{"id":16405,"date":"2019-08-05T04:59:34","date_gmt":"2019-08-05T08:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=16405"},"modified":"2022-05-02T06:24:43","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T10:24:43","slug":"women-are-critical-to-building-a-lasting-peace-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=16405","title":{"rendered":"Women Are Critical to Building a Lasting Peace in Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

. . WOMEN’S EQUALITY . . <\/p>\n

An article by Ian J. Lynch in The Diplomat<\/a><\/p>\n

Women are critical to the everyday peacebuilding activities necessary to put any peace agreement into effective practice.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIndependent Afghan artists draw a graffiti on a barrier wall of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to mark International Women’s Day in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, March 8, 2019.
\nImage Credit: AP Photo\/Rahmat Gul)<\/center><\/p>\n

Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S Special Representative for Afghan Reconciliation, is\u00a0back in Qatar\u00a0<\/a> for what could be the final round of U.S.-Taliban negotiations. He\u00a0tweeted\u00a0<\/a> on July 31, \u201cif the Taliban do their part, we will do ours, and conclude the agreement we have been working on.\u201d While he also\u00a0\u00a0that talks\u00a0\u201cbetween the Taliban\u00a0and an inclusive and effective national negotiating team,\u201d would follow, the Taliban maintain that they\u00a0will not negotiate directly\u00a0<\/a> with the Afghan government.\u00a0Even if \u201cinclusive\u201d intra-Afghan talks do materialize it remains likely the role of women will be marginal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Afghan women and their\u00a0advocates\u00a0<\/a> are concerned that their exclusion at the negotiating table will severely undermine the\u00a0gains they have made <\/a> over the past 17 years. Moreover, women are critical to the everyday peacebuilding activities that will be necessary to put any peace agreement into effective practice.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the exclusion of women from the peace process in Afghanistan are two pervasive, often unstated, but widely held, notions: 1) Afghan women are not well suited to negotiating an effective peace agreement with the Taliban and 2) women do not need to be present at negotiations so long as negotiators commit to protecting women\u2019s rights. These ideas actually weaken the prospects for a long-term, inclusive peace.<\/p>\n

A peace agreement that ends outright hostility and provides a means for reconciliation is essential, but the peace process will not end with an agreement. The everyday actions necessary for peacebuilding will require the participation of civil society, municipal leaders, traditional institutions, and, crucially, women. The participation of women and civil society groups in negotiations greatly increases the\u00a0likelihood that peace agreements last<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The development of a new culture of peace will be an arduous process, but vital if Afghanistan is to avoid a relapse of civil conflict.\u00a0The 15,000 women who participated in recent grassroots\u00a0Afghan Women for Peace\u00a0<\/a> forums in all 34 provinces demonstrate both the capacity and the desire to be effective peacebuilders.<\/p>\n

(Continued in right column)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Question related to this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

\n

Do women have a special role to play in the peace movement? <\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Is peace possible in Afghanistan?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

(Continued from left column)<\/p>\n

Women across the countryside already perform the kind of everyday\u00a0negotiations with Taliban leaders\u00a0<\/a> necessary for a\u00a0 new culture of peace to take root beyond an agreement on paper. In the hotly contested Kunduz province,\u00a0510 women stated\u00a0<\/a> in March they \u201chave a continuous and active role to play in the maintenance of social peace, and the peace process.\u201d They \u201chave been able to stop youth, and people who are easily influenced by the insurgent groups, from fighting against their own villages and homes.\u201d The same month in Nimroz,\u00a0500 women said\u00a0<\/a> they speak to their neighbors \u201cabout the importance of peace, especially with families who are suspected to be members of the insurgent groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

In April, Khalilzad met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, former President Hamid Karzai and others to discuss the progress of the talks and \u201cthe necessity of an inclusive\u00a0#Afghan\u00a0<\/a> negotiating team.\u201d Women were not present in this meeting about the \u201cnecessity\u201d of an inclusive process and yet Gulbuddin Hekmatyar \u2013 who until recently led armed opposition to the government \u2013 and other former warlords were at the table.<\/p>\n

Prior to the U.S.-Taliban talks in June, Khalilzad\u00a0met with <\/a> \u00a0female Afghan politicians and tweeted, \u201cUS policy is that women should be at the table in intra-Afghan dialogue & negotiations.\u201d Members of the Afghan Women\u2019s Network were also\u00a0present\u00a0<\/a> when Khalilzad briefed President Ghani during the same trip to Kabul. This was an improvement compared with earlier diplomacy by the U.S. envoy, but women need to be given more than a consultative role.<\/p>\n

For their part, the Taliban know they\u00a0need to improve\u00a0<\/a> their image on women\u2019s rights to secure a peace agreement. Insurgents and warlords involved in the peace process may even agree to long-term institutional compromises to reach a final peace agreement that ends the war, offers some impunity for their actions, and affords them participation in governance similar to the rehabilitation of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar\u2019s Hezb-i-Islami party.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, a willingness to agree to laws and institutions on paper should not be interpreted as a willingness to respect and uphold a functioning legal system. Insurgents, warlords, and other entrepreneurs of violence rarely expect future legal structures to affect them, because the law has never applied to them before. In practice, Taliban commanders continue to deliver\u00a0brutal public punishments\u00a0<\/a> to women who stray from their strict interpretation of Sharia law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Power sharing earned via violence produces a fragile peace. As Mary Kaldor argues in\u00a0Global Security Cultures, such a peace may be better than continued warfare, but the entrenchment and legitimization of violent actors\u2019 power perpetuates crime, human rights abuses, and fails to resolve grievances that can reignite conflict later.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To avoid a compromised peace, the Afghan process must subordinate violent actors and uplift the moderate, majoritarian sources of political legitimacy that are too often left out of peace talks. Afghan women have consistently practiced the local-level peacebuilding that will be needed to reinforce a national-level political settlement and build a culture of peace over time. The Taliban will resist including women and it will make the process more difficult, but involving a broad set of Afghan actors committed to the everyday reproduction of peace is the only way to build an enduring peace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ian J. Lynch recently graduated with a Masters in Middle East, Caucasus, and Central Asian Security Studies from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. He is the former Director of Curriculum and Instruction at the School of Leadership Afghanistan, the country\u2019s first and only boarding school for girls. He tweets at\u00a0@Ian_J_Lynch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . WOMEN’S EQUALITY . . An article by Ian J. Lynch in The Diplomat Women are critical to the everyday peacebuilding activities necessary to put any peace agreement into effective practice. Independent Afghan artists draw a graffiti on a barrier wall of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to mark International Women’s Day in Kabul, … Continue reading Women Are Critical to Building a Lasting Peace in Afghanistan<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,12],"tags":[8,31],"class_list":["post-16405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-south-asia","category-women","tag-mideast","tag-south-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}