Afghanistan Women Council

So, I tell Maroof, I'm taking my son to Pakistan - home to an estimated 3 million Afghan refugees. We plan to visit Afghan schools, talk to Afghan children, build a few bridges. We've brought along an enormous suitcase filled with school supplies -- paper, notebooks, markers, pens, etc. -- that Jacob's class has collected.

We've brought two checks that the parents in the class donated as a supplement to the bookmark profits: one that we'll deliver to the UNICEF field office in Peshawar, the other that we'll give to the Ariana School, an organization run by a local Afghan non-governmental organization with which we've been exchanging e-mails.

'I have told the students that a nice boy from America will visit you, 'began one of the e-mails sent by Fatana Gailani, the school's director. 'They exult and I do not know how to express their being so happy. Even the children who never have smiled so far, I saw the cheery smile in their lips. In fact our children need to be supported and sympathized [with], as they are the seeds of peace...'

Tuesday, November 13, 2001
Ariana School, Peshawar
Fatana Gailani, head of both the Afghanistan Women Council and the Ariana School, meets us in the courtyard of her medical clinic, which is packed tight like a box of crayons, with brilliantly robed Afghan women and their sick children. Her arrival sends a frisson of quiet reverence through the crowd.

Gailani, dressed in a modest black veil and traditional tunic and loose pants, has the regal carriage and sophisticated mannerisms of an aristocrat - which, back in the days before war ravaged her country, she was. Only her sad brown eyes are at odds with the mien.

When she spots Jacob, however, her eyes brighten. 'Welcome, young man,' she says. 'We are so grateful for your presence.'Then, noticing some of the women covering their faces with their burqas, sensing others doing the same behind her, she whips her head around and shouts, 'Take those things off right now!'

But Islam dictates...', begins one woman, whom Gailani immediately cuts off. 'Islam dictates no such thing!'she yells. 'You've been brainwashed by the Taliban, brainwashed by your husbands!' Then readjusting her veil, regaining her composure like a parent who's just lost it with her toddler in the supermarket but now must address the cashier, she turns back to us and says, 'Okay, then, we go the the school?'

The Ariana School lies at the far end of an airy courtyard, and as Jacob and I step through the door into it we're showered with pink flower petals, silver glitter, and an entire student body's worth of applause. We make our way to the podium set up for our visit, Jacob squeezing my hand and giggling at the overwhelming show of friendship.

First we thank the school for their warm welcome, then we hand over the mound of school supplies and the check from Jacob's class, which will help cover the students' tuitions ($1 a month for primary school, $2 a month for secondary school).

Next we get to the heart of our visit: an exchange of questions with the children. In the week before our trip, Jacob's class came up with a list of 31 questions they wanted to ask the Ariana students. The questions ranged from 'What do you think about America?' to 'Do you know how to tell time?' from 'What can we, as children, do to bring about peace?' to 'How do you celebrate birthdays?' All equally important stuff to know when you're 6.

But it soon becomes apparent that the students have little patience for answering our questions. They want to talk. They want us to listen. And they want us to listen right now, whether or not what they have to say has any bearing on the questions posted behind us in enlarged, tidy, first-grade-teacher handwriting.

Lutmilla, age 14, who fled with her family from Afghanistan when she was 9, takes the microphone and tells us she gets depressed seeing her fellow displaced Afghans. Arzoo, 15, asks us if we know why the United States attacked his country. Nahid, 16, says he's angry that Osama bin Laden has caused the further destruction of his country. And little Neelofur, who says she's 9 but, like many Afghan children plagued by malnutrition, looks much younger, laments, 'Sometimes I think peace is a bird that flies over every other country except Afghanistan.'

'Is it justified for your country to kill innocent people?' asks Fatima, 14. 'Shooting a rocket is easy. Rebuillding a society is hard.' Then another Fatima, 17, who at the urging of her parents fled Afghanistan on her own so that she, as a girl, could have the opportunity to study, grasps the microphone. She begins to speak but is suddenly consumed by tears. "I am very sad my country is being attacked," she says, sobbing. "My family is in Kabul, and I'm very frightened for their safety. My mother is rheumatic -- she can't make it through the mountains to come here. I have so much apprehension. What is going to happen to my family, to my country, to all of us?"

