By Rukhshana Media
In an indoor gathering in Kabul on Wednesday, a group of women questioned the international community for deciding who should represent Afghan women on the international platforms.
“We want representatives who live among us, who understand the restrictions and problems we are facing,” one of the protesters said in videos organizers shared with Rukhshana Media.
“We raised our voice [to say] we don’t accept the women who [the international community] selected to represent Afghan women, as our representative,” Raha*, a protester, told Rukhshana Media in a phone interview.
“The [chosen representatives] cannot represent us because they live in the West, and they don’t know the suffering of women who came to the street,” she added.
The criticism came on the second day of a two-day (February 1-2) event hosted by the European Parliament on the situation of Afghan women in Afghanistan.
Some former female government officials and former chairs of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission spoke in the European Parliament.
The women who gathered in Kabul also called on the Taliban to release the activists who were abducted in Kabul two weeks ago.
“There is no news on our sisters who are missing, and this is the situation that forces us to resist,” Raha said.
On Tuesday, the UN raised concern over the continued disappearance of at least six people in connection with the recent women’s rights protests in Kabul, calling on the Taliban to “take all possible measures to ensure their safe and immediate release, and to hold those responsible to account.”
Despite women rights activists being abducted and disappeared, women continue to raise their voices, demanding their rights.
“We, the women of Afghanistan, don’t have the rights to freedom, work, education, and movement. We were threatened and suppressed on the streets; now, we gather indoors. But we will not be silenced until we receive our rights,” Sama*, one of the protesters, told Rukhshana Media.
*Pseudonyms have been used to protect the identities of interviewees.
