mansfield and principal here.
And this week's talk every time we have at least one talk in conjunction with the Navarro Institute,
the human rights with whom we share this wonderful building.
And I'm delighted that this term, our talk is from Shaharzad Akbar, who is going to be in conversation with Chelsea Chowdhury.
Scheherazade is currently the chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission,
having previously been the Deputy National Safety and Security Council counsel on the Peace
and Civilian Protection and has had a number of other important roles in Afghanistan,
which I'm sure she will talk about. She obviously came to this country when Kabul fell with her husband and then one child and now has two.
But it's wonderful that she's a research fellow at Wolfson College at the moment, and she's here to have this conversation with us.
She's going to be in conversation with Shazia Chowdhury, who is a professor of law at Wadham College.
She came to Oxford a couple of years ago from Queen Mary.
And I remember seeing on Twitter that she was coming in being incredibly excited because her work,
which focuses on gender, human rights and violence against women, is so interesting.
So I'm delighted that you're here as well.
I'm Shazia and Shout as I can speak for about 20 minutes, then have a conversation with Shazia and then we'll take questions from the floor as well.
So thank you both very much for coming. Greetings everyone.
I am really, really honoured to be here, to be speaking to all of you today.
And I'm especially honoured and touched that a number of my Afghan sisters are here in the audience.
Then there's a question. I didn't see a lot of them.
Maybe something as simple as making them was done with some compilers, like Fabulous Motion The Time.
Basically. So then he had to speak about women's rights in Afghanistan.
You have all heard the full range of full range of restrictions that Taliban have imposed on women inside the country.
When Kabul fell to Taliban again on 15th August 2021,
they swiftly started implementing a set of restrictions on women's access to education, to employment, to movement, even to the office.
So all aspects of women's lives and rights are being impacted by these restrictions.
We also have seen some of the response to the Taliban's restrictions.
And today I want to focus on that response.
What has the response been to Taliban's restrictions by Afghans, particularly by Afghan women inside the country?
As some of you might know, there's of course,
a struggle for women's rights in Afghanistan and also taking place by Afghan women and Afghan activists and diaspora.
But the focus of today's conversation talk for me will be on what's happening inside that country,
because I do think that for us to get a better sense of how Afghanistan has changed
and where we haven't perhaps delivered so much on on rights in the past ten years,
we can get a clear sense of that by looking at what's happening inside the country.
So I going to start over. And while the world was in shock about what just happened in Afghanistan and many Afghans were in shock,
Afghan women started marching on the streets demanding rights.
The first protest against Taliban happened in Kabul on 17th August and then half after the Taliban had entered Kabul.
And these protests have continued. They are frequently happening in Kabul.
Almost every week they are not attended by large groups of people.
They are mostly are male only woman.
And they are usually groups of 40 or 50 women or smaller groups of women who come to the streets.
But they have sustained we also saw some protests initially and in some provinces, and they faced a very brutal crackdown.
And since then, the protests outside Kabul have been.
Let's let's let's consistence and I'll talk a little bit about that as well later.
So the protests that are happening in Kabul, what are the demands of most of these women protesters?
They are mainly five groups of women that we know are involved in organising these protests.
And that demands one of the most famous slogans is bread, work, freedom.
And they have come off the streets protesting the closure of secondary schools for girls,
protesting the restrictions on women's dress, on women's employment.
They have called for international attention and international solidarity and for pressure on Taliban.
These protests have met a very brutal response by the Taliban.
Women protesters in Kabul have been detained not only themselves, their family members.
There are allegations of torture.
They have been made to sign letters saying they will no longer protest or that they would not speak to the media about their protests.
Despite this, they have continued and in conversation with them.
You know, when we ask them, how can you continue considering the risks and and what's the demand and how we can stand in solidarity with you?
They are really operating on the assumption mainly that by going to the streets,
they can sustain international attention to Afghanistan and that primary audiences and international audience,
they want the U.N. to be paying attention.
They want Western diplomats, male mainly, but also diplomats in the region, to pay attention and to remember how dire the situation in Afghanistan is.
They keep saying that they are in this belief that girls in Afghanistan cannot go to school.
They are banned from secondary school. And despite this, there's continued engagement with Taliban in a way that's not putting more pressure on them.
So for them, they think that if they stop going to the streets,
Afghanistan will be forgotten even more quickly and that there would be even
less hope for any change when these protests are happening mainly in Kabul,
mainly with an international audience in mind. And some of these protesters have spoken to international mechanisms.
For instance, they have spoken in U.N. Human Rights Council sessions.
There's also activism, other forms of activism going on across Afghanistan, in different provinces.
Initially when I was looking at the protests in Kabul, I wondered, why is this not happening everywhere?
I mean, the restrictions are everywhere. And.
Many places, Gaza, most provinces in Afghanistan.
Now, girls can't access that education. So why is this?
Why is the response not so organised?
And I realise that's one of the main reasons that women in provinces are less likely to protest is because they are
worried about a more brutal crackdown because at least in Kabul there is some international presence of very limited it,
but there is some international presence. There's also some Western media and usually women protesters coordinate with the media
before they go out to protest to make sure that it brings them some protection.
Even that basic protection doesn't exist in provinces.
And the fact is that there is a broader alliance for rights in more urban contexts, and that in some provinces,
women fear that if they go out, not only the Taliban, but even the communities themselves would not support that action.
I would try to stop it or prevent it. Even their own family members.
But they are still trying to find ways to gain access to their basic rights, their fundamental human rights.
So how are they doing that? And I'll give you a few examples.
In Herat, for instance. There's a women's collective that focuses on academic conferences, on discussions, on publications, on women's rights.
