700 Afghan Women Have a Message: Don’t Sell Us Out to the Taliban - NYTimes

KABUL, Afghanistan — It was a rare sight, even after 18 years of progress in Afghanistan: more than 700 women from across the country, gathered to send an unequivocal message to the men now negotiating with the Taliban.

We want peace, the women said, but not at the cost of our rights.

The conference in Kabul, six months in the making, represented a watershed moment at a time when Afghans are struggling to comprehend what peace with the Taliban would bring, even as the war with the militant group is as deadly as ever. American diplomats are holding talks with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, but the Afghan government is not involved.

Several women expressed fears that a peace deal could bring the Taliban back into the government, leaving women and girls vulnerable to a new wave of the sort of edicts that constrained their lives until the group’s overthrow in 2001. Women were routinely beaten for violating Taliban codes.

One woman at the conference, held inside an enormous tent-like structure, spoke sharply to President Ashraf Ghani shortly before he delivered a speech emphasizing his support for women’s rights.

“You should put killers in prison, not make peace with them,” said the woman, Nargiss Qurbani, 48, who said the Taliban killed her husband in 1997 and later wounded her son, a soldier.

Mr. Ghani did not respond.

The hundreds of women who attended came mostly from urban areas in 34 provinces. Most wore makeup, a superfluous embellishment when the Taliban barred women from showing their face. Many covered their hair with scarves, but a few left theirs defiantly uncovered.

Rula Ghani, Afghanistan’s first lady, urged women to take advantage of the gathering to express their views publicly.

“Afghan women have their own voice, and now they’re raising it,” Ms. Ghani said.

“You have been pushed aside, but today that has changed,” Mr. Ghani told the women. “You are not a victim any more. You are making the future.”

“We want peace, but we don’t want to lose our achievements,” said Aqilla Mustafavi, 25. “We took a long road to reach here, and we don’t want to go back.”

American and Taliban negotiators have agreed in principle on the framework of a deal in which American troops would withdraw in return for a Taliban pledge that Afghanistan would not be used by terrorists. Under a new Pentagon plan being offered in the peace negotiations, all American and other foreign troops would withdraw from Afghanistan over the next three to five years.

But that framework reached between the Americans and the Taliban is contingent on reaching agreement on other issues, among them a cease-fire and direct negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

The Taliban have refused to talk to the government, calling it illegitimate. Afghan women have demanded a seat at the table if direct negotiations take place. - Read More

700 Afghan Women Have a Message: Don't Sell Us Out to the Taliban

Under Peace Plan, U.S. Military Would Exit Afghanistan Within Five ...