“Even that red line no longer exists”

Ms. Çalışkan, you have advocated for women’s rights for many years and lived in Afghanistan in 2010. What was your experience of the situation there?

At that time, the Petersberg Agreement of 2001 was in force, which structured the political transition after the fall of the first Taliban regime. There were positive developments for women’s rights, and schools for girls were reopened. These successes encouraged us feminists to throw ourselves into our work. Unfortunately, history is repeating itself and another generation of Afghan women is now facing a Taliban regime – and once again organising underground schools for girls.

How did the women’s-rights movement use that period of new freedoms?

Under pressure from the United Nations (UN), the first democratic government of Afghanistan had to ratify many international agreements, including CEDAW, the UN women’s-rights convention. At least 25 % of seats in Parliament now had to be filled by women. Civil-society organisations (NGOs) launched clever campaigns in order to ensure that women’s issues were brought into politics. For example, my colleagues at medica mondiale Afghanistan brought candidates a list of demands that they wanted them to include in their political agendas. In return, the women’s-rights activists promised the candidates hundreds of votes from their respective clans. This idea was later adopted with great enthusiasm by medica mondiale colleagues in Kosovo. It allowed them to skilfully use the prevailing clan structure to promote women’s rights. I first encountered this approach in my own Muslim migrant worker family. Whenever possible, we used social and religious beliefs to fight for our own rights and freedoms.

A lot changed in Afghanistan during that time. What, specifically, were women’s-rights activists able to achieve?

Legislation to protect women from violence and discrimination was promoted. These initiatives were supported by influential Afghan and international feminists who often worked for large institutions like the UN, the European Union (EU) and national delegations. They built strong alliances. The combined pressure from Afghan and international women’s-rights activists led to the passage of a law to fight violence against women in 2009, for example. There were other successes relating to healthcare. Afghanistan’s maternal mortality rate is the second highest in the world. When I started working for medica mondiale in 2003, I was impressed by the Afghan women doctors and former Taliban opponents who went back to Afghanistan with us after the fall of the regime to offer their expertise in hospitals. They taught medical personnel how to recognise gender-specific trauma. Later they built a system to document violations of the human rights of women hospital patients. I used this data to create political pressure and sent it to the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women. And still these projects achieved much more than was recorded in the evaluations.

What exactly do you mean? What else did the international projects achieve?

Working together for women’s rights changed us all: I saw how strong women can be in the most terrible situations and how skilfully they negotiate when faced with hardliners in ministries, families, the military and prisons. They only needed solidarity and support from the outside to exercise their power. The everyday lives of my Afghan colleagues changed too. Thanks to their work for Afghan and international non-governmental organisations, for the UN or the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), they earned their own money and could contribute to household decisions. They drove cars on their own and went on business trips; some studied alongside their work. When their spouses travelled for work, they could sleep at home instead of having to stay with their mothers-in-law. It was difficult for some of our women lawyers to defend clients in court who had been arrested, along with their children, for supposedly committing adultery. The society considered the accused, as well as their defenders, bad people. But attitudes were changing.

And then international troops withdrew from Afghanistan.

The air went out of women’s lungs on 15 August 2021, the day they were banished once again to hearth and home. Today, when I look back on 20 years of international presence in Afghanistan, I see an international breach of trust with the Afghans. The Enquete Commission’s final report on Germany’s mission in Afghanistan called progress on women’s rights and the establishment of a civil society “partial successes” while declaring the entire Afghanistan mission a failure.

Since the Taliban took power in 2021, women’s rights have once again been massively restricted. How are women there nevertheless trying to create freedoms for themselves or protest against the situation today?

Nowadays activists are risking their lives to defend themselves against the misogynistic laws of the Taliban. Given the fact that women have been banished from public life and the workforce, it’s good that we now have social media. There women can share demands, provide information about human-rights violations and mobilise support from abroad. Online platforms offer a certain amount of protection. They make it possible, despite access restrictions, to draw international attention to events in Afghanistan and document them in order to someday bring perpetrators before national courts and the International Court of Justice. Women are also defending themselves against the ignorance of western decision-makers, who were mobilising the military and defending human, women’s and girls' rights just a few years ago, but now are silent and looking the other way. During the government negotiations with the Taliban in Doha, education for girls was the only red line the western negotiators, including the Germans, drew. And now even that red line no longer exists.

How are aid organisations and activists reacting to this situation?

In December 2024, the Taliban’s latest attempt to restrict the activities of NGOs became public. The UN Security Council discovered that the efforts of more and more Afghan women humanitarian aid workers were being hampered. Yet their work is key for survival in the current humanitarian crisis. The one silver lining is the division within the Taliban regarding the interpretation of Islam. Some reject schooling for girls after age 12 and insist that they stay home, marry and become housewives and mothers. Others would actually let them study, though separately from men. Both groups are basing their views on Islam. Latching onto these contradictions is the only opportunity right now for international aid organisations and local activists to negotiate rights for women and girls.

What needs to happen in order for civil society to be able to continue this work?

For years we have needed more money for feminist movements, more women UN peacekeepers, women and BIPOC diplomats and a serious effort to reduce poverty as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We need more gender mainstreaming and representation of women in the security sector, including in UN peacekeeping missions and the European Union’s military and civilian missions. We need penalties for sexualised violence in such missions and a refugee law that protects women and children from gender-based violence. People have been aware of the problem for some time, but institutions have been unwilling to change, and reforms have also faced patriarchal-nationalistic backlash in many countries. The consequences of not fully implementing these goals can be seen in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement in Iran.

After the death of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022, thousands took to the streets in Iran. From a German perspective, what should have happened differently?

Despite its professedly feminist foreign policy, the German government has let down Iran’s courageous civil society. Germany has said nothing in response to the current wave of executions. The main argument for realpolitik is always economic and security interests – in this case, the much sought-after regional stability. It cannot be achieved, however, while at the same time condoning massive human-rights violations. By providing economic and military support, western countries are giving these governments enormous power over global events and ultimately contributing to instability and armed conflicts, as can be seen in Iran, Syria, Turkey, Israel or Russia.

Let’s take a look into the future. In 2025, the Beijing Declaration, which promotes equal rights for men and women, will turn 30; UN Resolution 1325, on women, peace and security, will turn 25. How can we use this anniversary year to promote women’s rights?

Particularly in times of anti-democratic policies, we must loudly and clearly demand the political will and the necessary funds for sustainable development, positive peace and gender and climate justice. We have to confront decision-makers with the fact that neither current funding levels nor the condition of the world are adequately supporting women. But we can only overcome polycrises with women’s help.

Selmin Çalışkan is a human-rights expert, strategy consultant and executive coach. Previously, she was the Director of Institutional Relations at the Berlin office of the Open Society Foundations, as well as the Secretary General for Amnesty International Germany. She has also worked for medica mondiale and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), including in Afghanistan.
selmin.caliskan@posteo.de