ISLAMABAD: Participants at a consultation on Afghanistan urged Islamabad to continue engaging with the Afghan interim government while keeping in mind its security interests by refraining from endorsing Kabul’s regime restrictions imposed on Afghan women.
The talk was the 11th one in a series of discussions organised by the Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), an Islamabad-based research and advocacy think tank, on the Afghan peace process. The main themes of the consultation included “The changing security scenario: Women’s perspective” and “Emerging Pak-Afghan ties: Youth’s perspective”. The discussion consisted of two sessions, one represented by women and the other by youth.
Academics, former diplomats, journalists, youth and rights activists, policy analysts and experts on Afghan affairs were among the participants at the consultation on “Afghan peace and reconciliation: Pakistan’s interests and policy options”.
They insisted that Pakistan should form a special policy for Afghan women as well as vulnerable communities and offer them facilities of scholarships, online education, and some kind of vocational training.
Former ambassador of Pakistan SeemaIlahi Baloch, opening the debate, said that the education of women had been the worst hit in Afghanistan because of the “Taliban regime’s perceived ideological perception about how women should be.” The women have very less chances of access to health facilities there, she added. Afghan women including students have been barred from travelling outside their country without the presence of a male mahram (family member), she also said.
“We (Pakistan) have to be careful as a neighbour,” Baloch said and added, “We have to see the plight of Afghan women within the Pak-Afghan context apart from the perspective of human and women rights.”
Baloch also said that Pakistan’s policy of making doors fully open for Afghan refugees was not necessarily in its national interest. But it is now wrong to forcefully deport them, rather a proper policy on Afghan refugees should be made at first, she added.
Executive Director at Verso Consulting in Islamabad SafiyaAftab viewed that Pakistan’s Afghan policy had been in shambles right from beginning while it didn’t have any policy for refugees at all. “We cannot look at the Afghans monolithically,” she said, adding that Afghans were quite a diverse community and currently they didn’t have a policy to deal with any of those. “To attempt large-scale repatriation of Afghans now in the given situation in Afghanistan is very heartless, particularly for girls,” she said.
Senior Coordinator at the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) in Islamabad Elsa Imdad Hussain quoting a report on two-year rule of Afghan Taliban said that Taliban government might be right for Afghanistan in terms of economy, finance and foreign relations but women were being treated there in the wrong way. “Despite the challenges and tough foreign policy that we have, it is an opportunity for Pakistan to come up with a refugee law which should be both human and gender-centric,” she said. She called on the Pakistani authorities to introduce online education programmes for Afghan refugee girls and women if there was some compulsion to repatriate them to their home country.
Assistant Professor at Fatima Jinnah Women University in Rawalpindi Dr Sobia Hanif taking part in the discussion remarked that women that comprised 50 percent of Afghan population were being subjected to all kinds of human rights violations. They are deprived of education and employment rights with having no facilities of health at all, she added.
Giving her suggestions, Dr Sobia said that Pakistan needed to resolve its problems with Afghanistan through constant constructive engagement with the Afghan Taliban-led interim government in Kabul. She stressed that Pakistan should form a special policy for Afghan women, minorities and people with disabilities besides providing them with facilities of online education and vocational training.
Associate Professor at the Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad Dr Salma Malik, the moderator of a session, argued that Pakistan should talk to the rulers in Kabul and offer online education facilities to Afghan women. She suggested that Islamabad could allow young Afghan girls to complete their education through the syllabus of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Director of the Islamabad-based Afghan Women Association NargisMansoor highlighted that current restrictions enforced by Afghan Taliban on the right to education of women in Afghanistan would cause a severe shortage of teachers and doctors in the war-torn country in future.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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