Their primary audience is either women and educated women,
and their idea is that they should just keep expanding the circle of women who are talking about these issues.
And their activity is not very public. It's underground.
But it has been very consistently going on. But they are not interested in going on the streets and protesting in that way.
There's another group, and they can be in central Afghanistan that focuses on not even women's rights and sadly unfair distribution of aid.
And the way they they work for distribution of the aid is that they their engagement is mostly with local tribal elders and
trying to pressure them to talk with more confidence and more pressure and more evidence to parliament local authorities.
So their focus is really about making sure that the aid that's being distributed is distributed and more
fair manner and that women and children are not left behind and poorer families are not left behind.
Another example of activism in the provinces is in war.
It's one of the provinces that was really struggling with poverty and conflict.
Even during the republic, it was one of the poorest provinces there.
Women have decided to run a library in one of their houses.
And the focus really there is to ensure that educated girls and women don't lose all hope,
that they have a space to come together, that they talk to each other, that they feel the solidarity.
They feel that they are part of a larger group. So but there are, of course,
differences in both the audiences and as well as approaches that are used by my women protesters in
Kabul and other forms of activism that women are carrying out in provinces as well as in Kabul.
One of the main one of the main differences is that some of the other groups across Afghanistan
are more geared towards some forms of local negotiation and other than confronting the Taliban.
So they are trying to find openings so that they can negotiate around things like women's civil servants status should still be paid their salaries,
even if they are not coming to work. Because you sent us home pay as our salaries on time.
So for instance, there's a group that's actually working on this with local authorities.
And of course, there's not necessarily always agreement on everything.
When you talk to some of the women's groups and some provinces who are trying to negotiate for openings,
they don't necessarily agree with the approach adopted by women protesters in Kabul and women protesters in Kabul disagree with any act.
Not all of them, but some of them really disagree with any act, any kind of engagement with Taliban,
because they see it as a form of giving legitimacy to them as a government in power.
So there are differences of opinion that there are differences of approach and how this is done.
And I think this tells us a little bit about what happens in Afghanistan in the
past ten years that we women's rights work and human rights work was carried out.
A lot of the women's rights work that was carried out in Kabul in some other urban context was carried out in very close partnership,
let's call it partnership with international organisations and landowners.
While work that was carried out and in areas that there wasn't such strong international presence,
especially as the security situation got worse and big international organisations and and officials retreated to Kabul.
The arrangements there were different and the interactions there were different and the focus of the women's groups in those places was different.
Also, of course, women, all of one woman universally have lost out because now Taliban are in power.
Everything. The woman has lost out because now, even if you weren't an educated woman, you weren't working somewhere.
You didn't want to send your daughter to school before you could go to a clinic on your own and seek medical care.
Now you can't. You're required to have a male guardian, so less of all women have been impacted.
But the impact varies depending on the life that you had before Taliban took over.
So the impact is most greatly felt by women in Kabul where they want they want
only standing and working to work and act as part of the political structure.
They were, you know, taking part in big gatherings.
They were part of in some ways part of the decision making about some of the issues, at least.
And so they feel this pushback more strongly or in parts of central Afghanistan, where women are much more involved and in the public life.
So that changes things differently, perhaps for women in different parts of the country.
And then in response to that, the way they have chosen to engage has has been different.
But looking at what protests in Kabul and the protests and the resistance and activism that's going on in different parts of the country.
What are some of the few takeaways about women's movement inside the country right now?
And. It's very clear that women's resistance to Taliban's oppression is much more
widespread and pronounced compared to the first time Taliban were in power.
Because when Taliban were first in power in 1996, you didn't see you couldn't expect women going out to the streets protesting day after day,
week after week, despite the pressures and the brutal crackdown that they faced.
So obviously, Taliban are facing a different society, a society that has changed in some ways transformed.
But this change and transformation has been very uneven because of the conflict, because of poverty, because of corruption,
the level of exposure and access women had in different parts of the country to resources, to networks, to knowledge.
And all of this really, it was very, very in equal.
So you also see the reflection of that inequality now and the way women are organising or able to organise or have the space to organise.
It's also, of course, a reminder of the fact that Afghan women were never like women anywhere, a homogenous group, and they are not now.
So when we are talking about one to Afghan women wants and how do we stand in solidarity with Afghan women?
I think it's very important to continuously,
continuously watch what's going on inside Afghanistan and look at these different and it's very hard to get information on this.
But to the extent that we can look at the different ways in which women are pushing for change and different mediums,
that they are adapting and thinking really through about what solidarity means.
For the past. Over a year I have been outside Afghanistan and I, I cycle every day.
I'll be very honest with you. I struggle every day about what's the best thing to do to help women back in Afghanistan.
And every day I'm aware of the fact every single day, in fact, every every waking hour, the fact that,
girls, we are the only country in the world where girls can't access secondary education.
I personally know a young woman who tells me we feel we are falling behind when the whole world is going forward.
We will never gain back these years of our lives. And we are deprived of something so basic, so universal access to education.
So every day I think about what's the best way to stand in solidarity with them and.
I know we don't have a lot of answers, I think whenever I want to.
Feel useful. I tried to go back to the woman inside the country themselves and ask them, What do you need?
Do you need some assistance to to, you know, to be able to have Internet on your phone?
Do you need me to put you in touch with someone outside Afghanistan that you want to talk to, someone in the U.N.?
Someone either in another international organisation? Do you want me to translate to Bachmann's?
Do you want me to, you know, try to mobilise people to send some books to your library?
The answer really varies depending on what needs people have, what priorities they have identified.
