Find the full statement of EWL member Portuguese Platform for Women’s Rights here.
[Lisbon, 16 August 2021] The Portuguese Platform for Women’s Rights, apprehensive about the current situation of women in Afghanistan and the threat facing them from a new extremist Taliban government that disrespects their physical integrity, their human dignity and their most basic rights, urges that, taking into account the existing reception capacity, the Government favorably considers the granting of political asylum to all Afghan women and their minor children who wish to take refuge in our country.
A Plataforma Portuguesa para os Direitos das Mulheres, apreensiva face à situação atual das mulheres no Afeganistão e à ameaça que sobre elas pesa de um novo governo taliban extremista e desrespeitador da sua integridade física, da sua dignidade humana e dos seus mais elementares direitos, vem apelar a que, tendo em conta a capacidade de acolhimento existente, o Governo considere favoravelmente a concessão de asilo político a todas as mulheres afegãs e a suas/seus filhas/filhos menores que queiram refugiar-se no nosso País.
Appeal from NEGAR, Afghanistan Women’s Rights organization
The NEGAR office and president, Shoukria HAIDAR, solemnly call on feminist activists from France, Europe, Asia, America and Australia, but also all human rights defenders, to the mobilization to help Afghanistan and its most threatened populations, women and children.
You who, since 1996, after the capture of Kabul by the Taliban, have supported the fight and the action of our association in favor of the rights of women in Afghanistan, totally suppressed by the official decrees of this regime,
You who from the start, in the indifference of the media, gave faith to the denunciation by Shoukria HAIDAR of the barbaric regime of the Taliban which was settling in Kabul,
You who participated in the battles and in the education and training actions carried out by NEGAR in France, in Europe, internationally and in Afghanistan, among others:
- the Dushambé Conference (2000) and the drafting of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of Afghan Women, officially taken up later, in 2004, in article 22 of the Constitution of Afghanistan which expresses equal rights. women and men,
- the organization of the underground classes in Kabul (1997-2001) under the Taliban regime,
- the sponsorship of young girls and young women which continues today,
You who accompanied us again in 2010, during the London Conference organized at the initiative of England and Mr. Karzai, with the agreement of the Americans, inviting high-level representatives from 70 countries, officially launching the peace process with Taliban terrorist groups (Pakistani militias), and thereby giving official international representation to this barbaric group.
This was the beginning of the situation we are experiencing today: official office in Qatar, official meetings with various states, with the United Nations, and the climax, in 2020, of the American peace accords – the Taliban, then, today, the so-called escape of Americans from the Taliban.
We need to count on you again.
Today, the deterioration of the situation since the withdrawal of American troops, 90% completed and which should end at the end of August – what the United Nations representative in Kabul describes as a “seismic wave” – is terrifying. Nothing seems to stop the march of the Pakistani “terrorist Taliban” militias who have already seized 5 of the 34 provincial capitals, both in the north and in the south of the country, sowing terror, trying to frighten with savage actions – beheadings , mass killings, destruction and burning of public buildings, private houses and bazaars, forced marriages of young girls with militiamen (to whom they had been promised in Pakistan to come and fight in Afghanistan, as they had been promised the looting of public and private property).
Afghan women are once again in peril, threatened with losing their freedoms, as during the years of lead (1996 – 2001).
Already Taliban directives in the areas they control, prohibit women from leaving their homes without being accompanied by a male member of their family, ordering communities to provide the list of girls over fifteen and widows. under 45, to “reward the combatants”, with so-called “forced marriages” so that they come to fight in Afghanistan.
All this is happening under the watchful eye of the United States, which, in its peace agreements with the Taliban, keeps repeating that the Taliban must not interfere with the interests of the Americans, nor those of their allies and their friends.
And so Afghanistan and Afghan women are neither among their allies nor among their friends; they do not appear in the interests of the values of the Americans either?
This is how the situation in Afghanistan is progressing with the unilateral decision to withdraw from the United States, without a suitable situation for Afghanistan having been found.
Afghan women after the fall of the Taliban in 2001 have regained their rights and their usual lives. During the last 20 years, they have worked hard, developing their rights in all fields, they have gained more and more significant spaces (educational, political, social, sporting, associative…).
In this terrible situation, young people, girls and boys, take up arms to defend themselves, defend their country, defend their rights. With what means? What will become of them? Today, the Western press and media keep us informed day after day – and thank you to journalists – of the appalling local situation: in addition to the Taliban atrocities, the assassinations, and the 3rd wave of COVID-19.
What will become of Afghanistan? Who will come to the aid of Afghanistan?
We will soon launch a mobilization of the friends of NEGAR and we hope to be able to count on all of you and on the network of friendships that binds feminists all over the world to them.
Do not hesitate to contact us. We are counting on you !
Shoukria HAÏDAR and the office of NEGAR-Support for women in Afghanistan
Site: https://www.negar-afghanwomen.org/2/
Contacts:
negarafghanwomen@yahoo.fr
genevieve.couraud@wanadoo.fr
sh.haidar@yahoo.com
