Afghan women seek place at peace talks

Afghan women are seeking to participate in the country’s peace talks, according to the co-author of a report for the British international charity, Oxfam. “We are proud of our hard-won gains, but know how fragile they are,” said Afghan activist and academic Orzala Ashraf Nemat. “This is why we are calling for a place at the table if and when peace negotiations with the Taliban and other armed opposition groups get under way,” Nemat said. “Strong Afghan women arguing for their rights within negotiations are the best chance that we have of keeping those rights,” she said. Oxfam's report 'A Place at the Table: Safeguarding Women's Rights in Afghanistan' warns that after ten years on from the start of the western intervention, Afghan women are facing an uncertain future. In a letter to the Guardian Tuesday, Nemat criticised detractors who claim that many Afghan women regard the price of peace in the country may cost them their rights as 'tragic but necessary'. “This is certainly not how I – or many of the Afghan women I speak to across Afghanistan – see it. We have made major gains in the past decade,” she said. “Women are not the cause of conflict, so why should we have to sacrifice our rights for peace? A peace that condemns and confines half the population to their homes again is not a just or sustainable peace.”