The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) is best
known for activism against the Taliban, the fundamentalist regime that currently
controls the country. RAWA, however, began agitating for women’s rights
long before the 1995 Taliban takeover. The group was established in Kabul,
the capital city, in 1977, two years before the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.
An independent organization of women fighting for women’s rights and
human rights, the founders were a group of Afghan women intellectuals headed
by an activist named Meena (the majority of Afghan people have just one
name). RAWA members report that Meena was assassinated in 1987 in Pakistan
by KGB agents and their fundamentalist collaborators.
In 1982, in response to the rapidly worsening sociopolitical situation
in Afghanistan, RAWA shifted most of its activities to Pakistan, where it
established schools for Afghan refugee boys and girls, together with a hospital
for refugee women and children in Quetta. Under constant threats from Islamic
fundamentalists, most of RAWA’s activities are clandestine or semi-clandestine.
According to RAWA member Huma Saeed, RAWA is fighting "for the establishment
of a social order based on democratic values, freedom, and women’s
rights against fundamentalism of all shades and colors." The group
works towards these goals in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. In addition
to providing educational, vocational, and health support for Afghani women
and children, RAWA has openly criticized the Taliban regime, publicizing
countless violations of women’s human rights. The Taliban’s policies
towards women include public beatings for not wearing a traditional burqa,
denial of access to work, education, and health care, and virtual house
arrest for women who do not have a male family member to accompany them
in public.
Sojourner spoke to Huma Saeed about RAWA’s work with Afghan
women and about RAWA’s views on Taliban rule.
Sahar Muradi: What sort of work are you doing on behalf of Afghani
women and refugee women? What obstacles have you faced?
Huma Saeed: In the sphere of education we have nurse training and literacy
courses for women and home-based classes for girls. With growing Taliban
restrictions, arrangements for the education of girls are getting increasingly
difficult [to manage]. We educate women about their rights as human beings
and as women, and of the ongoing situation in our country. We teach them
to create democratic organizations in order to be able to struggle against
fundamentalism. Such educational activities are conducted for refugees in
Pakistan as well.
In 1981, RAWA also launched a Dari (Persian) / Pashtu bilingual magazine
called Women’s Message.
In the field of health, our work inside Afghanistan consists mainly of
support to female victims of war atrocities. RAWA has mobile health teams
composed of our members and their Mahrams [men allowed to accompany women]
who visit remote rural areas in Afghanistan and a number of refugee camps
in Pakistan. For the purpose of better serving the needs of female Afghan
refugees and their children, RAWA founded the Malalai hospital in Quetta
in 1986. Financial constraints, however, have brought the hospital to the
point of closure.
[We also work to help women generate income.] These activities include
vocational training, provision of work tools and raw materials to women
in tailoring, embroidery, poultry farming, dairy farming, and livestock
husbandry, and facilitating workplaces for women inside Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
The prime obstacle that limits our work is our acute financial problem.
With the restrictions that the Taliban have created for women in Afghanistan,
we find it very difficult to conduct our activities. As the only women’s
organization struggling against Islamic fundamentalism, we constantly receive
death threats from Islamic fundamentalists by letter, phone calls, e-mail,
etc. The Taliban and the Islamic fundamentalists in general are so intolerant
of our activities that they even viciously attacked a peaceful demonstration
we staged in Pakistan.
How have your focus and the way RAWA operates changed since the Taliban
emerged?
Since the overthrow of the Soviet-installed puppet regime in 1992, the
focus of RAWA’s political activities has been against Islamic fundamentalists.
The Jehadi, the incredibly misogynist force that seized power after the
withdrawal of Russian troops, committed such inhuman crimes, especially
towards women, that no precedent can be found in any annals of world history.
The barbarism of the Taliban since its appearance in 1994 even surpasses
the atrocities of its Jehadi brethren [who were in power from 1992 to 1996
when the Taliban entered Kabul]. From our point of view there is no difference
between these two entities. Both are Islamic fundamentalists, anti-women,
anti-democracy, and dependent on foreign powers.
Do you feel a broad-based multiethnic democratic government is the
solution for Afghanistan?
We want a democratic government which, of course, presupposes secularism.
