Ahead of the International Women's Day on 8th March, International Development Secretary Priti Patel visited Afghanistan and met the First Lady Rula Ghani, a champion of women's rights in the country. She also visited a HALO Trust training site where funding from the UK has aided their staff in learning to identify and safely remove mines and other unexploded ordnance.
The basic indicators of gender equality, however, still remain dismal in Afghanistan with female literacy rates being as low as 17%, and merely 19% women who are employed, and an estimated 87% women experiencing violence, abuse and sexual harassment.
The theme for this year's International Women's Day is titled 'Be Bold for Change'. Furthering this, Priti Patel urged that countries will only be able to fully recover from conflicts if they involve women in building security and stability. It has long been a global mission to bring women forward to play a full and active role in politics, peace-building, and businesses. However, despite some favourable legislations in 2004, more than seven million children in Afghanistan are currently attending school out of which only 39% of them are girls. On the bright side, there has been significant progress in maternal healthcare; and women now hold 28% of parliamentary seats in the country. Ms. Patel welcomed the progress Afghanistan has made on women’s rights and girls’ education since the Taliban’s repressive rule.
She also spoke to female students, teachers and community advocates who benefit from the UK-funding that has helped provide education to more than 300,000 girls from rural and impoverished communities, who have had zilch opportunities to learn under Taliban rule. She visited a UK-funded health centre that provides primary healthcare services including delivering babies, treating child malnutrition, immunisations and family planning services. These initiatives are aimed to fuel the global need for gender equality initiatives.
Whilst in Afghanistan, the International Development Secretary also met President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah. She reaffirmed the UK’s enduring commitment to working with the Afghan Government and civil society to improve rights for women and girls, and underlined that this was a critical part of the UK’s pledge of up to £750 million, made at the Brussels Development Conference last year. She also spent two days in Pakistan prior to visiting Afghanistan where she met Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar, the Chief Minister of Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif and Ahsan Iqbal, Minister of Planning and Development, to discuss the future of women's rights in the country.
