What role can women play in providing peace and security in the world in threatening times?

This global question and the emergence of further critical questions about the future status and rights of women in postwar Afghanistan and Iraq brought together Florida International University faculty, staff, and students, United States Government and United Nations policymakers, and representatives of international non-governmental organizations at a conference held at Florida International University March 12 and 13, 2004.

The conference, organized jointly by Karen Garner, director of FIU’s Women’s Center in the Division of Student Affairs, Elisabeth Prügl, associate professor of International Relations, and Judith Stiehm, professor of Political Science, was part of an international effort to bring attention to issues of human rights and democratization in Afghanistan and Iraq. For two days, at keynote addresses and panel sessions, conference participants focused on strategies to implement U.S. Government policies and U.N. resolutions to include women in the new postwar governments and on key linkages between women and democracy building.

The conference took place at a most opportune moment. In the past several years, the United States and the United Nations have both committed to involving women in peace building and postwar reconstruction efforts. President George W. Bush has stated unequivocally that “respect for women” is among his administration’s foreign policy imperatives. Charlotte Ponticelli, who heads the Office of International Women’s Issues at the U.S. State Department, who delivered one of the conference keynote addresses, is dedicated to making sure the president’s pledge is backed up with funded programs that will increase Afghani and Iraqi women’s involvement in civic and political life.

In 2000, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1325 calling for women’s involvement in all international peacemaking and peacekeeping missions. With this resolution, the U.N. Security Council recognized that women play key roles in achieving sustainable peace when they are active participants in conflict resolution and postwar reconstruction.

Several of the women who were instrumental in researching, formulating, and publicizing Resolution 1325, Mikele Aboitiz, Judith, Stiehm, and Sherrill Whittington, spoke at a panel session to explain its history and significance. They, and other conference participants, including Genevieve Kyarimpa from Uganda, also outlined the Resolution’s uneven application in other post-conflict zones. They emphasized the ongoing need to monitor and publicize the political and social situations affecting women in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in a renewed conflict zone that is even closer to home in Miami, in Haiti.

Conference participants discussed the many obstacles to incorporating women into postwar democratic nation building in Afghanistan and Iraq. While some of these obstacles are shared by both countries, it was understood that each country has a unique history and, because of that history, faces unique contemporary challenges. When discussing these nations, conference speakers recognized a number of basic propositions. First, that the need for international engagement in democracy building is long term. Second, that democracy building must be inclusive of the whole society. Democracy does not mean the unchecked exercise of majority rule; rather, it means that the rights of minorities are protected within a pluralistic system. With these propositions as a foundation, the underlying question remains “How does Islamic law mesh with democratic principles?”

News reports of continuing violence in Afghanistan and Iraq punctuated the conference proceedings and participants were reminded again and again that the status of Muslim women is regressing as Islamic militancy continues to rise. Anita Sharma, Director of the Conflict Prevention Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center announced during her keynote address the murders of Fern Holland and Salwa Ali Oumashi, and their fellow Coalition Provisional Authority worker, Bob Zangas. All had been killed by gunmen on March 11, the eve of the conference, on route to Baghdad from the Zainab al-Hawra Center for Women’s Rights in Karbala.

Although some significant steps have been taken to acknowledging women’s rights, the new governors in postwar Afghanistan and Iraq have yet to commit unequivocally to empowering women within their societies. Meena Nanji, a Los Angeles filmmaker who traveled to Afghanistan in 2003 reported:

“For most women, life has not changed much since the end of the Taliban. While there are increased opportunities--women can go to school, receive health care, and gain employment--
in reality few women can take advantage of these possibilities, and they are largely restricted to Kabul. Women continue to be very fearful of the Mujahideen, who exert control over most of the country. Most women, even in Kabul, still wear the burqa as a protective measure against public humiliation and physical attack.”

In December 2003, Iraqi women leaders wrote to Paul Bremer, head of the CPA in Baghdad. They criticized the limited roles assigned to women in Iraq’s Governing Council and argued that “The CPA should have created a balanced power structure from the outset, one that would have enabled Iraqi women, representing 60 percent of the population and the voice of mainstream Iraq, to have equal authority over policy decisions for the nation. This should have been done not only to prevent discrimination against 60 percent of the population, but also because of the value of women in politics. Indeed, statistics show that women's participation in political life precipitates high levels of transparency, social responsiveness, economic growth, and democratization while minimizing corruption.”

With these critiques in mind, conference participants discussed the lessons learned about empowering women from the many other postwar reconstruction and peace building processes that went forward in different regions of the globe in the 1990s. In particular they asked which of these lessons were appropriate in Afghanistan or in Iraq. In practical terms, discussions focused on identifying the education, skills, tools, and resources that will be needed to make ‘women’s empowerment’ more than the catchwords they have become in the realm of international politics.

Within both nations, courageous women activists are speaking out to make their needs clear to their own national leaders and to the international community that supports their claims for a voice in national affairs. These women are going against some cultural traditions, and history and customs, but their claims aren’t unprecedented. Both Afghanistan and Iraq also have histories of educating women and girls, and histories of women’s involvement in public life.

At the outset, conference goals included maintaining an international focus on these human rights and democratization issues and to giving women, like Manizha Naderi, the Director of Community Outreach for Women for Afghan Women based in New York and the conference luncheon speaker, a forum for sharing her lived experiences and articulating the views of Afghan women.

The Women and Postwar Reconstruction Conference web site, developed by Juan Lopez and Abbas Salehmohamed of the FIU Honors College, includes the remarks of conference speakers, and serves as an educational and organizational vehicle to share current information
about similar initiatives among those in the academic, government, and activist worlds.

The Women and Postwar Reconstruction Conference was co-sponsored by The College of Arts and Sciences, The College of Business Administration, The Division of Student Affairs, The Honors College, The Institute for Asian Studies, The International Relations Department, The Student Government Association Lectures Committee, Undergraduate Studies, The Women’s
Center, and The Women’s Studies Center. http://www.hon.fiu.edu/~conference