But I think what keeps giving me hope,
despite the very severe situation and and a lot of uncertainty about what how long the situation will go on is the fact
that Taliban are meeting at the front of Afghanistan and they are trying to force Afghanistan back to their own version.
But they are failing every day because you're not negotiating or protesting or resisting both inside and outside the country to tell them,
we don't agree with you.
We know we deserve human rights and we know that you have a duty to deliver on them and to not give up, regardless of how hard you try to suppress us.
So I will stop there and I look forward to the conversation.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
That was really fascinating. So I'm just going to I think it might be really useful just to get an idea.
I think she has. I just. Well. So in terms of what was actually achieved during that brief,
what looks like now very brief window of opportunity when the Taliban was ousted from power and what's been lost,
I think, particularly in terms of women have something.
So I think I mean, there is, of course, a long and longer history to women's rights and women's rights struggle for rights in Afghanistan.
Then the international intervention in 2002 prior to the international intervention in 2000.
So prior to the Taliban takeover, we had women ministers, we had women in parliaments,
we had women, you know, in different fields, artists, musicians.
But in the years of Civil War and then following Taliban's takeover in 1996 and the restrictions that they imposed.
A lot was dropped off for me.
And with the the reopening, with the international intervention, I think a couple of factors came together to lead to some social and cultural change.
One of the factors was that a lot of Afghans, including rural Afghans,
had to leave Afghanistan for a variety of reasons because of the conflict, because of poverty, lack of economic opportunities.
And while the majority of them couldn't make it to Europe,
they went to the neighbouring countries that were also Muslim and they saw their about, especially about women's education.
I think people learned and saw in action how a woman having access to education makes a difference.
So there was an increased demand for women's access to education and communities that previously before Taliban takeover,
resist actively resisted women's education. There was a demand for girls schools.
Whenever I travelled in Afghanistan, people were asking for female teachers, for school buildings, for for for their children or for their daughters.
So there was that that social and cultural change. With the international intervention in Afghanistan.
Of course, there was a growth in media and the growth in media and independent media.
This meant that people were watching Turkish dramas and Indian soap operas.
And so there was a degree of openness to the lifestyles and ideas outside Afghanistan,
even in villages where people had like a solar panel or that community had a generator, they were watching, TV became very popular.
And so there was more exposure to a lot of these ideas.
But also there were there was some work, some attempt at improving the the laws and the institutions to deliver those laws and kind of Afghanistan,
because it was an easy thing to do, signed up almost every convention on human rights.
It was very easy to please the donors as well to say, oh, we have signed and, you know, we have signed on this and that.
And there was a push to reform the legal framework to come up with laws like anti-torture law and freedom of expression
that were quite progressive in the process of developing these laws weren't very as consultative as they should have been,
but we had better laws, and we had institutions like the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, which I used to chair.
I stepped down in January, as well as organisations that were focussed on protecting women from domestic abuse.
So these were changes happening in terms of institutions, in terms of the laws, but also in terms of people's exposure.
But all of this was how a lot of this was very fragile, as was in a state that's in the past year or so.
I think it's really interesting, I would say, in terms of being exposed to different cultures,
but also being exposed to what obviously must have seemed different interpretations of how to live your life as a muslim as well.
So you're saying neighbouring Muslim countries and that must have been quite powerful as well.
I imagine it's a bit sort of you can't put that genie back in the bottle can you. I suppose,
you know once you see that there are other ways that you can live a muslim life and it doesn't have to be the way that the Taliban decrees it.
Do you think that's do you think that's what's sustaining a lot of the protests as well,
that we've seen the communities within Afghanistan seen that there are other ways of interpreting Islamic rules and codes?
Absolutely.
That has I think I mean, the role that media played, particularly TV, but also that the independent media played and Afghanistan was immense.
You know, you would see you would see these grandparents doing their prayer and then sitting down to watch this Turkish show,
which was about, you know, in which girls and boys were having a relationship.
Young, young people are having coffee. It's so a very different life.
But I think, yes, this exposure was definitely had, especially with women.
I could sense that because wherever I went and talked to women, women just wanted different lives.
They didn't want not all of them wanted to be educated, not all of them wanted to be in politics.
Many of them disagreed with women who are in politics. Absolutely.
Even, you know, with the role that they had, they thought it wasn't that proper for a woman to be doing these things,
but they didn't want to live the same life as well as their moms had.
They wanted a little bit more, you know, I should be able to go to that.
It's not okay if I'm being beaten at home. I should be able to go to the clinic on my own.
I know I should be treated a little bit better.
So there was this change in perception about especially for women, and there was this momentum towards we want more, we want have more.
And for for many of my female friends of my generation, they were the first generation of girls in their families,
sometimes in their communities, who had been educated and not just gone to university.
Some of them had studied abroad and returned. Some of them were studying in the region.
You know, they weren't just absolute heartbreakers. Women were joining army and police, these professions that weren't imaginable journalists.
So, yes, I think there was that social and cultural shift.
It wasn't as deeply rooted and it wasn't as expansive as we would have hoped.
But there was certainly that. And I think looking at the expense of other Islamic countries, really, that was really a key factor.
Yeah. Now you showed the slogan that women are using when they're protesting bread, work and freedom.
And it just made me think how much of this is a claim for social economic rights in addition to,
you know, rights to equality and the right to education, etc.?
And then that's within the context that we know there's a humanitarian crisis going on in Afghanistan,
isn't there, in terms of, you know, the failure of the Taliban really, to to govern in any real way.
So what's your views on the role of sanctions and aid?
