Julkaisemme alla kattojärjestömme EWLA:n (European Women Lawyers Association) julkaiseman englanninkielisen tiedotteen Afganistanin tilanteesta. Lisätietoa voit lukea EWLA:n nettisivuilta.
EWLA is horrified by the spectre of Taliban and Sharia law governing the future of Afghan women’s and girls’ lives
With disbelief the world is watching the fleeing Western troops and incoming Taliban hordes in Afghanistan taking the country’s capital on almost the 20th ‘anniversary’ of 9/11. After 20 years of school and university education, sports, their individual way of clothing, showing their faces in public and going to beauty salons, listening to music and participation at democratic elections with active and passive voting rights – rights that women in other parts of the world consider to be a given – scared women flock together with their children and seek refuge in a city that is no longer a safe place. We see people hurrying to the Kabul airport, desperate to climb onto the wings of an airplane that is stuck to the ground and Western governments that seem powerless to swing the pendulum of negotiations into any other direction than that of what is looking like an unconditional surrender.
It is not without grounds that organisations have continuously criticized the lack of female voices in the Afghan peace talks as “women suffer the most from war“ as Dr. Habiba Sarabi is quoted by Masooma Rahmaty, political analyst at the International Peace Institute.
Today, EWLA, together with colleagues from the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Harassment Law and from the W20 engagement group initiated an exchange with women from Afghanistan to understand better their needs and how the Global North and the Global South can support women that want to stay in Afghanistan and those who want to escape the country. The initiative is called #Women4Afghanistan and everybody is welcome to join it.
President of EWLA, Katharina Miller, states: “EWLA urges the world leaders to carefully listen to what the women in Afghanistan are telling us and what they actually need. We have to take action and they need our support. For a long time we have not listened to them, let’s learn from our mistakes and do it differently at last!”
ANNEX 1
Afghan women demand:
Having consulted with Afghan women representatives in Kabul today on the present Status quo EWLA demands from the international community and Western governments:
➢ Not to be blinded by orchestrated media interviews on the actual character of future Taliban ruling in Afghanistan, as women know them better from their past
➢ Under no conditions the international community shall recognize the Taliban regime as legitimate rulers
➢ In view of educated women risking their lives protesting the Taliban regime on the streets of Kabul, the education of girls and women and their right to work and to move freely without male escorting must be guaranteed also in the future
➢ And Taliban must keep the borders open for all those people who wish to leave the country
➢ If Taliban really want to prove their ‘tamed’ approach towards women’s rights and consider being the representatives of all the people of Afghanistan as they proclaim, they shall organise fair and free elections to restore order with an elected parliament and government
We demand from the international community to ensure in further negotiations
➢ Freedom of speech
➢ Freedom of media
➢ Right to education
➢ Access to technology
➢ Freedom to vote and
➢ Humanitarian aid for the Afghan people.
The European Women Lawyers Association (EWLA) is registered in Belgium as an international non-governmental, non-profit, association (Association Internationale Sans But Lucratif). It is a federation of national women lawyers associations from amongst the European Union countries and those of EFTA countries. EWLA Members are also individual women lawyers and academics from these countries. EWLA pursues the co-operation of European women lawyers, in order to combine their specific expertises to assist in monitoring the law and politics from the perspective of fundamental rights, and in particular, gender equality.