Beyond September

The announcement of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan by September 11 this year has left many speculating about the implications of such withdrawal for Afghanistan and the region at large.

To some, it is a promising development as it offers the opportunity to finally experience a semblance of normalcy without the fear of constant warfare, while others fear a back-pedalling of the socio-economic progress achieved over the two decades without Taliban rule. While all this is guesswork, the real outcome depends on the course that the intra-Afghan talks will take which will set the trajectory for defining the power dynamics in the country.

While the initial plan for troop withdrawal was disclosed during the Doha agreement signed between the US and the Taliban in February 2020, the final announcement comes at a time when the Taliban have refused to accept an invitation to attend the Afghan peace conference in Istanbul, signalling a subtle disinclination towards peace talks.

Lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan following September 11, 2021 will certainly depend on the power-sharing agreement between the Taliban and Afghan factions, and significantly impact two important groups of individuals who have disproportionately borne the brunt of violence: women and children.

In the post-2001 era, substantial progress has been achieved on various socioeconomic fronts including access to education, healthcare, employment, and an improved standard of living accruing from steady economic growth. These developments, along with progressive human rights legislation have positively impacted the lives of women and children and ushered in a period of female empowerment for urban Afghan women.

Between 2003 and 2017, female enrolment in primary schools grew from 10 percent to 33 percent, while enrolment in secondary schools grew from 6 percent to 39 percent.

Women’s life expectancy grew from 57 years in 2003 to 64 years in 2017. Maternal mortality declined from 1,240 deaths per 100,00 live births in 2003 to 638 deaths in 2020.

Infant mortality, which was amongst the highest in the world in Afghanistan, declined from 116 deaths per 1000 births to 60 deaths between 2003 and 2020.

By 2020, around 21 percent of Afghan civil servants were women, compared to almost none during the Taliban years while 27 percent of Afghan members of parliament were women, which is higher than the percentage of women in the US Congress.

Several institutional and legislative advances have also been made by the Afghan government in a bid to promote the human rights situation specifically for women and children.

The government of Afghanistan ratified the UN Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in March 2003 to promote respect for the rights of women and eliminate all types of discrimination, violence, and other detrimental practices against women. This was followed by the incorporation of women’s rights in Afghanistan’s revised constitution adopted in 2004. The Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) law, adopted in 2009 by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, legally obliged the state to protect women from violence by criminalising rape for the first time in Afghanistan’s history.

The adoption of the Children’s Protection Act in March 2019 by the Afghan parliament was a major step to ensure the domestic implementation of the UN Convention on Rights of the Child (CRC) ratified in 1994 for the protection of the fundamental rights of children. Noticeable progress has since been made towards creating an enabling environment for children to survive, thrive, and develop to their fullest potential.

At present, conditions in Afghanistan are far from ideal and it still fares poorly on human development and gender equality indices. The gains made have been distributed highly unevenly. For Afghan women living in rural areas (an estimated 76 percent of women), social, economic, and political empowerment are still distant dreams and approximately 3.7 million children, almost half of all primary school aged children, remain out of school.

Peace, however, is an indisputable precondition to avert rolling back the hard-won gains made in the domain of women and children’s rights and to further achieve steady and even progress. The US and the international community have a moral obligation to pledge assistance after September to incentivise the Taliban and Afghan parties to shun chaos, agree to minimal international human rights standards and safeguard the fate of peace talks to enable Afghanistan to emerge as a stable, inclusive and democratic state.

The writer is a human rights activist and an expert on women and children’s rights.