You know, that kind of conflict that we have in situations like this. So, first of all,
I want to say that there is there is a wide range of views and eyes on diaspora and also inside the country about how to engage with Taliban.
And part of that engagement question is on delivery of humanitarian aid, but also on sanctions.
So I'm no way to presenting.
Everyone in on any of these things, but especially on this issue, it's a very it's an issue where there's a lot of difference of opinion.
I personally think that humanitarian aid, of course, should be unconditional, should be sustained, should be increased.
There is dire humanitarian needs on the ground. Children are dying because of lack of access to medicine.
It's it's one of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
It's absolutely heartbreaking. And the world's attention has already moved away.
And the situation right now in Afghanistan is not the fault of Afghan people.
It's something that many countries got involved in bringing about.
So there should be collective responsibility. But beyond aid, I don't I mean.
When I was young, when I was younger, my family was a recipient of aid.
No one wants to be a part of it, let me tell you. You don't want to queue up to get food.
You want to have a job. You want to have an income. This is this is what people want.
They want less with dignity. And so there should be constantly work done to find creative ways to revive the economy in
Afghanistan in the way the sanctions operate right now have created an environment where,
you know, the banking system is almost dysfunctional. Recently, US took a step to create a trust fund to move some of Afghanistan's frozen assets
to the trust fund in the hope of reviving some economic activity and confidence.
But I think we need more of this. Absolutely. And there are ways to do this without handing the money directly over to Taliban.
So these ways should be explored and and we should be doing.
You can talk about the whole range of human rights without talking about just the food.
Yeah, yeah. Jobs and everything. It's interesting comments on solidarity, particularly family solidarity.
And I know we talked about this earlier. So, you know, what kind of family solidarity.
So this and I'm interested in the family solidarity in the region.
So from neighbouring countries in particular, neighbouring Islamic countries in particular.
Could you talk a little bit about that? Yes, absolutely. I mean, one of the things that we did,
which I think now you can see a reflection of in the way the protesters organise perhaps or the Afghan diaspora works.
Is that because of the relationship between Afghanistan and the US led intervention then we are very focussed.
When I say we, this includes me, we were very well focussed.
We were very well versed in speaking to Western policymakers and Western organisations and now we have to adapt to the new reality where,
you know, the I think the main motivation for many Western leaders is for Afghanistan to be forgotten.
It's an embarrassing failure. They don't want to think about it. So we have to try to find allies in the region.
And of course the region is very different.
You know, most of them are not democracies and civil society is struggling in the region and the broader region as well.
But I think we are we have we really need to do more as to building these relationships with the civil society in the region and trying
to get them to sign and solidarity with Afghan women to put pressure on their governments that have some leverage with the Taliban.
But also where the region could do more is to actually look at what's happening next door.
It's completely un-Islamic. It's it's completely against human rights.
It's just absolutely horrific what Taliban are doing of one woman.
And, you know, and this should not be okay.
No one should be okay with this. So it's a work in progress.
We have had some political winners from the region to speak and stand with Afghan women.
Malala, as well as activist Malala, for instance, has been a very strong voice in support of girl's right to education in Afghanistan.
But it's moving in that direction. But we need to see more of that.
And of course, with protests happening in Iran as well, there is the sense there was the sense in Kabul with the protesters thinking,
you know, because of that tension, the protests in Iran are giving.
And, of course, there's huge sympathy from women in Afghanistan, women activists in Afghanistan,
outside Afghanistan, in diaspora for women in Iran and the protests that they are leading.
But there was the sense that maybe then there would be similar levels of attention to what's going on.
And, of course, that's that's that's not that far. But it would be interesting to watch how this how what's going on in Iran might
impact or might exchange what kind of exchange might take place as it unfolds.
Yeah. And also, they'll want you to watch terms of the differences, rather the the concerns of different groups of women within Afghanistan.
So they can think about the rural, urban divide that you talked about.
They touched on that a little bit, that in some areas, in fact, secondary school education has been allowed.
And the strategy, the strategizing that's having to take place in terms of that,
how much how much of a movement has been established within Afghanistan kind of just nationally,
women communicate and gather at all or is it very just localised?
So some of the women's groups in Kabul who are protesting in Kabul actually do have members across Afghanistan.
And sometimes these members in solidarity, they do protests inside their houses.
So they gather together inside the house and in the house of one of the members.
And they they record some videos of them putting these demands out and solidarity with their sisters in Kabul.
And some of those some of the groups that are doing more cultural book,
you know, like book clubs and more cultural activities are on education as well.
They have branches or members or they have connections with women across the country.
But there is also, of course, some difference of opinion about the best strategies to move forward in this very difficult and hopeless situation.
I think less so perhaps. And finally, I do think and I worry about as a diaspora.
Sort of. Missing the point sometimes and kind of really not actively working to keep that connection alive.
So I think that's an area where we have to continuously watch ourselves because we do tend to be outside and.
A lot of the policies that we are advocating for, we are not going to live the consequences.
And so it has to really be informed by my what's going inside.
And but also staying informed. So difficult personally,
I try not to talk to anyone enough once then because I worry that by talking to them I am putting them at risk because of their you know,
because of how outspoken I try to be about the situation in Afghanistan and in media here using my social platforms.
So it's difficult to navigate. I do worry about losing the knowledge of what's happening there.
We have to really actively cultivate a network and we have to really actively work on solidarity and kind of
try to think about how can we use the platforms that we have to bring those voices without risk to them.
And it's it's difficult. Yeah, it's very difficult.
I mean, I we talked about you talked about hope. And I was told it's too earlier that, you know,
every time I see one of those videos on social media where women are protesting, you've been incredibly brave.
