Afghan women perceive improvement in lives

Almost three-quarters of Afghan women believe their lives are better now than they were 10 years ago, a research has shown.While 72 percent feel things have improved for them since the start of the war, 37 percent also fear their country will become a worse place if international troops leave.The vast majority (86 percent) are worried about a return to a Taliban-style government, with one in five citing their daughter's education as their main concern, according to a report by the charity, ActionAid Monday.Two-thirds (66 percent) of Afghan women said they felt safer now than they did 10 years ago.Under the Taliban, going out to work or school was forbidden for women and girls, access to healthcare was difficult, and they could not leave the house without a male relative, the charity said.The report, called "A Just Peace? The Legacy of War for the Women of Afghanistan", praised the progress that has been made in the past decade but argued that there was still a lot more to be done to improve women's lives."Women are free to be educated and to work. They serve as government ministers and MPs and work as doctors, teachers, professors, entrepreneurs, and lawyers," it said."These are significant achievements. However, huge challenges remain, with many women still denied basic rights."ActionAid believes that including women in the peace, reconciliation, and transition processes is the best means of safeguarding and furthering women's hard-won civil freedoms and human rights." The charity warned that forced marriage and child marriage remained common in Afghanistan and only 13 percent of women there were literate, compared to 43 percent of men.Selay Ghaffar, Executive Director of the "Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of Afghanistan" organisation, said that "After the fall of the Taliban, things got better. But then gradually, after 2006, the situation got worse."All these efforts were undermined because of security and the presence of people who committed crimes and abuses in the past who are still in power."Girls' schools shut down, acid was thrown in girls' faces, schools were burnt down." Some women's rights activists fear that the international community could strike a peace deal with the Taliban without safeguarding women's involvement and interests during the peace negotiations.The report called on international powers to include women's organisations in peace talks, directly fund Afghan women's organisations, and ensure women's human rights are a non-negotiable part of any political settlement."