Culture Remains a Hurdle Between Afghanistan’s Women and Empowerment
Afghanistan’s empowerment of women is at the lowest levels of anywhere in the world. During the Taliban’s reign, women rarely were allowed to leave their homes and were banned from taking part in formal work or education. Today, Afghani women are the poorest and most deprived group in the country.
Traditional roles for Afghanistan’s women continue to constrain their participation in social, economic and political activities. In particular, female wage labor is still viewed as a solution of last resort -- even for households in desperate straits -- and when women do venture into the workforce, they only receive half of a man’s typical wage. On a whole, Afghani women also have fewer marketable skills and a poor education -- female literacy rates hover around 21 percent.
Afghani women face a steep climb in order to gain equal footing with their male counterparts, in part because women often lack ownership, control and access to productive assets such as land, equipment and materials, and their legal right to inheritance is usually bypassed. The lack of working capital and absence of credit reduces women’s opportunities to start activities that require an initial investment. These constraints are more acute for female-headed households. Per capita expenditures for female-headed households tend to be 14 percent lower than households headed by a male.
Afghan women participate in the Reflect adult education project in the earthquake struck village of Dakhai-e-Zou in Samangan. Reflect creates an opportunity for people to come together and discuss issues which affect them, learn about their rights and take part in literacy and handicraft classes.
Copyright © Jenny Matthews/ ActionAid
Despite the enormous hurdles standing in women’s way, ActionAid is working throughout Afghanistan to empower women through education, the provision of basic rights, and by increasing their access to information by encouraging greater levels of interaction by women at the community, district, provincial and national levels.
To engage the women, ActionAid helped form 70 REFLECT circles – a tool that links adult learning to empowerment -- and in 2008, helped 1550 women learn to read and write, along with basic math skills. The women also received training in health and hygiene issues, disease prevention, women’s rights, children’s rights, voting rights and more.
Dozens of these women’s groups have also received capacity-building training that encompasses skills such as cloth making, embroidery, weaving, handicrafts and marketing. Their products have been sold in multiple exhibitions and the income is transferred to the groups’ members.
ActionAid is also helping to educate Afghanistan women about their legal rights.
Last year, for example, ActionAid trained and established a paralegal network of 30 women to work on issues dealing with violence against women. With the training in hand, the women provide consultation to survivors of violence.
Moving forward, ActionAid recognizes the need to collaborate with the Human Rights Department and establish centers to protect women and those who are destitute.
Mobina Khairandish's Story
As a journalist, Mobina Khairandish is one of the 30-member paralegal group trained by ActionAid Afghanistan. Currently, Mobina is working as the director of the first local radio station for women in Balkh province -- the Radio Rabiha –e- Balkhi. Reaching 12 districts of Balkh province, the radio station is designed to raise awareness about women’s rights by broadcasting numerous women-centered programs.
Mobina said she is elated that her paralegal training equipped her with skills and knowledge that carry over into her journalism career.
Not only can she now consult other women but the skills have also improved the quality of her women’s rights programs on the station.
For example, Mobina handled a case of a young girl, Farida, who worked in an international non-governmental organization who was in charge of a micro credit project when a sum of money vanished from an account she was handling. Since she was dealing with the project, the NGO director gave Farida a week to return the money or said she would be fired and the case against would be sent to the prosecutors’ office.
Desperate, Farida’s parents decided to sell two of their other daughters in order to save her because they were unaware that there were other avenues to pursue. After hearing about the quagmire, a relative started the process of getting the two daughters married to two Pakistani men in return for the money to pay off the NGO.
When Mobina heard about the case, she met with Farida’s family and convinced them that they should halt their daughters’ marriages. Instead, Farida consulted with a lawyer who is helping her fight the charges.
Learn More About ActionAid's Women's Rights Work