Some past info on RAWA, (the leftwing Afghan women's group) for your interest. This is the organisation that helped the CNN reporter make the recently televised documentary "Behind the veil". The Cold Warriors first set up the jehadis to wipe out the left, and now it seems the left has its uses to wipe out the jehadis... there's also some more recent information on the Afghan women's network..

Dilip Simeon (Oxfam India)
==========================

South Asia Citizens Web
From: RAWA

AFGHANS URGED TO OPPOSE REACTIONARIES
By Our Correspondent
Dawn, August 19, 1999

ISLAMABAD, Aug 19: Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan have in a statement called upon all the Afghan elements and organizations opposed to fundamentalism and seeking democracy to prevent by all means both the Taliban and the Jehadi elements from playing with the fortunes of Afghan people especially women.

In a press statement, the RAWA said that it has firm faith that the supremacy of the killers of innocent people of freedom, of democracy, and of women's rights could not endure forever.

The statement said that RAWA and other pro-democracy people of Afghanistan and their Jehadi opponents have no legitimacy because both are tied to foreign powers, and have no consideration for human and women's rights, freedom and democracy. It said that they cannot rise above their petty attempts to fuel sectarian, ethnic, linguistic and regional rivalries among people.

RAWA said that in these circumstances, if the United Nations and other human rights bodies continue to work for a rapprochement between the belligerents only, as the unfortunately have been doing so far, then it would mean that some countries are seeking to advance their own respective agendas in Afghanistan.

AFGHAN WOMEN URGE UN TO TRANSLATE PEACE CALLS INTO ACTION
AFP, August 16,1999

ISLAMABAD, Aug 16 (AFP) - A Pakistan-based organization of Afghan women Monday called on the United Nations to move beyond words and take concrete steps to stop the flow of arms into Afghanistan.

If the UN really wants to restore peace to Afghanistan it should first halt supply of arms to the combatants, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) said in a statement.

Later tangible moves should be made to prepare the ground for convening a broadly representative traditional Afghan jirga or assembly to form an interim government for organizing free elections, the statement said.

RAWA, a strong critic of the ruling Taliban and former mujahideen groups, accused both sides of "playing with the fate of Afghan people,especially the women."

"We have firm faith that the supremacy of the killers of innocent people, of freedom, of democracy and women's rights cannot endure forever," the organization said.


RAWA URGES UN TO ENSURE PEACE IN AFGHANISTAN
The Frontier Post, August 17,1999
F.P. Bureau Report

Islamabad - an Afghan women's association Monday urged the United Nations to move beyond works and take practical steps to stop the flow of arms into Afghanistan.

"If the UN really wants to restore peace to Afghanistan it should first halt supply of arms to the combatants," the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) said in a statement issued here.

It said tangible moves should be made later to prepare the ground for convening a jirga, or assembly, to form an interim government for holding elections.

RAWA accused both Taliban and Northern Alliance opposition of "playing with the fate of Afghan people, especially the women."

"We have firm faith that the supremacy of the killers of innocent people, of freedom, of democracy and women's rights cannot endure forever," the RAWA statement added.

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
Mailing Address: RAWA,
P.O.Box 374,
Quetta, Pakistan

~ ICQ UIN #: 2717083
~ Mobile #: 0092-300-551638
~ E-mails:  rawa@rawa.org,  rawa@geocities.com
~ Home Page:  http://www.rawa.org
~ Mirror site:  http://members.xoom.com/ra_wa


BEYOND GOOD OR EVIL
The Herald Magazine, August 1999 >From M. Ilyas Khan in Kabul

Forced to fend for themselves due to the death or incapacitation of their male breadwinners, and banned from seeking gainful employment under the Taliban dispensation, scores of Afghani women are turning to prostitution to eke out a living

Clad in the ubiquitous shuttlecock burqa, she crosses a street in Kabul's Shahr-I-Nau district and enters a cosmetics and toiletry store. She walks up straight to the clerk and stretches out her hand as if to ask for alms. But this gesture is just a ruse. "It'll be two lakh Afghanis (equivalent to 250 Pakistani rupees) per head, nothing less," she tells the clerk under her breath, casting a veiled glance at me and the one other man present in the store. "I was expecting some good business, but I dropped it when I received word from you."

"I'm sorry, but this call is just for an interview with our journalist friend here," replies the clerk apologetically, pointing in my direction. "It'll still be two lakhs," she insists. "I told you I dropped some good business to come here."

As radiant as her name, which means an oil lamp in Pushto, Diva is a stunning beauty. In the privacy of the store's attic, she throws off her tattered burqa to reveal a beautiful crimson blouse and an ankle-length black Afghani skirt. Diva's shoes are worn, but pepping from underneath the hem of her skirt is a shimmer of gauze stockings. Her neatly trimmed brunette hair falls in straight tresses to her shoulders. Her eyebrows are plucked thin into perfect arches and there is no make-up to mar her glowing complexion. Though she looks barely 20, Diva claims she's 28.

