Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan

In 1997, The Feminist Majority launched the Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan to urge the US government and the U.N. to do everything in their power to restore the human rights of Afghan women and girls. Chaired by Mavis Leno, the Feminist Majority Foundation's campaign has brought together more than 200 leading human rights and women's organizations to condemn the Taliban's human rights abuses against women and girls and to put pressure on the US and UN to end gender apartheid in Afghanistan. The Campaign has been successful in increasing public awareness about the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan, preventing US and UN recognition of the Taliban, increasing the admission of Afghan women and girls as refugees, increasing humanitarian aid to the region and pressuring UNOCAL, a California oil company to abandon its plans for an Afghan oil and gas pipeline which would have produced over $100 million in royalties for the Taliban. With the fall of the Taliban regime, the Feminist Majority Foundation began working to convey to the world that women are an essential part of the solution for the future of Afghanistan . In 2002, the Feminist Majority Foundation intensified its nationwide public education campaign - renaming it the Campaign For Afghan Women and Girls - to win the full and permanent restoration of women's rights, promote the leadership of women in the planning and governing of post-Taliban Afghanistan, increase and monitor the provision of emergency and reconstruction assistance to women and girls, urge the expansion of peacekeeping forces, and support the Afghan Ministry for Women's Affairs, the Afghan Independent Rights Commission and Afghan women-led non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

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Contributor: Anuradha Bhattacharjee
Published Date: April 11, 2008