European Network of Migrant Women
Afghan Women and Girls: Women's Rights Are Human Rights
#LetHerLearn
The Taliban has banned women's public education in Afghanistan.
24 January the world celebrated the International Day of Education, when over 19 million women and girls in Afghanistan are being denied this basic human rights. We are collecting photos from women supporting the global #LetHerLearn campaign that we intend to present to the European politicians in the coming months. If you want to be a part of this public campaign please send us your #LetHerLearn photo at media@migrantwomennetwork.org
500 Days of Oppression
28 December 2022 marked 500 days since the Taliban took over Afghanistan. How have women's rights been affected during this period ? Watch the video to find the answers.
Help Us Spread the #500Days video campaign
HERE IS WHAT YOU CAN DO IN 2023:
Share #500Days video on your social media (you can use the hashtags #500Days #EndTalibanRule #AfghanWomenRising)
Send #500Days video by email to your country MEPs (members of the European Parliament) (find your MEPs here)
Send #500Days video by email to members of the European Parliament’s committees (Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee || Foreign Affairs Committee || Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee || Human Rights Committee || Development Committee )
Send #500Days video by email to the European Commission (EC) (Contacts: EC President’s team || EC External actions Commissioner’s team || Justice Commissioner’s team || International Partnerships Commissioner’s team || Equality Commissioner’s team || Values and Transparency Commissioner’s team )
Send #500Days video by email to your local elected representatives (political party leaders, members of parliament, local councils)
Share #500Days video in your universities and schools (download QR Code for 500Days video here)
Send #500Days video to the UN Missions of your countries in Geneva and New York ( Find your country mission here || Download UN Blue Book here)
Send #500Days video to the UN treaty bodies and UN special procedures (list of contacts of UN special procedures || Submit an official communication to a UN special procedure)
Send #500Days video to the UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan (hrc-sr-afghanistan@un.org)
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WHAT WE DEMAND
Since August 2021 the Taliban has violated the Afghan constitution and international human rights law. It broke its promises by engaging in systematic discrimination and violence against Afghan women.
Many Western politicians pay lip-service to Afghan women, while, in reality, they either take no position towards the Taliban , or have tacitly supported it through political negotiations, transactions and visits.
As a result, the Taliban acts with more and more impunity, being directly or indirectly validated and empowered by the world political leaders.
It is time the Western politicians take responsibility for their actions.
We demand justice for Afghan women.
We demand the end of war on Afghan girls.
We demand the end of empowering the terrorist group.
Afghan women are only victims because of the environment in which the Taliban and Taliban-like men continue to terrorise and victimise them, while the world is passively watching!
We demand the end of political negotiations with the Taliban.
We demand visas and refugee protection for Afghan women and girls.
We demand education and grants for Afghan girls and women around the world.
We demand humanitarian aid to be directed towards women of Afghanistan, by-passing the Taliban mediators and controllers.
We demand material and moral support to Afghan women activists who wish to remain in Afghanistan and fight for their rights.
We demand the world's condemnation of the Taliban's terrorist regime and disengagement from political negotiations with the Taliban leaders.
On 1 January we held the 1st Twitter Space to hear from our Afghan women members and guests about the 500 days of the Taliban rule and the impact it is having on Afghan women and girls. We will continue holding such spaces regularly through the year.
ENoMW's Ongoing Work:
Supporting Afghan women and girls relocated to Europe
Afghan women and girls make an intrinsic and vital part of our Network. All our work on Afghan women is conceived and led by Afghan women themselves. Some of these women came to Europe as refugees at the time of Soviet occupation and at the time when the Taliban gained power in the early 2000s. Others arrived with their families in 2010s. Yet a new group of Afghan women have joined our network since the fall of their home-land to the hand of the Taliban in 2021.
In August 2021, at the time of evacuations of vulnerable Afghans and the period that followed, ENOMW has been actively involved with, firstly, evacuation programmes, and, consequently, with providing support to those relocated to the European states.
Our focus of work being women and girls, the Network supported several hundred Afghan women, including activists, poets, judiciaries and widows and girls, to flee the dangers of persecution and risks in Afghanistan. This work, however, does not end when women find their way to safety from the Taliban.
What awaits for the Afghan women in Europe is an extremely difficult life of female refugees. This life involves adjusting to new cultural norms and standards, learning a new language, losing and re-acquiring professional qualification, material and mental struggles, institutional discrimination, racism and exclusion, as well as the risks of male violence and oppression from which European communities are not immune.
As a Network we aim to provide safe environment, support and information to Afghan female refugees, while maintaining the contact with the women we helped arrive to Europe. We believe that long-term support and access to information, and tailored, case-to-case assistance for Afghan women, while fostering their autonomy and agency, is crucial for fulfilling these women's life-projects and ambitions, including their will and desire to help other Afghan women, including those remaining in Afghanistan under the oppressive rule of the Taliban.
Additionally, several of ENoMW's member have been and continue to provide dedicated support to Afghan women and girls Europe at national and/or local level.
