Beyond the Burqa:
Future of Afghan Woman's Rights

Isobel Coleman

When a group of Afghan women leaders met in Kabul in February to discuss the role of women in Afghanistan's political future, they spoke proudly of their accomplishments to date. Since the overthrow of the Taliban in October 2001, Afghan women have achieved the first step of securing important legal and political rights through the country's new constitution. At the local level, women in many communities are participating in public affairs in an unprecedented fashion. Moreover, improving female education is a development goal embraced by leaders across Afghanistan and the international community. Despite these initial successes, they had one key message: women's gains are fragile, and the window of opportunity for securing those gains is closing. They uniformly cited the need for international support for women in Afghanistan.1

Efforts to promote a modern economy and democracy in Afghanistan will be unsuccessful if women do not achieve significant and lasting advances in education, legal rights and political participation. While women in Afghanistan are on a positive trajectory, their gains are still easily reversed.

Lack of security impacts all of Afghanistan, but severely affects women. Many women report that due to security concerns they have less access to the public sphere now than they did under the Taliban. Resurgent fundamentalism also heavily impacts women; the warlords with de facto power over much of the country are no supporters of women's rights. A deeply conservative, patriarchal culture is entrenched throughout Afghanistan. Strict interpretations of Islam reinforce this mindset and lend support to those who resist a public role for women. The legal and political rights women have achieved on paper must still be translated into reality, requiring years of persistence, education, and training of the judiciary. Significant resources are required to close the deep educational and skill deficits that Afghan women are burdened with today.

Isobel Coleman is Senior Fellow, U.S. Foreign Policy, at the Council on Foreign Relations, and is Director of the Council's Women and U.S. Foreign Policy Program.