Don't forget the women of Afghanistan
11:42, 15 February 2010
.. Posted in Development, Relief and Advocacy Efforts.. Link
From Article Twenty-Two of the The Constitution of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Chapter Two: Fundamental Rights and Duties of Citizens:
Any kind of discrimination and distinction between citizens of Afghanistan shall be forbidden. The citizens of Afghanistan, man and woman, have equal rights and duties before the law.
The massive wage disparity between men and women in Afghanistan -- or anywhere in the world -- is more than unjust and unethical. It is also economically harmful. (see "The Cost of the Gender Gap" and "What Does It Cost? Putting a Price Tag on Gender Equality" for more). Afghanistan can never prosper until more than half of its population -- the women -- are given full access to education and job opportunities.
The Afghans I worked with back in 2007 knew this -- yes, even the men. But do the international donors? Do international development agencies and their foreign staff working in Afghanistan? Do the foreign militaries now in the country? Sometimes, I wonder...
Two resources on this subject worth your while to read:
A Mandate to Mainstream: Promoting Gender Equality in Afghanistan (PDF)
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit
Issues Paper Series, November 2008
This paper contends that gender mainstreaming -- specifically, the mainstreaming of women into education and employment -- as the government’s principal strategy for promoting gender equality in Afghanistan, is not being substantively implemented in the Administration at present. Equality is an ambitious, transformative goal, but efforts to achieve this end through mainstreaming gender issues have been (as in other contexts) largely incremental. This paper explores possible reasons for this and gives recommendations as to how mainstreaming, as a potentially valuable tool, could be more effectively executed.
Afghanistan Without Poverty A Plain Language Guide to Poverty in Afghanistan (PDF)
April 2008
A "plain language guide" to poverty, the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) and the Afghanistan Pilot Participatory Poverty Assessment (APPPA). The Agency Coordinating Body of Afghan Relief (ACBAR) produced this booklet to increase people’s understanding of poverty and development initiatives in Afghanistan. This guide aims to describe poverty; how it’s caused and how to reduce it. The idea is to explain the related ideas of poverty reduction and development in an accessible and understandable way. It includes discussion of how Afghan women’s abilities to overcome poverty are more difficult and different from men’s.
