Trapped and Silenced: The Women and Girls of Afghanistan

Discussion from 6:30PM
Patron cocktail reception to follow

When the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021, women and girls were left uncertain of their basic rights and futures. The Taliban government initially promised to allow them to exercise their rights within Sharia law, but it has maintained hardline policies restricting women’s ability to work, access to education and freedom of movement. Women hold no cabinet positions in the current administration and there are no plans to reinstate the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

How have women’s and girls’ lives changed after the Taliban stopped them from attending secondary school and university and banned most female aid workers? What does the future hold for girls and women when their educational opportunities and leadership roles have been severely curtailed? What are some of the immediate and long-term implications of these policies for the future of the country? What can the international community do to prevent further backsliding of girls’ education and women’s rights in Afghanistan?

Join us in-person for a Patrons-only cocktail reception with Manizha Wafeq, Asia 21 Next Generation Fellow and PEACE THROUGH BUSINESS Country Facilitator for Afghanistan.

To register for this special opportunity or join as a Patron of Asia Society, please email patrons@asiasociety.org or call 212-327-9369.

Speakers

Muqadasa Ahmadzai (via video) is a professional specialist at Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs, and a social and political activist working to promote gender equality, education and mobilize women in Afghanistan. She was awarded an N-Peace award by the United Nations Development Program, and named one of the BBC's 100 Women in 2021. Previously, she served as deputy speaker and member of the youth of Nangarhar province in Afghanistan’s Youth Parliament, and is Founder and Director of the Kor Association, an organization that has around 2500 female members that coordinates and supports local and national advocacy efforts, media campaigns, and cultural events to raise awareness about women’s rights, child labor, and peacebuilding. She participated in the Afghanistan and Pakistan peace dialogues held in Istanbul-Turkey to represent the voice of Afghan women.

Manizha Wafeq currently serves as PEACE THROUGH BUSINESS Country Facilitator for Afghanistan teaching and mentoring Afghan businesswomen, and is an Asia Society Asia 21 Next Generation Fellow. She co-founded several organizations to advocate for women's economic empowerment, including the PEACE THROUGH BUSINESS Network and Leading Entrepreneurs for Afghanistan’s Development (LEAD), a predecessor organization to the Afghanistan Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AWCCI). She is the winner of several awards such as the Enterprising Women Award Global Award, Leadership Award from the National Business Association of the U.S., and Young Activist Award from the Afghan Women's Network and the Afghan Lower House of the Parliament. She also founded the Bibi Khadija Award, an annual award honoring successful businesswomen and role models in Afghanistan. The award is named after the Prophet Mohammad's wife, the first Muslim woman trader. She founded Afghanistan Women's Trade Caravan and MadebyAfghanwomen.com (a full-fledged online sales platform for women business owners) after August 15th, 2021 to support Afghan women businesses inside and outside the country.

Asila Wardak is a human rights and women's rights activist, a former Afghan diplomat, board member of Women Forum on Afghanistan, and senior fellow at Harvard University. She is also an independent human rights commissioner at the Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). As a diplomat, she served as Minister Counselor at the Permanent Mission of Afghanistan to the United Nations, Director General of UN Affairs in Afghanistan, and as Director General of Human rights in the Afghan Foreign Ministry. She has served in senior positions with the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, UNDP, UN Women, UNAMA, CARE International, and the Canada Fund. She has extensive work experience in the field of gender studies, human rights, peacebuilding and community development. She was one of the female delegates in active participation at the participated actively in the Bonn 1, which established a new government following the Taliban collapse in 2001. She also worked with the Afghan High Peace Council from 2016-2020, and she was one of the delegates at the Doha/Qatar Peace Talks in 2019 representing the Afghan government with the Taliban.

Dr. Barnett R. Rubin (moderator) is Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center, Distinguished Fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC), and a non-resident senior fellow at the Quincy Institute. He previously served as CIC's Senior Fellow and Director of the Afghanistan Regional Program from 2000 to 2020. From April 2009 until October 2013, he was the Senior Adviser to the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the U.S. Department of State . He previously served as special advisor to the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan, during the negotiations that produced the Bonn Agreement. He subsequently advised the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on the drafting of the constitution of Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Compact and the Afghanistan National Development Strategy. From 1994 to 2000, he was director of the Center for Preventive Action and director of Peace and Conflict Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He is the author of Afghanistan from the Cold War through the War on Terror (2013), The Fragmentation of Afghanistan (1995, 2nd ed. 2002), and other books. He also reintroduced the distillation of essential oils to Afghanistan by co-founding Gulestan Ariana Ltd. in 2004. The company continues to operate in Nangarhar province under the name Orzala Naturals.