Afghanistan lacking women leadership
Women leadership in Afghanistan either has been manipulative or hegemonic seeking power or wealth for political parties. Patriotism and favorism for women has been a critical missing factor in all political and social women leaders’ agenda.
High rate of illiteracy, economic dependency, religious and cultural forces, patriarchy and sexism (The believe that women are made just for sex) have always been main factors that challenged women to pull up out of longing period of dependency and periphery.
Tradition and religion are also the challenging factors against women participation in political, economic and social activities. Neglecting the historical and philosophical discourses, the manifest and interpretations of religions caused women to be pushed down and backward as far as possible.
Western experts and super skill advisers so far have been providing wrong advices for the political leaders and social activists. This can be studied comparatively with false paradigm of international dependence revolution which has been accommodated in many third world countries by western civilizations.
Historical case studies of other countries could be a good example for Afghan women to focus and comparatively evaluated the political, social and ecological changes for adaption. Amanullah Khan Afghanistan king (1919-1929) was a good example of providing opportunities for women which unfortunately he faced challenges by dogmatic and discriminative thoughts of illiterate people and foreign interference which cost him the throne.
During the Taliban regime situations were very worse for women due to unemployment opportunities and security factors for male to work outside of their houses; women were working more than 16 to 18 hours at home to maintain their normal life.
The plague has gone, but is not eradicated yet. Still women are working in most of the rural areas as slaves of their husband; women subordination of men has become one of the main concepts of couple life and families. Any action or initiative to break this relation can cost the women life.
The situations can be handled by implement reforms by government, critically a government that has control over the geographical and political territory, security and internal corruption.
Western countries under the leadership of USA do not has the interest in changing situations by providing different alternatives or either situation is manipulative for them. Afghan political leaders and parties are missing the collective agenda toward a stable Afghanistan.
There have been no visionary changes in leaders of the Afghanistan. Still neighboring countries have influences over the political leaders most of the country. One of the main abusive constraints is cultural factors. Language has played a critical and divergence role in Afghanistan. 60 to 75 percent of this country population could be easily manipulated by some inter-language words of Persian, Pashto words; other domestic factors are ethnically and historical discourses that can destabilize the whole situation of the country.
The situations can be handled by conclusive and crucial decisions by Afghans. It requires progressive sequences of changes and strives, the incumbent and imminent steps that foreign donors and global society somehow must provide.
* Education:
Without formal education and increasing the literacy rate, the current religious and manipulative situation of the country cannot be handled. Afghan government should allocate a large amount of funds for the education of the Afghan children. Only male children participation do not solve the situation priority should be given to female children. Today unfortunately large population of the country are facing the poverty and economical problems, alternatives should be provided to the families by Afghan Government in order to help them to allow their children to go to school. A 60 % literate situation could easily change the situations.
* Public awareness:
The messages have always been miss transformed or miss interpreted by media. Afghanistan government with involving the authentic and promising media experts should focus on providing public awareness as a long term process not a project. The cultural divergence needs to be completely removed from the institutions and constitutions.
* Corruption:
Afghan government is not undertaking the control of corruption, and that is why we can’t have a stable country. Investments should not be wasted by government and NGOs; instead a more focus should be given on infrastructures
* Security:
Security is a critical factor of national and foreign investment in Afghanistan. Men forces and money are flowing out of country due to insecurity and no assurance of the political structure of country. Borders should be defined. A powerful central government with military forces back up and political diplomacy could cut off the interference of foreign countries in Afghanistan by manipulating betrayal leaders.
* Employment opportunities :
A very concerning problem of the country is unemployment. Thousands of the youth in each province of the country is suffering from unemployment factors which accelerates the other domestic crimes and violence, and cause the security worsening.
Lacking women leadership, the election is getting close, political leaders are pushing women into politics or encompassing them for the election. Beside this situation USA and western countries are also backing and featuring some Afghan women with dark history into political campaign.
In one of the latest program of the CCN Fouzia Kofi was feature as a hero, she was talking about his personal life and her goals” When I was born my family didn’t wanted me to have because I was a girl”
These manipulative statements are just for raising western funds that they believe to support women to change their life situations. Another issue is to seduce and manipulate the Afghan women if they are willing to vote to another right leader, an abusive action that can easily blind the illiterate people.
She was also talking about her main goals and changes that she will bring. Media should provide sufficient information to people about the background and family background of the political leaders in order to aware people to make the right decision.
First Fouzia family wasn’t poor family not up bring a female child. The second issue is her brother is one of the Afghanistan smugglers which have been featured many times in news but due to their influences on political structures and intergovernmental relations and media they have controlled the situations. We still have many choices to make but we have to make the good one.
The last point is without creating a stable atmosphere for the Afghan women any investment is wasted. Every year there are thousands of scholarships with fewer criterion for Afghan women. They get scholarship but in return the situations are worse for them in Afghanistan, they can’t work and can participate in political and social events, following this they leave the country.
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[ 1 ]. Sexism is a set of beliefs claiming that real or alleged differences between women and men establishing the superiority of one sex over the other. Also known as discrimination or devaluation based on a person’s sex, as in restricted job opportunities. They believe women are made just for sex.