Rights advocates fear rollback of women’s gains in Afghanistan
Advocates fear withdrawal of most international troops and aid agencies from country will see some hard-won improvements rolled back
Parwan Wafa is headmistress of a school for 1,800 girls between seven and 17 years old in a rural region of Afghanistan that has been terrorised by Islamist insurgents for more than a decade.
Four years ago, Wafa's 17-year-old son was kidnapped. His captors threatened to kill him unless Wafa closed down her school, the Charbagh Village Girls' Secondary School in Qarghayi district of Laghman province, where almost half the houses have been destroyed in the war with the Taliban.
For 15 months, Wafa, 47, received a barrage of phone calls telling her that the life of her son, Homayoon, was the price she would have to pay for educating girls. Then the boy was murdered. His body was thrown in a river, and when it washed up, his arms were tied behind his back and he had clearly been tortured.
"He was killed with brutality," Wafa said in London last week, where she came to meet politicians and policymakers to discuss Afghanistan's needs after international combat troops withdraw at the end of this year.
"There was no question about why he was killed. The phone calls would tell me to stop my work, close the school, stop educating girls. The only reason my son was killed was because I was involved in promoting girls' education and the welfare of women in general," she said.
"But it is not just about education. In 2006, I stood for parliament. The vote was rigged against me, even though the people of my own community supported me. There were others more powerful who did not want a woman in power.
"It is all and only because I am a woman," said Wafa, with a sigh that betrays the resignation she shares with working women across her country for whom the threat of violence is as natural as drawing breath.