Muslim Women in War and Crisis: Representation and Reality

4. Afghanistan. Gendered Aid Interventions and Afghan Women: Images versus Realities

4 gendered aid interventions and afghan WoMen Images versus Realities l i n a abi r afe h Gender policies do not operate in a sociopolitical vacuum. In the wake of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, women’s issues have become highly contested and politicized, yet there is a dearth of research and analysis on the formulation, intent, implementation, and effects of gender-focused aid. It may be argued that Afghanistan’s particularly high-profile focus on women in the aftermath of conflict has remained at the level of rhetoric and has failed to translate into funding and significant gains for Afghan women. The current political project in Afghanistan is not unlike previous projects in that it demonstrates the gendered nature of conflict and the potential resistance to externally enforced social change. The case of Afghanistan presents a unique opportunity to critically rethink so-called gender-focused aid interventions. Data that inform this work were collected from 2002 to 2006 and include the perspectives and experiences of gender policy makers and practitioners,1 as well as Afghan women and men. a gendered history Afghan history is one of gender politics. Women’s rights have always been highly politicized terrain, amplified by twenty-three years of conflict. Attempts at modernization have been made in several critical stages throughout modern Afghan history.2 Each time, these modernizations carried the perception that reforms were imported and artificially imposed.3 And each time these reforms, especially those relating to women’s rights, were met with strong resistance. In the 1880s the Afghan ruler Amir Abd al-Rahman Khan (and later his son Amir Habibullah) launched one of the earliest attempts at women’s emancipation and social reform in the Muslim world. Women’s emancipation thus began to play a prominent role in the nationalist ideology of modafg han i stan 78 lina abirafeh ernization (Hans 2004). During the 1920s King Amanullah sought to drastically transform gender relations by enforcing Western norms for women,4 measures that were in turn met with violent opposition and swiftly replaced by more conservative policy. King Nadir Shah’s brief reign (1929–1933) saw the closing of girls’ schools and the revival of veiling and segregation. Indeed , although modernization attempts were made by rulers that followed, these attempts were invariably met with strong opposition from conservative forces. Despite incremental changes, women’s rights vacillated between enforced modernization and conservative backlash. Following the Saur (April) Revolution of 1978 and its program for social change, Afghan women once again found themselves at the center of a conflict between Western concepts of modernization and Afghan codes of culture (Hans 2004). Opposition to Soviet occupation–enforced reforms for women fueled the fundamentalist movement that took hold in refugee camps. This in turn served as grounds for the Mujaheddin opposition to expel the Soviets and regain control both of women and of Afghanistan.5 Despite these vacillations, the international aid community and the Western media’s attention turned to Afghanistan—and Afghan women—only when the Taliban secured control. The Taliban’s crimes against women became well documented and acknowledged, yet Afghan women suffered under all the regimes in Afghanistan. Today the country enjoys a democratically elected government and relative stability (mostly confined to Kabul). In this period of alleged liberation, history repeats itself. Once again Afghan women face another period of imported and imposed social change. As Afghan history has aptly demonstrated, a conservative backlash inevitably follows. gendered interventions In any postwar region, it is not unusual for aid agencies to be under great pressure to achieve immediate results. Unfortunately, in the case of Afghanistan , aid programs were designed and instituted before gender analyses could be thoroughly conducted. As a result, these aid programs have been unable to adequately integrate women—and men—in their efforts. A report to this effect states that Afghan “women have traditionally been viewed as a target group distinct from the socio-political, economic and cultural context, and humanitarian and development programmes are often based on unfounded assumptions and preconceptions” (Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit 2005). To this end, activists working on behalf of Afghan women frequently advocate that aid interventions should focus on the perspectives of 79 gendered aid interventions and afghan WoMen Afghan women and men, as those voices and viewpoints are for the most part absent in the international arena (Skaine 2002). Until the fall of Kabul on September 27, 1996, the...