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Fighting for Women in Afghanistan   
Apr. 8, 2009 — Dr. Massouda Jalal is a fighter in a land of conflict. But her battles are on behalf of women. Things have improved for women in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime, which denied girls access to schools and severely restricted women in public life. Today, more than two million girls are in school and women are working outside of the home. Yet, the war against women rages on, according to Dr. Jalal. Only 36 percent of primary students were girls in 2005, and maternal mortality rates are excessively high. A CEDPA alumna, Dr. Jalal is a medical doctor by profession and runs the Jalal Foundation, the first women-led initiative of its type in Afghanistan’s history. She joined CEDPA for an April 3 discussion in Washington, D.C. on the status of women in Afghanistan. Her visit came on the heels of the recent signing of a new family law by President Karzai, which governs divorce, child custody and marital issues. Critics of the law say it would allow Afghanistan’s minority Shiite population to legalize marital rape and restrict women’s movements without their husbands' permission. Dr. Jalal criticizes the new law and says that women are still suffering in Afghanistan. She says the Taliban is strengthening their power; that there continues to be acid attacks on girls on their way to school; and the number of women working as civil support for the government is steadily declining. Dr. Jalal was the first and only woman to run for president of Afghanistan during that country’s 2005 election. She was one of 18 candidates and, to the surprise of many, finished ahead of many of the male candidates, coming in sixth. Her campaign was chronicled in a documentary, Frontrunner.
After President Karzai was elected, he named Dr. Jalal Minister of Women’s Affairs in his cabinet. She says that her power to achieve significant change for women was limited by the constraints of a conservative government. Through sheer perseverance, she managed to make some headway during her 20 months in the position. One of her accomplishments was to encourage more women candidates to run for provincial council elections in 2005. At first, only 16 women across the country declared their candidacy for the 124 seats that were allocated to women by the Afghani constitution. Dr. Jalal and her team went door-to-door over an intensive three-day period and recruited 242 women to run for the council seats. Dr. Jalal says that even today, “there is no support for women’s leadership in politics.” She explained that the typical government response to the need for more women’s leadership in the country is: “'Women in Afghanistan do not have the capacity to lead,’ and ‘Afghanistan is not ready to have women leaders.’” These statements are very frustrating to the educated women of Afghanistan, many of who have master’s degrees and doctorates, she says. “The media makes much of the illiterate women of Afghanistan, so the impression is that the women of Afghanistan do not have the capacity,” Dr. Jalal clarified, “but they do not explain that almost as many men are illiterate.” Dr. Jalal left the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to begin her own foundation. The foundation’s programs educate and train women, help develop life and professional skills to heal from post-war trauma, create a platform for women’s self-expression in the media, and promote peace and women's rights. Though Dr. Jalal painted a grim picture of the current situation in Afghanistan, she still has hope that things can change with the new election in August. “If we cannot have a woman as president, let us at least have a woman as vice president,” expressed Dr. Jalal. “Without bringing women to leadership of Afghanistan, we cannot bring fundamental change to women’s lives.” |
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