The Afghan Women Lawyers and Professionals Association – A New Era

Samantha Knights
Barrister, Bar Human Rights Committee, London, UK
samanthaknights@southsquare.com

Before

In its day Afghanistan’s 1964 constitution was hailed by legal reformers as one of the most progressive in the Islamic world - an example to other Islamic countries of how a modern constitution guaranteeing fundamental human rights could co-exist with sharia law. Today the legal system in Afghanistan is all but destroyed - another casualty in a society ravaged by 20 years of warfare beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in 1979 and continuing in civil law which ultimately led to the rule of the Taliban. Following the removal of the Taliban resulting from the US led ‘regime change’ women including lawyers and judges are emerging again in society although in a hostile and precarious environment.

The involvement of women in the law is not new in Afghanistan. Since the 1960s women have been studying law at the University of Kabul. In 1974 the first Afghan Association of Women Lawyers was founded. But the takeover by the Taliban obliterated normal life for all but a handful of women in the country. Women were not allowed to work except in very limited circumstances, be educated or even walk in public without the burqua and a male relative. As far as working as a lawyer, judge or academic was concerned, this was out of the question. The family courts were destroyed and the Taliban’s Ministry of Virtue and Vice patrolled the streets doling out their rough justice to anyone who dared challenge them.

During

Amidst this regime of terror a number of remarkable women refused to accept a life marginalised from all form of society. One such woman was Suraya Paikan, a former law lecturer from the University in Mazar-i-Sharif who, together with ten other women, set up the Afghan Women Lawyers and Professionals Association (AWLPA) under cover of the burqua in 1998 during the Taliban regime. The Association operated in secret from a network of safe houses. One American woman living in Kabul at the time lent support but as all contact with foreigners was strictly forbidden in Afghanistan it became too dangerous to work with anyone from the outside world.

‘We were foreigners in our own country. We did not have any ordinary rights. We were not even allowed to speak to foreign women’, said Ms Paikan, speaking at the annual Bar Conference in September 2002 at a workshop on lawyers working in war zones run by the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales.

On one occasion Ms Paikan was questioned by a member of the Taliban who came to ask about the whereabouts of a woman by the name of Suraya Paikan they wanted to investigate following reports that she was not a ‘good Muslim’. Ms Paikan answered from beneath the burqua masking her identity that she could not tell them the whereabouts of Ms Paikan but that she did know that she was a good Muslim and that they had nothing to fear from her. It was not long after this that Ms Paikan was told in confidence by a wife of one of the Taliban that her life was in great danger and she should immediately leave Mazar-i-Sharif. Without waiting for the potentially fatal consequences, Ms Paikan fled from Mazar with her husband and six daughters and moved to Kabul where she continued the work of the association. It was not the first time that her family had been relocated. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989, her family had been forced to leave the country. She went to Azerbaijan where she studied law at Baku University. It was this experience which had given her the opportunity to study international law and exposed her to some of the Soviet principles of equality of gender.

Now

Today in the post-Taliban Afghanistan, AWLPA is able at least to operate openly and membership runs to over 100 lawyers and academics. Last year a workshop was organised on women’s’ rights and the law. For many lawyers this was the first time since the Taliban regime that they had been given any sort of training. However, there is much work to be done.

‘We do not have books, pens or paper. At times we have no electricity or running water. Women in this country do not know what their rights are. Most people do not even know what laws are in force. Very slowly we are trying to train lawyers and provide them with written materials on the law’,
said Ms Paikan who learnt her English when she was forced to stop working once the Taliban came to power.

Plans for the future

The AWLPA has many plans for the future. One of its aims is to open branches in other regional centres in Afghanistan – in Herat, Kandahar, Jalalabad. In January 2003 a branch was opened in Mazar. AWLPA also aims to educate women throughout Afghanistan in the laws in force in the country and in particular to promote the understanding of women’s’ rights and international human rights. The first edition of its journal, Women and Law, was published and distributed last year. It contains articles in Dari, Pushto and English. The English articles are designed to encourage women to read legal topics in English so that they might access international texts in the future.

All this requires financial assistance and the support of the international legal community.

‘We hope that the international community which brought a new government to us will bring us a democratic system based upon the rule of law. Without justice, law and democracy there is no possibility of a normal country. We need support for our situation and for our women who have suffered morally and mentally from all these years of war,’ said Ms Paikan.

The future of the legal system in Afghanistan is uncertain. The government has announced the members of the committee who will be responsible for drafting a new constitution for Afghanistan. Two women judges have been appointed to this nine member commission. There has already been much debate as to the form this constitution should take, with members of the government insisting that it will be an Islamic constitution while other groups such as RAWA (the Revolutionary Women of Afghanistan) campaign for a secular constitution. One of the requirements of the Bonn Agreement which outlined the basis of the interim government and the principles on which the international community would provide aid, was that a new constitution should respect international human rights and in particular the rights of women.

The extent to which full meaning is ever given to these rights and the rule of law re-established is an issue which must not be overlooked now that the media spotlight is turned away.

Suraya Paikan was invited to the UK by the Bar Human Rights Committee in September 2002. An appeal was launched by Lady Justice Hale at the annual dinner of the Association of Women Barristers to raise money to support AWLPA. Donations by cheque should be made payable to Association of Women Barristers and crossed AWLPA account and sent to Samantha Knights, 3-4 South Square, Gray’s Inn, London WC1R 5HP DX: LDE 338 (Chancery Lane). Anyone interested in further information about AWLPA should contact Samantha Knights on 020 7696 9900.