Public Advocacy
Human Rights of Afghan Women: Present and Future
On 22 March 2022, jointly with our colleagues from the European Women Lawyers Association and Spanish Women’s Lobby, we organised an event, hosted by the Spanish Congress of Deputies, HUMAN RIGHTS OF AFGHAN WOMEN: PRESENT AND FUTURE.
Speakers included:
- Meritxell Batet Lamaña. President of Congress
- Ana María Pastor Julián. Second Vice-President of Congress
- María Gloria Elizo Serrano. Third Vice-President of Congress
- Pau Marí Klose. President of the Foreign Affairs Committee
- Gita Saeed. Afghan poetess and activist under International Protection in Spain
- Nigin Sana Torabi. Young Afghan activist under International Protection in Spain
- Frohar Poya. Project Officer, European Network of Migrant Women (ENoMW)
- María José Rodríguez Becedas. European Women Lawyers' Association (EWLA)
- Teresa Nevado. Secretary General, Spanish Women's Lobby, LEM España
- Paloma Favieres. Policy and Campaigns Director, CEAR
- Begoña Carrera Ríos. Lawyer, Provivienda NGO
On behalf of the Afghan women of our Network we also presented a gift to the Spanish Parliament, a painting by a young Afghan woman Nigina Aimal, titled “Beauty in Freedom”. Additionally, we presented to the members of the Spanish parliament a letter collectively written by a group of Afghan women, addressed to the women fleeing the Russian invasion of their country.
During the event, the speakers highlighted the unacceptable treatment of women and girls by the Taliban including their denial of basic human rights such as access to education, work and free movement. It was emphasised that many professional and activist women in Afghanistan remain under a great risk and are in hiding since August 2021. Violence against women is rising rapidly: women are being persecuted in the name of tradition and religion, including corporal punishment and torture, while young girls are being sold into slavery by the families facing poverty and starvation.
The speakers pleaded to the Spanish government to continue issuing visas/travel permissions to Afghan women and children at risk, including those who had already received the Spanish Certificates in August but were unable to travel to Spain. Many of them are stranded in the third countries such as Pakistan, Iran, Emirates (Abu Dhabi), as well as inside Afghanistan.
Concerning the Afghan women and children who have been or are in the process of being resettled in Spain, the European Network of Migrant Women and the Spanish Women’s Lobby urged the Spanish government to exercise the fair treatment of all refugees regardless of their ethnic origin or religion, and, to review and harmonise its integration policies with the EU and International human rights law and to uphold its commitment to the fundamental rights: to privacy & family life, freedom of movement, right to a life free from all kinds of violence.
Find the conclusions of the event, in English and Spanish, circulated to the members of the Spanish Parliament and relevant representatives of the Spanish Government.
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- Gita Saeed
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- Frohar Poya
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- Nigin Sana Torabi
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- Gift presented to the parliament
Online and Residential Workshops
Two day residential workshop for Afghan women activists in Spain: Malaga, 18-21 March 2022
On the weekend 18-20 March 2022, European Network of Migrant Women, jointly with our members from Sweden and Poland, and supported by EPIM Foundation, organised a two-day residential workshop for the Afghan women with whom we have maintained communication since supporting their evacuation to Spain in August 2021. This workshop built on the two previous workshops that European Network of Migrant Women, jointly with Afghan Women Organisation in Sweden and She4She in Hungary, organised online for a larger group of Afghan women in different European countries.
Altogether 25 women, including mothers, single mothers and young women, travelled to Malaga from different regions of Spain to take part in the workshop. For many of these women who had been civil society activists, lawyers, judges, writers and community organisers in Afghanistan, this was the first opportunity since their arrival to Spain, to reunite with the women from their own community, speak their language and discuss the issues pertinent specifically to the Afghan female refugees in Spain. This meeting was also an opportunity for the women to celebrate Nowrooz, the Afghan / Persian New Year the fell on 20 March.
In the two days of intense programme run by the experts from ENoMW the women participated in the following workshops and activities:
- WENDO Self-Defense Class, conduced by a certified WENDO Trainer and ENoMW member in Poland, Olesya Malyugina
- Yoga workshop
- Workshop on IT and access to Education, conducted by our Spanish partners
- Guided walk in nature with meditative and physical exercises
- Workshop for mothers
- Workshop for young women/daughters
- Workshop on male violence against women and women's human rights
- Bonding activities through cooking and dance
Each workshop was run in English or Spanish AND Dari. Each day of the workshop was introduced by a collective warm-up exercise and was concluded with a collective dinner prepared by the Afghan women themselves. The lunches each day were kindly made for all by our Spanish partners so that participants could focus on workshops and activities during the day. Each woman who participated in this weekend was awarded the attendance certificate in the end of the programme and was asked to complete an evaluation questionnaire.
By the end of the workshop most participants expressed the desire to continue maintaining contact with each other and ENoMW and would like to continue the online sessions.
