WLUML Letter to the Canadian Govt.: Support of Afghan Women's Demands
The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada
The Right Honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs, François-Philippe Champagne
The Right Honourable Minister for International Development, Karina Gould
Karina.Gould@international.gc.ca
The Honourable Ambassador for Women Peace and Security Jacqueline O’Neill
Jacqueline.Oneill@international.gc.ca
The Honourable Maryam Monsef, Minister for women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development
The Honourable Senator Mobina S.B. Jaffer
The fall of the Taliban ended one of the 20th century’s cruellest regimes - one that deprived Afghan citizens, particularly women, of their basic human rights. Afghanistan has faced immense challenges posed by the ousted Taliban’s ongoing clandestine attacks and assassinations on innocents. Despite this, the nation has developed a constitution, and step-by-step worked to build the basic structures for representative democracy. With the support of the international community, including more than 40,000 Canadians, Afghan citizens have built schools, clinics, and other basic services. It has also enabled for the restoration of war-torn and the creation of new political and civil institutions, including the Ministry of Women and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.
Moreover, Afghans and particularly women’s rights advocates, have developed a thriving civil society, ensuring women’s active presence in public life as high government officials, teachers, doctors, lawyers, intellectuals, artists, and advocates in the public sphere. Having endured life under the Taliban and other warring political factions for decades, Afghans have developed a profound appreciation of the importance of human dignity, equal citizenry, and fundamental human rights. The Taliban’s response to citizens’ support for such principles has resulted in the assassination of its critics, including many women’s rights advocates, journalists, and female members of parliaments, as well as attacks on schoolgirls and destruction of property including setting fire to girls’ schools. Their terrorist attacks have claimed tens of thousands of lives, physically handicapped and injured many more, both physically and psychologically. They have destroyed villages, impoverishing communities, deepening devastation and prolonging a sense of insecurity. Clearly, Afghan citizens are tired of 40 years of continuous war and yearning for long-lasting peace.
Achieving durable peace requires robust efforts by all parties to build trust, confidence, empathy, and a spirit of reconciliation between the diverse political forces and the general public. This absolutely requires the meaningful inclusion of all segments of Afghan society in the peace process, most notably women and ethnic and religious minorities, demographics that have suffered most under the Taliban. The early stage of negotiation between the Taliban and the US government, which excluded the elected Afghan government, women, and civil society representatives, set the process on a less than ideal start. While people of Afghanistan desire peace and an end to the violence, understandably, Afghan civil society, particularly women’s and human rights advocates, are worried about the possibility that their fundamental rights will be traded away in favour of a narrow security agreement with the Taliban. However, despite claims of having revised their political and (distorted) religious ideologies, field-based research reports from organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UN human rights agencies and Afghan civil society groups, indicate otherwise. The Taliban's lack of commitment to human and civil rights is evident by their increased levels of para-militarized and terrorist violence, being used in a cruel and bizarrely misguided effort to gain greater leverage during the peace talks regardless of the cost to human life.
A durable peace cannot be achieved through the barrel of guns and the return of the Taliban’s ideology. We have already experienced the Taliban’s extreme violence, particularly against women, and observed their misguided gender ideology during their rule in the 1990s and now in the areas that remain under their control. Long-lasting peace is only possible with the inclusion and meaningful participation of the voices of moderation, respect for human rights and guided international norms.
The Canadian government is a global champion of women’s rights and gender equality. Its foreign affairs and international trade are guided by a feminist foreign policy imperative. We are proud that the Government of Canada appreciates the differential impact of armed conflict on women and understands the important role that women play in preventing conflict from escalating and in bringing about lasting peace. We the undersigned believe now is the time for the Canadian government to lead the charge, and mobilize the international community to stand with Afghan women and support the building of firm foundations for peace in Afghanistan; by using every means possible with policy, diplomacy and advocacy to create an environment that unequivocally enables representatives of all of Afghanistan, including women, human rights advocates, civil society organizations, representative of victims of violence, and ethnic and religious minorities, to be part of the peace talks. The reconciliation environment must be cultivated, and Canada and the broader international community must ensure that the gains made in the last 19 years through blood and sacrifice are not lost. These gains have come at a great economic cost to Afghanistan and to the international community, but more importantly, at the cost of the lives of many Afghans, Canadians and members of the international mission to Afghanistan.
Clearly, there is no military solution to be had; all parties must come together under the auspices of the UN, with the application of Resolution 1325 mandating meaningful inclusion of women in every aspect of the peace process, and in the spirit of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We ask the Canadian government to act in accordance with its own unequivocal gender equality guidelines and to support human rights through its international policy by supporting the rights of Afghan women, religious and ethnic minorities, and civil society. Appeasing the Taliban by bartering away the considerable gains of the last 19 years, including citizens' rights outlined in the current Constitution, will undermine the emerging Afghan democracy and can never lead to sustainable peace. We urge the government of Canada to seek appropriate channels for reconciliation and support the internationally sanctioned framework under the auspices of the United Nations to bring about sustainable peace, to allow Afghan citizens and their elected government to bring about national reconciliation and take the steps to expand their young democracy.
