Injustice!

Souad Sbai, a lawmaker from the People of Freedom Party, holds a banner during a demonstration in Rome for Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, an Afghan journalist who was arrested in 2007 and sentenced to death for blasphemy. His crime was downloading material from the Internet on the role of women in Islamic societies.

Politics and the justice system in Afghanistan still fail to do right by the law for women. The administration of law is ineffective and corrupt in Afghanistan. Despite a 27% quota for women in Parliament, it is rumored that Hamid Karzai - Afghanistan's President, is trying to abolish this.

The few women who are given the opportunity to take part in public life as parliamentarians, in local governance, the media and public administration do so at their own risk. The Afghan government has done little to protect women in public life. Yet another woman provincial council member, Nida Khayani, was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt last month.

Recently, in a London conference, women were conspicuously missing and deliberately excluded from the London conference were the women of Afghanistan. Despite the Afghan government's refusal to include them in the delegation, a number of Afghan women made their own way to London to try to have their voices heard. After much pressure, one was allowed to address the conference for a couple of minutes. The message of the women was loud and clear: they were not prepared to see their rights sacrificed and did not support the plan to give positions of power to the Taliban. The Taliban have many differing aims, but one thing has remained consistent: their opposition to women's rights and equality.

- The Guardian UK

The Afghan government has a duty to involve women in all the implementation mechanisms of peace agreements and conflict resolution under UN Security Resolution 1325, which recognises the critical role of women in promoting peace and security and calls for increased representation of women in decision-making.

The "peace jirga" to be held later on this month by Karzai welcomes 1,200 Afghan people - of which, only 115 are women.

In order for reconciliation to happen in Afghanistan - The Education Effect Team believes that the women of Afghanistan need to be consulted, for they have suffered the most oppression in these years.

We can't let a gender apartheid happen again! Spread the word.

More at The Guardian by Anber Raz

-The Education Effect