No political settlement, including a multiethnic broad-based government
as promoted these days by the United States, Pakistan, and other countries
to end the Afghan tragedy, can be acceptable to our people if such a settlement
does not indict fundamentalist murderers as criminals. Only by elimination
of fundamentalists from any political formula can there be a democratic
government that can represent all ethnic, religious, and national political
interests and entities.
What exactly are some of the Taliban’s policies on women? Do
you feel any of its rules will change in the near future out of desire for
Western recognition and acceptance?
The Taliban force women to be fully covered with burqa, something covering
women from head to toe. Publicly flogging and humiliating women for not
wearing Islamic veils according to its strict specifications has been a
daily routine for the Taliban.
When the Taliban seized power, their first and foremost action was against
women. They closed down the doors of the schools for girls and women. According
to the Taliban, all institutions of learning are "gateways to hell"!
Because of the medieval nature of the Taliban, there [will] never be
any positive change in their policies. Even Islamic countries like Iran
and Saudi Arabia find themselves saying that these Taliban activities are
denigrating Islam! And Clinton felt it necessary to condemn the Taliban’s
policies as a "terrible perversion of Islam" and to add that the
Taliban’s treatment of women and children in Afghanistan is atrocious.
Abbas Stanikzai, the vice minister of health, told the Washington Post
in a May 11 article: "We have many clinics and hospitals with wards
for women, and according to Islamic rules, a woman who suffers from a disease
has full authority to contact a male doctor." Is that accurate?
Though there are some clinics and hospitals for female doctors and patients,
they have very limited equipment. The female personnel have to be under
the veil inside the hospitals and even during operations! Can you imagine
operating with something covering you from head to toe? However, the policies
of the Taliban have forced most of the noted doctors and other staff to
flee the country. One of the Taliban rules is not to allow women to approach
male doctors. We have received several reports that women who contacted
male doctors were beaten up by the Taliban.
These sayings of Abbas Stanikzai are just like the claims that the Taliban
"ambassador" in Pakistan blurted without a modicum of shame: "One
hundred percent of Afghan women are happy with Taliban policies," or
"We have given all basic rights to women." (NNI News Agency, April
17, 1999)
Are you aligned with other women’s groups?
Unfortunately, we are totally alone [among Afghan women’s groups]
in our struggle against Islamic fundamentalism. A number of Afghan women’s
groups are oblivious to the political situation crushing women and somehow
capitulate to the fundamentalists. Some groups believe that instead of struggle,
women should grovel to the fundamentalists, spread their headscarves at
the feet of the so-called leaders (a symbolic act of abject supplication),
and implore them to have compassion and strive for peace! RAWA asserts that
in view of the great suffering of our devastated people, freedom-loving
organizations and individuals need to abandon their passivity and "neutrality"
vis-à-vis the fundamentalists and resist the barbaric rule of the
Taliban.
We are in contact with various democratic women’s organizations
around the world.
How do you feel about U.S. feminist groups’ campaigns on Afghanistan,
particularly the Feminist Majority’s campaign?
U.S. feminist groups and other international organizations have [publicized]
the situation in Afghanistan, especially as regards women. But, as we have
repeatedly mentioned, our people are in need of much more than expressions
of solidarity. They need meaningful and practical help. The Feminist Majority
is an established organization of women in the United States and we would
like it to extend its activities in practice to help the most deprived women
of Afghanistan.
What do you feel is needed in terms of support from individuals and
organizations in order to raise awareness about the situation in Afghanistan
and encourage action in response to it?
We request that individual human rights activists and women’s rights
organizations around the world do not forget the desperate plight of Afghan
women. [We request that they] relay their cry of agony to the world community
and extend to Afghan women effective and practical assistance.
For more information contact:
Revolutionary Association of the Women
of Afghanistan (RAWA)
Mailing Address: RAWA, P.O. Box 374, Quetta, Pakistan
Mobile Tel.: 0092-300-5541258
E-mail: rawa@rawa.org
Home Page: http://www.rawa.org
Sahar Muradi, a native of Kabul, has organized various events throughout
Massachusetts to promote awareness of conditions for women in Afghanistan.
She was a Sojourner intern during the summer of 1999.