Homa Hoodfar
Interim-international Director
for
Board of Directors
Women Living Under Muslim Laws
Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), is a transnational feminist solidarity network that has been advocating for peace, demilitarization, human rights and gender equality since its inception in 1984. WLUML on behest of its networkers from diverse Muslim heritage is launching a campaign in support of Afghan women’s demands to engage in a meaningful manner with peace talks and preservation of their rights that are protected in the current constitution to bolster the human right gains they have secured during the last 19 years. WLUML supports Afghans’ desire for a meaningful and long-lasting peace and believes the uncompromising position of the Taliban, particularly in regard to their gender perspectives and approach to religious minorities present a major obstacle to peace-making and aspirations for a dignified peace agreement. On an international level, WLUML is concerned that the Taliban’s return to political power with their distorted and ultra-conservative understanding of Islam will not only negatively impact the lives of Afghan women, freedom of expression and civil society but will have grave consequences for women’s rights in Muslim societies and communities worldwide.
Lauryn Oates
Executive Director
Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan
E: ExecutiveDirector@CW4WAfghan.ca
Nuzhat Jafri
Executive Director
Sarah Keeler (she/her)
Community Engagement Coordinator
Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan
E: Community@CW4WAfghan.ca
www.CW4WAfghan.ca
Penny Ellison
President
Montreal South Shore University Women’s Club
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Dr. Sarwat Viqar
President
Centre Communautaire des femmes Sud-Asiatiques/
The South-Asian Women’s Community Centre,
Montreal, Canada
Contours: Voices of Women in Law
Faculty of Law, McGill University,
Montreal, Canada
Susan Ross
President
Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW)
National
Sara Wright
McGill Muslim Law Students Association
McGill University
Montreal, Canada
Marie Troudsell
Co-présidente
Canadian Federation of University Women
Sherbrooke & District
Quebec Canada
Kathryn Wilkinson
President
Canadian Federation of University Women
National
Toronto, Canada
Reem Abdul Majid
President
McGill World Islamic and Middle East Studies Student Association (WIMESSA):
McGill University
Montreal, Canada
Linda Sestock
President
Montreal Lakeshore University Women’s Club
Quebec, Canada
Professor Yasmin Jiwani
Communication Studies
Research Chair in Intersectionality, Violence & Resistance,
Concordia University
Montreal, Canada
Alia Hogben
Founding member and former Executive Director
Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW)
Kingston, Canada
Sally Wishart Armstrong, C.M.
Independent writer and Journalist
Toronto, Canada
Kaleem Siddiqi, Professor
School of Computer Science and Centre for Intelligent Machines
McGill University
Montreal, Canada
Shelley Z. Reuter, Professor
Department of sociology and Anthropology
Concordia University
Montreal, Canada
Vrinda Narain, Associate Professor
Faculty of Law,
McGill University
Montreal, Canada
Azam Khatam, PhD.,
Urban Environment,
Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies
York University
ISA RC 32 Regional Representative for the Middle East and West Asia
Toronto, Canada
Gada Mahrouse, PhD, Simone de Beauvoir Institute,
Concordia University
Montreal, Canada
Sherene H. Razack, Ph.D
Distinguished Professor
Penny Kanner Endowed Chair in Women's Studies
Dept. of Gender Studies,
University of California
/University of Toronto
Barbara Heron, PhD
Professor
School of Social Work
York University
Toronto, ON
Dr. Emer O'Toole
Associate Professor of Irish Performance Studies
School of Irish Studies
Concordia University
Montreal, Canada
Ariane Brunet
Co-Founder of the
Urgent Action Fund
for Women’s Human Rights
Montreal, Canada
Tanya Fitzpatrick
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ
Judith Ritshie
University Women’s Club Montreal
Quebec, Canada
Susan Ross
University Women’s Club Montreal
Professor Robert J. Currie
Schulich School of Law,
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Canada
Ilea Tant
University Women’s Club Montreal
Natasha Bakht
Full Professor, Faculty of Law
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, Canada
Linda Sestock
Montreal Lakeshore University Women’s Club
Quebec, Canada
Amanda Ghahremani
International Lawyer & Consultant
Canadian Partnership for International Justice
Research Associate at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute,
Concordia University
Penelope Simons, PhD
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, Canada
Jo-Anne Wemmers, PhD
Professeure titulaire, École de criminologie
Centre international de criminologie comparée,
Université de Montréal
Montreal, Canada
François Larocque
Professor, Faculty of Law,
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, Canada
Pascal Paradis
Executive Director
Lawyers Without Borders Canada
Philippe Tremblay
Senior Legal Advisor
Lawyers without Borders Canada
Dr. Narda Razack, Professor
School of Social Work
S880 Ross Building
York University
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