You know, it's hard to, first of all, like it because it's so awful.
But then you don't. I worry also every time I see it, I just think, well, you know, you're retweeting it or whatever.
And these women have really put themselves in danger.
And then the thought occurs to me the reason they're doing this is because there really isn't any of the hope, because it's so dangerous material.
And the reason they do is because that's the last thing they have.
And how do I mean, I probably can't answer this question, but how do you keep that hope alive?
It's really hard, I think. I mean, a lot of.
A lot that's going on in terms of the general human rights situation in Afghanistan is quite difficult to follow and digest
on a daily basis because we also of course get the news about how journalists are being harassed for doing their work,
how people are being tortured from specific communities. There is targeting of, for instance,
the act of targeting of Hazara is going on and very little protection offered by the Taliban or no protection at all.
You know, just a few weeks ago there was this horrendous,
horrific attack again on a girls education set on an education centre, killing so many young Hazara girls.
There's, you know, communities that are prosecuting, being prosecuted as communities.
You know, they just go Taliban go within, for instance. And this has been happening very often.
They go and they collect young men. They hold them with no no reason.
Sometimes they tortured them. There are evidence emerging of people having died and tortured.
So there's.
There's a lot about the human rights situation that's really difficult to sit with on a daily basis, especially if you're trying to follow.
And hope becomes very hard for me.
One of the one of the things that makes hope very difficult is the lack of access of girls to the secondary school,
because that's the reason my family left Afghanistan the first time Taliban were in power.
And I saw friends being affected, family members being affected by that.
And I see another generation of young women being affected by that.
And I think about how much more radicalised my society will become if this goes on for three, four, five years.
Because, of course, holding us back from school doesn't in fact impact us, but impacts the whole country.
A whole generation of Afghans. But then, if you don't have some sort of hope, then you just gave up.
And I think when I get close to giving up, I talk I talk to the protesters.
I talk or I read about them or I talk about I talk to other people back home or
trying to push the needle on something because giving up is not an option for them.
They feel like they are living in this big prison and they're every day they're trying to change that in any way they can,
in any use, any, any way, just by reading a book on their own.
And if they are not giving up, you know, I think that's that's where hope comes from then.
This means that although we failed in a lot of things and there are so many seeds now and we don't have the full picture right now,
but there will be resistance. This won't be.
This won't be as easy for Taliban, I guess. Yeah.
And on that, in terms of the Taliban, I mean, one hears that, you know, there's divisions within the Taliban themselves.
And so you might get one member of the Taliban senior saying, oh, we are going to introduce education.
It's just a matter of time. And then you hear that it's all relative, I suppose.
But somebody even more conservative than the Taliban saying, no, it's not going to happen.
I mean, how much of that I mean, do you get a sense of what the divisions are actually like within the Taliban themselves on this particular issue?
Women's rights, I think women's rights, perhaps there's a lot of agreement,
unfortunately, among them, but particularly on the women's rights to education,
because you see that some some members of Taliban some officers of Taliban have publicly spoken
about the fact that the ban should not go on or have indicated the moment should not go on.
Well, part of it is also a sort of hypocrisy, because some of these leaders have their own daughters going to school in Qatar,
for instance, and then they are, you know, withholding education from ordinary Afghans in the country.
But and some of them may may make these statements as a as a kind of pragmatic gesture,
because they worry that they will even face more international isolation if they continue on this path.
So there are definitely fractures on this specific issue, on women's rights to education.
And one thing that sort of feeds into the fracture is the fact that it's not just women's
rights activists inside the country and outside the country talking about this issue.
It's that people who are seen as more sympathetic to Taliban are also critical of Taliban's policy on women's education.
It's the fact that several groups of religious scholars inside the country have now shared footpaths and have
written and have made public statements about the fact that women's right to education is inherent to Islam,
and withholding education from women is not Islamic, and it's not happening in any other Islamic country.
So that's also feeding into this this this fracture.
But I think that sorts of fractures that might.
Kind of the more serious fractures when the parliament might come on on issues like resources, access, resources as they continue to try to govern.
And they are running the customs now, the drug trade. So I think those are where you will see perhaps.
Yeah, that will have implications for political stability in terms of these factions.
They play out in local dynamics. So you see in some provinces, for instance, in my province,
just because school secondary schools remains open and they were sort of told that as long as you don't make it a very big deal, it's okay.
Just keep going and you know, more segregation, e.t.c., all the schools are already segregated secondary schools, so they do.
So I think communities try to utilise these factors in the interest of the community and the communities agendas from time to time,
but to how to see how it will impact the whole decision on returns.
Girls return to school. Unfortunately, I'm not so hopeful because this is something that we have been pushing.
I mean, there has been a collective before, but we are not seeing the movements that we hoped.
Yeah. It's interesting that you were saying that there's sort of local agreements being forged where possible,
because I was just thinking about, you know, for the X amount of years of the Tottenham Hotspur.
These were very local communities.
And so overnight, suddenly some people in charge, I presume they're not bringing in people from other from other areas.
So there has to be some kind of. I don't know, some kind of sense of whether the community belonging that you had before,
you know, how important that becomes as opposed to being a member of the Taliban.
So I guess that's where there's some room there for negotiation, isn't there?
Yes. These men were part of the community and then went back to became part of the Taliban again.
Yes. I mean, one area where we see that it's it's quite interesting, complex,
like one area where we saw that we see that was when we were tracking and documenting instance of extrajudicial killings.
So Taliban announced a policy of public amnesty when they came to power despite this announcements.
There was an active hunt for and former government officials, especially former members of security forces, as well as human rights activists.
