Fazalhaq Neda
In traditional Afghan society, women have an important place and a vital role in the peace process. Most language and cultural groups in Afghanistan are rustic. This means that it is the women’s line that determines kinship and the inheritance and use of land rights. There is a saying in Afghanistan that women are mothers of the land. with this go other key responsibilities such as keeping the family wealth and recording family history. However, it has not been usual for women to exercise political power in the public arena, a spokesperson in the family or clan.
Women’s groups played a major role in working for peace at local and material levels. Individual women used their high states in the family to negotiate peace in their communities and managed to use their influence as go-between whit warring factions to maintain a constructive dialogue. Mothers went into the bush to attempt to bring their sons home.
All Afghan women were affected by the war, but their experiences are different in some respects depending on whether they were in government-controlled areas or not. For those of us in government-controlled areas, it was ‘life between two guns. Freedom of movement and communication was restricted whenever there was a military operation, affecting the supply of medicines, basic store goods, and the provision of education.
Women have important roles and responsibilities in afghan’s culture, women have struggled to participate directly in the formal political peace process, which has been dominated by men. However, our different forms of support for a negotiated solution to the conflict, often expressed from the sidelines at official meetings and or through discreet lobbying of the different parties, have maintained vital pressure on the men to continue to search for peace.
Finally, including of women greater in the peace process. The women hold custodial rights of over land by clan inheritance. Afghans insist that women leaders must be a party to all stages of the political process in determining the future of Afghanistan.