"I graduated from collage in geophysics and used to work for the government," she says. But life changed dramatically for Diva in 1995 when she was abducted and raped allegedly by some fighters of the Hizb-I-Islami in the southern Chilistoon district of Kabul. "I returned to work for a brief period, but in September 1996 the Taliban overran Kabul and ordered women to stay home." Left without a dependable source of income, Diva was forced into prostitution.

Diva lives with her aged mother and three sisters, one of whom is a prostitute and the other a widow with three children. She has a 15-year-old brother who works at a smithy for 100,000 Afghanis a month. With their combined incomes, the family appears to be in a position to survive, however modestly, on its own.

Aqazad, a 35-year-old Tajik woman, is not as glamorous as Diva and only half as business-like. But her price is the same: 200,000 Afghanis. "The money is only enough to buy 10 naans, which is less than what my family needs to feed itself for one day," she points out, defending her rates. Aqazad has four daughters and two sons. The daughters sometimes take in laundry, while the sons, both of them less than 10 years old, beg on the streets. Her husband was an Afghan army officer who died in the battle of Jalalabad in 1989. Between 1992 to 1996, Aqazad ran a grocery stall in the northern Khairkhana district. That lasted till the Taliban ordered all stalls run by women to be closed down.

According to Aqazad, she is extremely good at tar-shumar, the cross-stitch embroidery which is used to decorate women's wear and shoulder bags. "I could embroider for large handicraft exports who pay well, but the Taliban do not allow women to interact with male businessmen. And I have no male relatives through whom I can deal with the exporters."

Both Diva and Aqazad hail from that enormous cross-section of Afghani society whose male breadwinners have either been incapacitated or consumed by the 20-year war, leaving the women and children to fend for themselves. The World Food Program estimates that this segment numbers between 60,000 to 120,000 individuals in Kabul alone. Banned from work by the Taliban, these women have very few options other than begging on the streets or becoming prostitutes in order to feed themselves and their dependants.

"There are hundreds of prostitutes roaming the streets of Kabul and their numbers are rising every day," asserts Zarghuna Hashemi, a Kabul-based spokeswoman of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). "They are not the regular professionals we had in Kabul before or during the war. These women are a product of the economic turmoil of the last three years."

The economic turmoil in Afghanistan has indeed been severe. Over the last three years, the price of wheat flour has risen by around 450 per cent to 80,000 Afghanis per maund. While a five-Kilogram canister of ghee carries a price tag of 210,000 Afghanis, kerosene oil costs 60,000 per gallon. The prices, moreover, continue to escalate while the average government salary remains stuck between 110,000 to 300,000 Afghanis per month. The monthly wages of manual laborers are even lower and do not exceed one million Afghanis, provided, of course, that work is available throughout the month.

The ban on working women further complicates the scenario for households headed by women. Pushed into a corner, most such women first came out in droves to beg. Now, many of them are turning to prostitution as a more convenient source of income.

"Pretending to be beggars, these women have easy access to clients who are mainly shopkeepers and their trading partners in Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf," contends a former member of Taliban's religious police, popularly known as Amr bil Maroof. Most shops in Kabul contain a storeroom or an attic, which can be used for the purpose. But more security conscious clients prefer to fix appointments elsewhere such as their homes. For
Diva and others like her, such an invitation can translate into a million Afghanis in one night, which, as far as they are concerned, can buy 100 nanns.

The more wretched of Kabul's prostitutes live in brothels, where they have to share their income with the madam and the resident pimp. RAWA claims that there are some 25 to 30 brothels operating in Kabul. A Taliban source in the Hauz-I-Awwal police cannot confirm this figure, but admits that brothels do indeed exist. "I know of one place in the Ashiqan-o-Arifan neighborhood, and I have heard that there are others in Qalae Zaman Khan. But they change their location every few months to avoid detection."

When they do get caught, judicial authorities are bribed and the accused gets away with only a few lashes. Aqazad, who worked at a brothel in Qalae Musa, recalls one such incident. "The Taliban once picked up one of the girls on charges of zina, but the pimp paid the judicial officer six million Afghanis who in turn advised the girl to plead not guilty. The prosecution was reined in, and she was only imprisoned for 60 days and
received 20 lashes."

In Kabul, however, court cases based on charges of adultery are few and far between. "It is difficult to keep an eye on all the beggars and monitor shops throughout the day. Even if a suspect is found in a shop, she can conveniently plead that she was just begging. Besides, it is very difficult to prove adultery under the Islamic Law, which requires four
God-fearing witnesses who have seen the act' as clearly as a thread going though the
eye of a needle'" explains the source in Hauz-I-Awwai.

As an added protection, the brothels entertain the Taliban free of charge. "One of the reasons I left the house (brothel) was that every two or three days a group of Taliban youngsters would drop in and want to do it for free," says Aqazad. "I decided to move out."

