Where's Dara?

I sat down with 2 young women, who had removed their burkas as they walked into the compound, and, after a long day, saw a slice of hope.

The women worked for a local radio station for women, by women, about women. They use our internet (however slow it may be), and wanted to meet me and my other new staff member, our Gender Assistant. [Yes, we have the most ridiculous names for posts.]

After the requisite ‘nice to meet you’s and ‘you are doing great work’, we began talking about the issue at the front of our minds: the “16 Days of Activisms Against Gender-based Violence”. It was coming up fast—25 November –10 December and the region and our office just did not have good activists events. It was frustrating me to no end.

Over the past week, my newly arrived Gender Assistant and I had been canvassing the key actors—the Department of Women’s Affairs and the Independent Human Rights Commission to see what they were doing. And we were discouraged. No one who should know knew what we were talking about or if they did they had the days all wrong.

It got to the point where my Gender Assistant turned to me and said, “Are you sure we are right about the dates?” (I checked my files when we got back to the office, doubting myself as well. I was right.) After the third person told us the wrong dates, my Gender Assistant said, “Is Afghanistan in some alternate reality?” “Seems to be,” I said.

These young women, however, were not part of the alternate reality. As we chatted about ideas we were kicking around for more activists events, one of them said, “Why can’t we give the victim’s a voice? Why can’t we give them an opportunity to tell their stories and expose the awful things happening to them?” It was a great idea.

As we developed it with them, I got more excited. After a week and half of pulling teeth in the office for national staff’s ideas, here were two intelligent young Afghan women developing a program. It gave me hope for Afghanistan.

Postscipt: On 29 November, the Department of Women’s Affairs in each of the three of the region’s province facilitated a radio program called “Giving Victims Voices”, in which victims of violence against women spoke about their ordeals. The response was positive, and the hope is that help create momentum to address these awful cases.