At this point, the students behind Fatima start to cry as well. Jacob, now concerned, whispers in my ear. 'They look really sad.' 'They are,'I say, taking his hand. 'The world is a very sad and crazy place right now. And children are feeling it the worst.'

But then Fatima, sensing Jacob's unease, composes herself, wipes her tears, and looks directly at him. 'I am happy,'she says, finally smiling, 'that in this tense situation, you and your mother came to talk to us.' She replaces the microphone in its stand and slowly walks back to her place.

Jacob decides that now would be a goodtime to show the school his magic trick. Which he does. And it is. 'I'm working so hard,'says Gailani, over lunch a few hours later, 'but nobody's listening.' Her organization, the Afghanistan Women Council, she tells me, receives no aid from the United Nations, no aid from any large Western aid organization, and during emergencies she has to turn away between 200 and 300 families a day who come begging at her doors for medical succor and education. 'People have spent a lot of money on Afghanistan,'She says, 'but they have spent the least on education. And education'- she pauses, looking me straight in the eye -- 'is the sole means of keeping children from becoming terrorists.'

After lunch, Gailani takes us to visit a first-grade class. They're excited to meet Jacob, and they teach him how to say words like fun (mazaq), peace (sulah arami), school (muktab), and thank you (tashakkur). They explain, when Jacob asks, that they don't celebrate their birthdays. For one, they have no money to do so; for another, they often know only the season of their birth, not the date. They sing songs for us, recite poems they've written about their desire for peace. 'Oh,God,' begins a poem by Zubair, age 6, "anger has engulfed the whole world / And this destruction has prevailed upon my house. / Everything is devastated.'

We're then introduced to Aziza Sarwar, a 12-year-old girl who fled Kabul in early October when an errant American bomb estroyed her home and killed her mother and brother. She wears her grief openly. 'I am very sad because my heart is bleeding,'she tells us, staring down at her feet.

When Jacob asks her gingerly what she thinks about Americans, Aziza pauses for a minuite. Then she replies, 'How can I think? My mother has died in an attack, and I don't know what to think.' But, she says, chiming the one note of bittersweet irony of her new status as refugee, she's happy to be allowed to go to school once again, even if it's with children half her age. And she's looking forward to becoming a doctor so she can help her people.

When school lets out, Aziza invites us to come home with her for tea. She tells us she has a younder brother and sister she thinks Jacob would really like to play with. She's right. As Aziza, her father, my translator, and I talk of war and peace in the one-room mud hut that the Sarwars now call home, as the sun sets over the dusty plain where the children of the Akhtarabad camp toss a red balloon back and forth, we can hear Jacob, his new Afghan friends, and the kind of youthful laughter that knows no boundaries of culture, heartache, history, or time."

Debra Denker spent months based at Fatana's and her husband, Ishaq's house after first meeting them in the summer of 1982. She later wrote a book, Sisters on the Bridge of Fire: One Woman's Journey in Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan which has a lot about Fatana and Ishaq in it. It's just been reprinted by Schaffner Press. She also based a character in her as yet unpublished novel, War in the Land of Cain, on Fatana.

Denker is also widely respected for authoring the now-famous 1985 National Geographic cover story.

Read more about Perception and details for ordering Sisters on the Bridge of Fire...