So a lot of people were in hiding. And unfortunately, in some provinces, we saw this play out in a really brutal way.
And just think of extrajudicial killings, you know, people being taken from their homes and then their bodies appearing on the street a day later.
No, no, no accountability at all.
And this was especially extreme in the first six months Taliban were in power, but it has continued in some parts of the country.
So unfortunately, it has its going on.
But and this happened particularly this but this wasn't happening universally, so it wasn't happening in every single province.
And part of the reason for that was, as you say, it was there in areas where there had been less conflict.
So the people of the provinces where there wasn't that such divides between this tribe being Talib,
the stripe, not being Taliban and fighting each other,
that there had been some relative levels of security, then yes, you you'd see less instance because there was this less revenge taking of that form.
And then you also saw more room for negotiations, because there hadn't been so much, but there hadn't been so much fighting and grievances.
But in areas that were at the frontline of the conflict for for a long time, or with specific communities that are being targeted, for instance,
and shares, then you see a completely different dynamic and much less room for negotiation, much more severe severity, much more prosecution.
And so so it's a it's a very mixture.
I think we've come to this question answer session. And it is good to thank you so much.
Michael Bennet. Thank you both. So, yes, as usual, we have some mikes.
And if you can put your hand up, if you want to ask the question, we encourage questions.
We broad range of people. So don't be shy. Just make the first one and then you'll be able.
But if you could just say who you are and where you're from, that would be great. So he's going to start us off.
Hello. Thank you. First of all, so much for sharing your experience and all the information with us.
I have actually two questions. My first question is, what are your realistic expectations about future like considering Gold International,
for example, support or like all the protests going on this days?
And my second question would be about, since you mentioned you are not and all the international organisations, do you have any thoughts?
What can be what kind of kind of international actions are required right now which will stop, for example, Taliban to suppress women?
Like what is the action that is required from international organisations to stop this
kind of oppression and urge Taliban to change the politics that they have right now?
Thank you. That's a big question. Thank you.
Thank you for this really difficult question. I really don't know about expectations about the future.
It's hard. It's really difficult. I mean, it's hard to think even what would happen six months from now in Afghanistan in some ways.
In some ways it feels like Taliban would be reality for a long time, which is a very depressing thought.
But then in some ways, it's it's hard to see with everything that's playing out.
And, you know, for instance, I don't talk about all the different factors, the regional factors,
how how Taliban are being perceived in the region, the threats that they might pose.
It's hard to see what will happen in the internal fractures and disagreements.
It's hard to say. But I think what I try to think about is we lost a lot that we had gained.
What we didn't. What we can still protect and preserve is a hope for a day after the Taliban.
I don't mean after the Taliban toppled, but after the situation that's going on right now and in a force that forces the Afghan women protesters,
the human rights activist, community elders who believe in a better Afghanistan and tolerance and and and rights and some of these values.
And how can we preserve and expand this this group of people, these communities of people,
this collective, whether inside Afghanistan or outside Afghanistan?
And I think change will come if we if we have if we have all the dimensions,
if we have international attention and some level of sustained international attention and engagement,
smart international attention and engagement, as well as regional engagement,
further regional engagement and the resistance that's going on locally and some sort of alignments between these two different levels.
I do think that, for instance, Afghanistan being completely forgotten is not going to help our cause.
But I don't think that international attention in itself is sufficient,
unhelpful without really the space opening up and the negotiate at the local level for
Afghans to take part in shaping their destiny in terms of what action is required.
I mean, it depends on the body, right? I mean, for the Human Rights Council, what they can do are different entities, but ideally.
I really think that it's important for the international organisations to continue to continuously revisit their assumptions about Afghanistan.
I do think that there is an active risk of even. Like.
Even very established organisations are thinking Taliban to present all of Afghanistan.
This is what Afghanistan is about. Most of our friends are comfortable with these restrictions anyway, so let's just let us be.
And are just thinking, you know,
the only the kind of thinking about a very narrow set of solutions from outside without consultation with people who are living their lives every day.
So I think it's very important for them to continuously.
Try to make an effort to know what's going on, on the ground and then and then take leads from people who are on the ground.
In the meantime, decisions like Oxford continue to support education, education of Afghans and hosting Afghans,
working with Afghan students, providing opportunities and scholarships, even if it's difficult for Afghan women to leave the country.
It's an it's it motivates them to know that there is a possibility there's a gate open somewhere where they can go and they can seek an education,
if not inside the country. So there are things like this as well that can kind of keep help,
keep the lights on and keep the investment on Afghan women going and and then see where that takes us.
Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of. Solutions in the situation that we are currently in.
See and hear. And then. So you mentioned that obviously like it's women who are going out on the streets protesting.
But I was just wondering, like, what have you seen from men within Afghanistan and how are they?
What is their reception to all of this change?
And have you seen any action from actually Afghan men trying to support these women who are in this situation?
I was just wondering what the the reception was. Thank you.
Well. I think the answer to that is that advice.
I mean, obviously, in some cases we are there have been negotiations for access to some rights.
Men have been involved in community elders or even men within the Taliban.
Local authorities have been involved in terms of keeping the schools running or open, secondary schools, for instance.
So I think. Means approach has been much less confrontational, obviously, and there has been much less venting, much less compared to woman.
If you look more broadly in terms of the challenging Taliban there, there is always this discussion among Afghan human rights community,
particularly women's rights community about feeling like they're alone, especially when the protests and what's happening.
They said, look at how men and eat are not coming out in support of the woman.
And this is not happening in Afghanistan. And women in Afghanistan are completely on their own.