A former member of the religious police confirms the involvement of the Taliban in such affairs and even provides an explanation. "Communists and lechers have grown beards and infiltrated the Taliban ranks. They will do anything to defame the Taliban." He recalls the time when some of his colleagues took him to a brothel. "There they smoked hashish, performed adultery and cracked jokes about Islam. Some four months later, the entire gang disappeared without a trace. And it was only later that a friend told me that they were ex-communists from the Ningarhar province, out to have fun."

There are indications that poverty-driven prostitution is not confined to Kabul alone. Faced with abject poverty, women in other cities of Afghanistan are also turning to this profession. Mariam is one of them. She lost her husband in a rocket attack on their house in the western Border City of Heart two years ago. She lived for six months without the means to buy food for her six starving children. Following a period of acute anxiety
during which she went as far as contemplating suicide, she turned to prostitution." Among my clients were many Taliban soldiers and qomandans (commanders) who were generous as well as gently," she recalls. But things got really bad when the massing of Iranian troops on Heart's border around mid-1998 brought hordes of unruly Taliban youth to the city. "They were wild and tight-fisted, and when I demanded money, they said they would prefer to pay my daughter who was reaching puberty." Four months ago, Mariam sold whatever little she could muster to buy a ticket to Pakistan.

The wisdom of the Taliban's so-called Islamic policies is being debated all over the world. While concerned members of the international community continue to express their outrage at the state of affairs, the predicament of the women living in Taliban controlled Afghanistan goes from bad to worse. Taliban rhetoric may claim that the ban on working women has been imposed to protect them from the "ignominy" of dealing with men and braving the world on their own. But it is these very repressive policies
that are forcing increasing numbers of Afghani women to resort to the beasts
of professions in the desperate struggle to survive.



More recently - On AWN: DETAILS OF AWN AND AWEC
(FOR INFORMATION)

Afghan Women's Network:
23 Chinar Rd, University Town,
Peshawar NWFP, Pakistan
Fax: 00 92 91 40436
E-mail:  awn@brain.net.pk

Afghan Women's Network, based in Peshawar, is a non-political, non-profit organization. Its aim is to promote solidarity and cooperation among Afghan woman, and strengthening their capacity to enhance their self-reliance and attain their rights. Established in 1996, its members include Afghan women living as refugees in Pakistan, And Afghan women working in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Afghan women's Network welcomes Enquirer, and support to develop its competencies and capacities to become more effective.

Afghan Womenâs Network (AWN) is a Voluntary organization of Afghan
Women. Capacity building of its member women is one of the main
activities of the organization. AWN has been supported by other
friendly organization in carrying its activity, as the organization
has no external funding support.

AWN was established in October 1995 in Islamabad, as follow-up to the
fourth UN conference on Women. Soon the network was established in
Kabul and Mazar and Peshawar. The main aim of the Network has been
attaining womenâs right, however the strategies and approach has been
different, according to the circumstances. AWN is housed in ACBAR
office, however it is independent in policy and financial matter from
ACBAR although for time being ACBAR is supporting all the office and
admin needs of the organization

AWN, Peshawar with more than 150 members has been able to
carry different workshops for the capacity building of its women
members, and present the plight and interest of Afghan women with
policy makers, national and international events.


Afghan Women's Educational Center (AWEC):

Founded by a group of Afghan women in 1991 in Islamabad.

Afghan Women's Educational center (AWEC) is non-profit, non-political
organization of Afghan refugee women. It aims to promote educational
programs for Afghan Refugee women and children, support women's group
mobilization, in gaining self-reliance and empowerment.

AWEC is dedicated to assist all economic classes of Afghan Women to polish their skills further their education and raise awareness of their rights and privileges. In order to promote their emancipation to better utilize community resources and to play their role in
building of a just society upon return to their country.

AWEC was formed in the time when only few political women organization existed. Also in refugee situation refugee women in the Rawalpindi Islamabad has various scattered activities. Where there have been no centralized activities for the refugee women. Later on because of very acute educational facility for children it started supporting schools for children.

AWEC is member of coalition Umbrella with two like-minded organizations (NBSD & Irfan Cultural Center under DHSA legal umbrella). Where at policy level each organization is acting independently where more of technical facilities, management is
shared. The main work sector of AWEC is Education and Social sectors

Center for Street Children and Women:
It is a joint venture of AWEC and NBSD to respond to the prevailing problem and rising number of street children and women beggars of refugee community on the street of Peshawar. The project has been started in March 1998 in Board area, Peshawar with establishment of a center.

The primary objective of the project is to improve basic life condition of women and children of recent Afghan refugee population in Peshawar, who are surviving on marginal street activities mostly begging. The project provides for a number of services and activities, which are based on the establishment of community support services network.

Skill training:
Basic education including literacy, numeracy Services in medical health, counseling services and job placement facilities Data collection and in-depth finding about the target group. Sport and art activities for children

Contact Information:
Director: Palwasha Hassan
Address: Bilal Street, Khalil Rd, Academy Town, Peshawar
Tel & Fax: 92-91-841917/43267
Email:  irfan@pes.comsats.net.pk