Women For Afghan Women

Afghan Women Rising

Child Marriage

International Day of the Girl Child 2023

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A society prospers when it invests in its citizens. This means it ensures that they are well educated, receive proper health care and nutrition, and most of all, recognized for their ability to accomplish whatever they set their minds to. However, this is not always the case. There are many challenges that Afghan girls, who make up half their country’s population, face. Sometimes, too many. These girls have shouldered some of the worst burdens that society has put upon them. Here are some sobering facts about Afghan girls and the future they face: In Afghanistan, girls are forbidden from attending school after the sixth grade. While it’s an option for Afghan girls to learn via the internet, only 18% of Afghans have access to it. That access also depends upon electricity, a utility that has proven to be anything but dependable, with frequent power cuts. Online learning also depends upon girls having computers. With many families too poor to afford one, access to education is …

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WAW is #ByHerSide in Afghanistan

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WAW’s #ByHerSide program in Afghanistan provides access to critically-needed health services including: treatment for survivors of rape or incest (including emergency reconstructive surgeries as needed); treatment for survivors of physical abuse or violence by family or community members; obstetrics and gynecological services for pregnant women (including nutritional supplements to reduce incidences of malnutrition and providing medicines such as pain relievers); and birth and after-birth services in a high-quality medical facility. …

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Want gender equality? Let’s start with ending child marriages

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Each Oct. 11th the global community pauses to recognize and celebrate the International Day of the Girl Child. However, girls continue to face unique challenges simply for being young and female. The mere fact that they are born female often results in a devastating series of consequences, which inhibit girls from attaining gender parity, equal protection under the law, the free exercise of their human rights and the ability to realize their full potential. The 2018 theme, “With Her: A Skilled GirlForce,” aims to ensure girls have the skills necessary to attain financial viability. One major obstacle preventing girls from achieving these goals is child marriage. Worldwide, around 15 million — or one in three — girls are annually subject to child marriage, often forced or coerced. Married minors are more likely to experience poverty, domestic violence, lack of access to education, sexual abuse and emotional and physical health challenges. Child …

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Afghan Women Key to Sustainable Peace in Afghanistan

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Published in The Hill, 08/16/2018 By Manizha Naderi and Megan E. Corrado For years, the United States has engaged in backchannel talks with the Taliban to little avail. However, news that principal deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, Alice Wells, met with the militant group in Doha last month represents the latest wave of diplomatic efforts to address America’s longest running war. In this endeavor, the U.S. empowered one if its most experienced diplomats, at once forcing the Taliban to confer with a woman as a condition for dealing with the U.S. directly, while simultaneously demonstrating leadership in the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for incorporating women into all facets of peacebuilding processes. These successive waves of women’s leadership in dialogue with the Taliban — and the latter’s acquiescence to participation — may signal a relaxation of their hardline positions toward …

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Brought Together by Pain, 3 Girls Forced Into Marriage Have New Dreams

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Published in The New York Times, 10/6/2017 By Rod Nordland Kabul, Afghanistan — Afghanistan is a place where all too often a young girl’s dreams die. But not always. So it has been with three Afghan friends, whose unrelated cases were all so awful that they are painful to talk about even now that the three are young women, years after the trauma. Each of them escaped a forced marriage as a child, is lucky to be alive, and knows it. Each of them has big dreams — despite what has happened, and because of it. For one of them, Gul Meena, 18, dreams have already started coming true. Last month she boarded a flight from Kabul to Östersund, Sweden, via Istanbul and Stockholm, accompanied by an American lawyer. It was Gul Meena’s first time in an airplane, first time out of her country, first time that, as she put it before, “I will be free.” Gul Meena’s first dream was to escape Afghanistan. Her next was to have a television set in her room. She said she wanted to see how her …

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