I mean,
some of these protesters are being are facing resistance from their own family members or family members because of the Taliban and the way that they.
They have been they have been very. Be smart about this, clever about this, I guess, is that they they punish the family members.
Right. So if a woman is not dressed in accordance to the rules, they go after the man in the family.
So they are imposing these penalties not only on women trying to impose them on mental.
We are the real parties and they are also. We must also admit that there are.
There is. Agreements with Taliban and on some of the restrictions that they're imposing on women's rights.
And a lot of misogynists feel very empowered now that Taliban are in power.
They feel empowered and, you know, getting away with beating them there,
their female family members getting away with all sorts of violence against them or withholding education.
Because I think the women who are in the past ten years sometimes, you know, there was this feeling that,
okay, now this the laws are there and so legal you can do almost anything a man can do.
So then that's fine. That wasn't true. Every day enough, one woman had to first convince her own family.
Then the community, then the workplace. That she is deserving of the rights that she has.
So that's also part of our reality that we need to slowly work on changing.
That's why there is some consensus on girls education, but you don't see the same wide consensus around women's return to work.
That's a that's not as overwhelming support for that.
Yes. Yes. Thank you so much. Okay.
Thank you so much. My name's Hugh Williamson. I work for Human Rights Watch.
And I really appreciate your your comments this evening.
You you talked about the need to re-orientate your focus the focus towards the region away from the West,
saying, I work a lot on human rights issues in Central Asia, neighbouring Afghanistan.
I wondered whether you have any expectations towards governments in Central Asia of providing
solidarity and support towards women in Afghanistan and also towards civil society in in Central Asia,
say in Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan, for instance, or even Tajikistan, towards supporting efforts on women's rights in Afghanistan.
Thanks so much. Absolutely.
I mean, initially when the US when the American led peace process was going on,
one of the countries that was working on one wanting to be part of the process in the posting, Taliban actually was Uzbekistan.
And so at that time, women's rights activists, I think, wrote to Uzbek leaders saying these are our demands in terms of,
you know, protection of women's rights in the peace process. So there is definitely an expectation.
There's also disappointment, because the feeling is that the region hasn't really stepped meaningfully for the rights of women and girls,
for the basic rights of women and girls in Afghanistan. The government certainly hasn't.
And that there is. And civil psyche as well.
We haven't seen the sort of. You know, the sort of pushback, pushback on their governments on this issue that we had hoped.
And in fact, we have seen and it has been criticised that, for instance, with Uzbekistan,
with what China, with Pakistan knowing the Taliban as if they're already a recognised government,
which they aren't, despite the extensive human rights violations, including the foundations of rights of women.
And it seems like time and again they keep sending these all male delegations to meet with Taliban,
sort of complying with their gender apartheid and with the removal of women from the public space.
And really, they talk about the situation.
There have been some statements in which countries in the region have put their added their name in.
But that has almost always been with the Western leadership in terms of kind of.
Bringing them together to speak in support of women's rights.
Afghanistan. That has been really disheartening to watch.
Yeah. Could you just send the microphone?
Okay, I got it. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, everyone.
This is Abdul Aziz. I am I am also from Afghanistan. I was assistant professor at Howard University.
And with the Taliban took power in Afghanistan.
I just escaped. Came to here. I was also a human rights activist and human rights activist in Afghanistan.
Based. I just I don't have any question. I just have just I just to comment based my education because I studied Sharia
law and Islamic law at Kabul University and law at University of Washington.
Why? Why must I hear from you? I think right now men and women are under the pressure of Taliban, under the,
under the pressure of the ah restrict rules regarding to the men education.
I think the Taliban also believe that.
According to the religion, they do not banned girls from school based on the religious, uh, religious interpretation.
But I think it is a political decision that they got because me, I don't know, they,
they are trying to give some advantage, political advantage in the region or in the world.
The second, most of the religious leaders in Afghanistan, they are believed to the education work and for the also women rise.
As I had discussion with them, I work with Jesuit Germans across Afghanistan.
I was a national consultant in women's rights and human rights.
I had many workshops with mullahs. I heard their perspectives of human rights, especially the Declaration of Human Rights.
We were comparing the Declaration of Human Rights with Islamic core values, moral system.
Most of them were agree that 95% of the Declaration of Human Rights is according to the Islamic values.
And they were encouraging people to send their girls to schools.
So I think we must and we should try to establish a dialogue between the these religious
leaders and the Taliban for the women's rights in Afghanistan without any dialogue,
without only issuing fatwa, a new fatwa.
We couldn't receive any achievement in this regard.
Thank you very much. Okay.
I got to get back to more.
Take that question and then at the back and then, um,
do you think we as an international community have turned a blind eye on the real needs of the women in Afghanistan,
for example, right to equal economic opportunities, food, water and education.
And we as like.
People from the West were very fixated on and kind of obsessed with what women in Afghanistan are wearing instead of what they actually need.
What do you think about that?
I think the last piece I will take with you will just say the last question at the back, and then we can have outcomes in both.
Thank you so much, Shahzad. That was really quite stunning,
especially hearing about the fact that women's requirements across Afghanistan are not homogeneous and the fact that they also using,
you know, Islamic symbolism and and the fact that sort of denying access to education is un-Islamic.
My question was about what you said about creative ways to revive the Afghanistan economy.
And do you think that's finally where the inflection point could be?
And maybe is that something that the international community could use as something of a bargaining chip?
I recognise the concerns with legitimising the Taliban government, but maybe, you know,
is that a way through which to ease easing sanctions in response to sort of eluding to some of the demands of the protesters?
Is this that something that that could put finally, you know, really an inflection point?