The Boston Globe
Unsafe in Afghanistan - August 18, 2002

THE PLIGHT of Afghan refugees has been obscured by a focus on conflicts within Afghanistan. Now that military forces have effectively dismantled Taliban rule, Washington ought to cast its gaze toward the safety of the millions of Afghan refugees who fled the violence and work to secure repatriation for those who wish to return. More than two decades of violence in Afghanistan - from the Soviet invasion of 1979 through civil war to the recent US military action - have resulted in the flight of millions to neighboring countries. The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, estimates that as of February 2002, 3.5 million Afghans had fled to Iran and Pakistan. Now refugees are returning to Afghanistan at record rates - more than 1.5 million in the last five months, according to the UN. The end of Taliban rule and poor living conditions in refugee camps have propelled the returns. Last week Iran set a deadline of Aug. 27 for the expulsion of some 250,000 additional refugees who did not officially register as immigrants with Iran. But the refugees, often poor and jobless, return to a bleak picture. Many find rubble where their homes once stood. Beyond the physical devastation, returnees confront real security threats. The Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation deems Afghanistan ''one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.'' Returnees who enter through regions full of land mines and unexploded ordnance are at particular risk. Continued violence also threatens civilian lives, demonstrated so tragically on July 1 when an American gunship fired upon a wedding party in Kakrak, killing more than 50. Fatana Gailani, an Afghan human rights advocate residing in Pakistan, visited the Globe recently and described the dilemma: ''Everyone wants to go home,'' she said. ''Myself, I want to go home.'' But before returning, she said, ''we need security, jobs.'' The UNHCR describes its mission as ensuring ''the basic human rights of vulnerable persons.'' Yet Amnesty International has expressed concern that the UN organization may not be placing enough emphasis on the rights of Afghan refugees. Amnesty may be right to criticize the UNHCR for pushing refugees to return to a still unstable Afghanistan. Yet the UNHCR is strained financially; it spent $158 million on Afghan repatriation efforts in the first half of 2002. Without more financial support, it will be unable to carry out its mission. Given the toll US military action has had on Afghanistan's physical landscape, the US government must devote further resources to Afghan refugees by assisting the UNHCR. The task at hand is to ensure safe refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran while helping in the transition home of voluntary returnees. US responsibility in Afghanistan does not end with government rebuilding. The safety and well-being of all Afghans is essential to the political stability of Afghanistan.

The Wire
Amnesty International
Voice of Afghan Women Fatana Gailani, head of the Afghanistan Women's Council, spoke to the Wire in January while she was visiting Ireland and the United Kingdom on behalf of her organization.

Fatana Gailani grew up in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. She married there and had a daughter. After the Soviet army entered Afghanistan in 1979, she fled to the city of Peshawar in neighbouring Pakistan, where she had a second daughter.

"I was a very young woman and didn't have any experience of the horrible things in life. I learned a lot and studied for two years. Lots of refugee women came to me asking for help with their children and families. I realised that the women there had no voice and no one was caring about them."

In response, Fatana opened a medical clinic for women and then a school for the refugees. The school catered for 1,000 children, 400 of them orphans. She also took up work for human rights, "because the women had no voice, no rights, no normal life".

In 1992, after a brief break in Europe, she returned to Peshawar to work with Afghan refugees. The following year she set up the Afghanistan Women's Council and began working with AI.

"We set up a health department with a mother and child clinic in Peshawar, a mobile clinic and a school for refugees, and a human rights department. There are a hundred women in our organization. We opened an office in Kabul two weeks ago. We tried to support women there before, but it was in secret. My life and my husband's life were in a lot of danger in the Taleban time."

Fatana spoke of the human rights problems currently facing women in Afghanistan: "Women have no power, no salary, no jobs. The important thing is that women have lost their dignity during 23 years of war... In the camps they don't have any shelter, they don't have any water or medical treatment or school for the children. Life is very difficult for them."

When asked about the peace process and the role of the international community, Fatana said: "The women don't trust the leaders in power. The peace process needs to be strong. The international community should stop the war and the bombing and see how much has been destroyed in the country and ask who did it. The people need economic and political support and security."

Fatana appealed for support from AI and the human rights movement. "AI members are my colleagues and friends. They must understand the difficulties of our situation... We need to be very honest with each other. Our work is very important for people, especially the women. There should be serious work done, not just fine speeches and letters."

"We still have hope for the future. If we lose that we lose everything."

Read Fatana's interview in the Wire

WBUR Radio Interview
Listen to Fatana speak by downloading this .smil file (you need Real Player to play it). Fatana's interview begins about one fourth of the way through the clip. She describes fond memories as a yound girl growing up in Kabul and compares it with the present day city after decades of war.

WBUR Radio

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