American actress and refugee activist Angelina Jolie has called for support of women's rights and their representation in government's negotiating team.
In an op-ed published on American magazine Time on Wednesday, Jolie said that when the Taliban seized power in 1996, it waged war against Afghan women.
“Girls’ education was banned. Women were confined to the home and denied the right to work. They were flogged, beaten, mutilated and stoned to death for supposed immorality,” she wrote.
She said that women made progress after the Taliban’s fall, but warned that the progress is fragile and that they still routinely face discrimination and violence.
“While no one doubts the need for peace, Afghan women want to know that they won’t be betrayed, and their rights won’t be undermined, by these negotiations,” Jolie wrote.
“There won’t be stability if a peace agreement ushers in a new era of injustice and oppression of women. It would be a tragic outcome after nearly 40 years of conflict in the country,” she said.
As Afghan government representatives are expected to meet the Taliban in Qatar, Jolie called for including female negotiators in significant numbers as part of any Afghan government delegation.
Jolie also called for inclusion of women’s rights and concerns on the formal agenda of peace talks.
She said women should have leadership roles during the development and implementation of any agreement and be consulted on all aspects of the future of the country—not just “women’s issues.”
She called for US and other countries to support Afghan women and to veto any peace deal that does not protect their rights.
“Afghan women should not be left alone to defend their rights before an organization that has traditionally treated them as inferior beings,” she said.
Jolie said that the agenda of equal rights for women in Afghanistan is not a Western imposition. She pointed out that Afghan women earned the right to vote in 1919, a year before the U.S. passed the 19th Amendment, and their 1960 constitution had guaranteed equal rights.
“The war in Afghanistan has been the defining foreign policy issue of our generation. After all the sacrifices made, we must seek to end the conflict on the right terms. We need a peace that is built on human rights in order for it to last,” Jolie wrote.