War No More: What Afghan Women Are Yelling to the Global Elite

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When the documentary was over it was time for question and answer. The person answering the questions was none other than AI’s Afghanistan researcher Horia Mosadiq. One girl asked:

'How can we here in Britain help Afghanistan and its women?' Horia’s response to this question: 'By putting pressure on your government to keep the troops in Afghanistan and not to withdraw them after 2014.'”

Why AI would help NATO and the U.S. State Department push the false narrative of women's “progress” after eleven years of war is debatable. Members of the organization are presenting this question and being told that women's rights, education, and even health have prospered since the fall of the Taliban. In a country where women's life expectancy is 51 years, where women are jailed for adultery after being the victims of rape, and where deteriorating security means that many newly built schools stand empty, this is a specious claim.

The women's advocacy organization MADRE is partnering with the women-led peace and social justice group CODEPINK to create a twitterstorm July 2-8 calling for significant numbers of women to be at the table in Tokyo. Using the hashtag #AfghanWomen, tweeters hope to call attention to the need for representation beyond women from the Kabul elite to testify to what women all over Afghanistan really need: and end to war, real security, respect for the law, food, clean water, and access to education. Only then may we see authentic progress for all the people of Afghanistan.