All rights reserved. Fourteen-year-old Ali was raised as a boy in a practice known in Afghanistan as bacha posh. Ali's sisters stand behind her in the room they share. Throughout history, women have disguised themselves as men to navigate entrenched social roles. They have dressed as men to fight wars , join religious orders, or prosper professionally.
Every day, for the past 18 years, WAW has been protecting, promoting, and defending the rights of Afghan women and girls. Today, the political tide is putting the rights of Afghan women and girls —and the substantial progress they have made since the fall of the Taliban— at-risk. We must not let this happen. Donate to the Afghan Women's Protection Fund today!
KABUL, Afghanistan — It was a rare sight, even after 18 years of progress in Afghanistan: more than women from across the country, gathered to send an unequivocal message to the men now negotiating with the Taliban. The conference in Kabul, six months in the making, represented a watershed moment at a time when Afghans are struggling to comprehend what peace with the Taliban would bring, even as the war with the militant group is as deadly as ever. American diplomats are holding talks with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, but the Afghan government is not involved.
Khalida Khorsand, a year-old rights activist from the western Afghan city of Herat, is skeptical about Taliban claims that it has dispensed with its strict rules against girls' education and women working. The militant Islamic group made the declaration in the midst of recent peace talks with U. But Khorsand still remembers the notorious repressions under Taliban rule as a teenager in the western city of Herat when she risked the death penalty to study literature in a class disguised as a women's sewing group.