Thank you. Thank you both. And I think those questions, again, very hot questions are somewhat connected, right?
Because, of course, the international response to Afghanistan, to the situation in Afghanistan has also, of course, not been homogenous.
There is there are major trends, but it has varied.
I do think that. When you look at the initial intervention in Afghanistan post 2001, Afghanistan,
some of the statements that were being made, especially in the US, they completely lacked historic context.
And there was this this utilising of a women's rights discourse for very naked security objectives.
And and people saw the hypocrisy almost right away in Afghanistan because there was a lot of talk about human rights,
women's rights, and there was some some work being done in these areas.
But it was clear that the main intention is fighting the bad guys, however you define it.
And everything came secondary to fighting the bad guys.
So if there were some bad guys on our side who are horrible to women or horrible to civilians,
but they were on our side then, that was completely okay.
And and that was part of the reason that a lot of this discourse by international community lost
credibility and then further lost any remaining credibility in the US on a peace process with the Taliban,
where there was a peace process for Afghanistan in which no Afghans were allowed in the room.
There was no in the document that came out of that peace process.
There was no mention of human rights, no mention of women's rights, nothing.
Not even one word like completely removed.
So it was very clear that the main focus is safely withdrawing the troops.
And all this talk about women's rights and human rights has just been talk.
So the level of anger and broken heartedness, I think I think you are the family member of a soldier, an Afghan soldier.
You have just lost your brother or your father fighting for these big, you know.
Our missions alongside Americans and international troops.
And then you see this agreement and you see this wholesale betrayal, full on betrayal.
And then not only you have lost your family member, now Taliban are knocking at the door and harassing you and harassing the rest of
your family because you had an affiliation with the security forces of the US.
Right. So when you look at that, that level of international engagement, it's a complete catastrophe.
It's a complete embarrassment. It's a complete shame.
It's. It's just so embarrassing. So heartbreaking, so disappointing.
You know, you talk to other ones that I talk to about the situation in Ukraine.
They're like, the Ukrainians shouldn't believe the West.
This is the impression that people have. Following the international intervention.
That was them. But of course, international response goes beyond just that.
I mean, of course, there are activists, there are organisations, there are people, individuals.
One common focus on the whole process of evacuation.
You know, a lot of people were left behind, but the people the judges that were were evacuated to safety, the human rights activists.
It wasn't because of the member states. It was mostly because of organisations and people, individuals sitting in many Western capitals,
working day or night, not sleeping, trying to save or help these people to find a way to safety for them.
So I think we are we are there is hope.
But I do see I mean, positive international engagement as we are people who some some of them who have never been to Afghanistan or trying to use
any platform that they have to bring attention to the situation in Afghanistan to bring attention to amplify Afghan voices,
to to create spaces for Afghans, to help welcome Afghans that have had to leave, to continue to try to help people who are in the region see.
But when you look at the political response, of course, there was it was it's very clear that there was a lot of empathy and empathy this course,
but lack of awareness of the history of women's rights.
And we're stuck on Afghanistan and was framed as this like black and white situation where the main
goal is to save these poor Afghan women who lack any agency in terms of what what is economic you know,
to leverage this the world have right now and how that can be utilised in service of rights.
I mean, I do think the international community has some leverage.
The question is, is there any political will to try to think through that leverage creatively?
Because think about how many people like uses such heavy involvement in Afghanistan for over 20 years.
And then the number of people who are probably working in State Department on Afghanistan this right now, in order to find these creative solutions,
you need to have resources, people thinking about these issues as urgent issues, not sleeping at night, thinking we need to find the solution.
We need to find ways to relieve the economic hardship without assisting the Taliban.
There are ways. But is there political will to dedicate resources to solve these this these problems?
And of course, in terms of using. To what extent of the economic pressure can be a leverage?
I think it will be limited. It won't it won't go as far as we would like it to go.
And that's where also it's important to also really critically examine what leverage
some of these countries with feminist foreign policies and with human rights policy,
human rights, foreign policy, human rights and foreign policy have with countries in the region and then utilise the leverage
that they have with the region to put some pressure on parliament for some of the rights issues.
For preventing some of the atrocities. For for pushing the Parliament to get their act together and actually have some written
laws so people know what they're supposed to do and what they are not supposed to do.
For stopping the prosecution of communities and for easing restrictions on women's rights.
But yeah, we have to look at the whole range of tools.
And my worry is that there is not enough attention or care to look at all everything that we could use.
So that's something that we can all work to change to continuously, you know?
Remind people about what's going on in Afghanistan and remind our governments here about
the responsibility that they share for the situation there and if they are doing enough.
I thank you very, very much for coming and casting some light on this and drawing attention to it.
Thank you for telling us about the multiplicity of Afghan women, a multiplicity of issues.
Thank you very much for asking the questions and bringing these together.
Thank you to both of our human rights for suggestions and for collaborating with us on it.
And thank you all for the quality of your attention and the multiple perspectives that you brought to the questions
you want to see that are enough people who are going to want to keep these issues alive and have concern about it.
Next week's talk show next week we are at Sanctuary Talk a celebration of sanctuary talk which we are hosting.
We the. Fell out of sanctuary.
So that will be in the legislature at some of the college at the same time at 5:30.
And Tasha Koplinski will be asking the questions of Dr. Zandvoort token and first gen general and I,
who are the principals of the colleges, will be participating in that too.
So I hope that many of you will come along. And then a week after that, we'll be back here.
I'm talking to Trevor Phillips, who was the former head of the Human Rights Commission in this country.
So lots of talks and please do come back next week.
But it's very nice of you to sit and to come very much.