"The Killing of Women is Like Killing a Bird Today in Afghanistan": Afghan Women's Rights Activist

MELBOURNE, Jul 13 (IPS) -- It is easy to understand why epithets such as brave and courageous often accompany the name of Malalai Joya. Slight of stature and serenely demure, the young Afghan woman’s past and present encapsulate the plight of her countrywomen.

Malalai Joya returned to Afghanistan in 1998 -- she had spent most of her life until then in refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan -- as an underground volunteer educator of girls, a decidedly dangerous and difficult role given that the hardline Taliban were in power.

She came to the world’s attention in 2003 when, at a constitutional convention attended by Afghanistan’s leaders, she publicly accused many of those present of being war criminals, drug lords and supporters of the Taliban.

Joya continued to speak out against fellow parliamentarians following her election to the national assembly in 2005. While her outspoken views have gained much support both inside Afghanistan and internationally, Joya has also created powerful enemies.

She remains suspended from parliament for being openly critical of fellow MPs and has survived several assassination attempts.

In Australia to promote her book Raising My Voice, Joya, still just 31, met with IPS writer Stephen de Tarczynski to discuss the position of women in her country. The following are extracts from the interview.

IPS: How do you see the situation for women today in Afghanistan?

Malalai Joya: Women and children, they were the most and first victims and still there is much violence against them. And the main reason is that the Northern Alliance fundamentalists, who are mentally the same as the Taliban but physically are different, came to power.

First of all, like the Taliban, they mix Islam with politics to use against women of my country. The situation of women is like hell in most of the provinces.

It is true that in some big cities like Kabul, like Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, some women have access to jobs and education but in most of the provinces, not only is there no justice at all -- even in the capital -- but in faraway provinces the situation of women is becoming more disastrous. The killing of women is like killing a bird today in Afghanistan.

IPS: In your book you quote George W. Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address when the then-U.S. president said that the mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captive in their own homes under the Taliban and became free when the Taliban were ousted from power. Do you regard Afghan women and girls as free?

MJ: The U.S. government lies and wants to pretend to the people around the world that for the first time they brought women’s rights to Afghanistan and that women do not wear burqas.

After 9/11 the main message of the U.S government was that women were not wearing burqas anymore but today, eight years later, most women wear burqas because of security [concerns]. I wear a burqa because of security.

In these past eight years, Afghan women haven't gained even the limited rights that they had in the 1970s and 1980s. In the past it was like in western countries. Women wore what they wished, as I wear what I wish now [in Australia]. But in Afghanistan I have to wear a burqa and most of the women of my country don't like that.

But burqas are not the only or main problem for women. We are wearing it now just to be alive. Even now it is useful, we have to wear it. Wearing the burqa is the main tactic I use to be alive, the same as I used in the period of the Taliban.

IPS: You’ve become a figurehead for women's rights in Afghanistan, but are there other women risking as much as you do but who we don’t hear about?

MJ: Even more than me. Only when they have been killed, then through democratic journalists the world knows it, people know it. As I said when Sitara Achakzai [a provincial council member in Kandahar who was murdered in April], the last great woman activist to be killed, she is not the first one and unfortunately she won't be the last one.