Over 130 Afghanistan women gathered in Albania for an All Afghan Women summit to form a united front against the Taliban’s continuous human rights violations.
The conference, which has been planned for two years, is being hosted by the Albanian government in Tirana after several other nations in the region rejected.
The conference comes just a few weeks after the Taliban issued new “vice and virtue” laws prohibiting women from speaking in public and requiring women to cover their bodies outside the home.
Fawzia Koofi, the women’s activist and former Afghan MP, whose organisation Women for Afghanistan arranged the summit, said:
“In these three days, the women of Afghanistan from all backgrounds come together to unite their efforts on scenarios to change the current status quo at a time when women in Afghanistan say they are being completely erased from the public sphere.
“We aim to achieve consensus and strategize on how to make the Taliban accountable for the human rights violations they are perpetrating and how to improve the economic situation for women inside the country.”
A former minister under the government of Hamid Karzai and now a women’s rights activist, Seema Ghani, who has remained in Afghanistan to carry out humanitarian work had this to say about the submit:
“Us being here together is an act of defiance. We will not be silenced,”
“Women and girls inside Afghanistan are living lives that are dominated by fear, every day. Just leaving the house is an ordeal.
“The world is moving on but we are here, all of us together, to try to make sure that we are not forgotten. We are not all here to agree with each other, but we are here to talk, debate and hopefully end with a united voice,”
The women generally aim to achieve consensus and strategize on how to make the Taliban accountable for human rights violations and improve the economic situation for women inside the country.
They also hope to publish a set of demands or guidelines for the international community to respond to the systematic attack on Afghan women’s rights and freedom.
Written by Cheta Enyoghasi
