Jamila Afghani

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Jamila Afghani 2020

Jamila Afghani (* 1976 in Kabul ) is an Afghan peace activist and women's rights activist. She is the founder and chairwoman of the Noor Educational and Capacity Development Organization (NECDO) and a board member of the umbrella organization Afghan Women's Network (AWN). Since 2019 she has been the director of Medica Afghanistan, Medica mondiale's Afghan partner organization . In addition, she was one of the participants in the intra-Afghan talks with the Taliban in 2019.

Life

Afghani was born in 1976 as one of five daughters and several brothers into a privileged family from Ghazni who lived in Kabul. Her father worked in the import / export business, lived as a conservative Muslim and - despite the somewhat more liberal atmosphere in Kabul in the 1970s - prevented his daughters from going to school. As an infant or toddler, Jamila contracted polio , which left her with walking difficulties and scoliosis , which put a lot of physical and mental stress on her because she was unable to participate in the activities of her siblings. A doctor recommended sending her to school to distract her from the pain.

In 1989, the family fled the Soviets to Pakistan , killing their uncle at the border and injuring Jamila herself with a head shot that resulted in permanent hearing loss. In Peshawar, the father tried to revive his business and she was able to go to school again and later to take up studies - albeit against the determined resistance within her family. She learned, among other things, English, Urdu and Arabic and made her master's degree in international relations at the University of Peshawar in 1999 ; she has another master's degree in Islamic law . While studying, she wrote articles under a pseudonym about women's rights or the situation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

When the situation in Pakistan's refugee camps deteriorated dramatically, she began aid operations in the camps. She gave literacy courses and founded the first educational organization, the Noor Educational and Capacity Development Organization (NECDO).

After the end of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001, she returned to Afghanistan with the NECDO in order to address larger recipient groups with her education program. In the same year (or 2002) she founded the Noor Educational Center (NEC) , which focuses on literacy and religious education for women and children, but also on sign language, conflict resolution and gender issues. Among other things, Afghani wants women to learn through their own study of the Koran what rights they have in Islam and that domestic violence is not legitimized by religion. After ten years, the NGO was working at four locations in Afghanistan and had 47 employees. Libraries established by the NECDO in several provinces of Afghanistan achieved up to 70% female membership by rewarding boys with small gifts for recruiting girls and women to become library members.

A well-known project by Jamila Afghani and her organization was gender-sensitive training for Afghan imams . Friday sermons were jointly developed in which the preachers campaign for women's rights and take a public and clear position against domestic violence, forced marriages , rape and other human rights violations against women. The project spread widely and attracted up to 6,000 imams.

She founded the Karamah Network of Advocacy and Human Rights, in which 1,000 imams were involved, and is a board member of the umbrella organization Afghan Women's Network (AWN).

In 2019, she was won over by Medica mondiale as director for the Afghan partner organization , which provides psychosocial and trauma-sensitive counseling for women who have experienced violence.

Afghani was a participant in the intra-Afghan talks in Doha in July 2019 between representatives of Afghan society and the Taliban. She spoke to the United Nations Security Council in June 2019 as the representative of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom-Afghanistan . With regard to the possible start of negotiations with the Taliban, she demanded that potential peace negotiations should not be at the expense of the achieved women's rights:

"The international community must stand with us at this crucial moment and ensure that our rights will not be compromised for a political peace deal or after a settlement is reached"

Awards

  • 2010: Peacemakers in Action Award from the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding
  • 2017: Finalist Aurora Humanitarian Award 2017

literature

  • Sally Kitch: Contested terrain: reflections with Afghan women leaders . Urbana, Chicago 2017, ISBN 978-0-252-09664-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Joyce S. Dubensky: Peacemakers in action: profiles in religious peacebuilding . Ed .: Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding. Volume II. New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-107-15296-0 , pp. 250–265 ( digitized in the Google book search).
  2. ↑ In many publications that appeared after 2015 (creation of the English Wikipedia article with reference to 2014), 1974 is given as the date of birth.
  3. ↑ New director Medica Afghanistan . In: memo. News from Medica mondiale . Hamburg February 2019, p. 3 ( Online via medicamondiale.org [PDF]).
  4. ↑ a b c Wise Stories of Impact: Jamila Afghani. (PDF) (No longer available online.) In: wisemuslimwomen.org. Archived from the original on May 29, 2013 ; accessed on January 7, 2020 (English).
  5. ↑ a b Maija Liuhto: Thanks to this Afghan woman, 6,000 imams have taken gender-sensitivity training . In: Christian Science Monitor . January 5, 2017, ISSN  0882-7729 ( csmonitor.com [accessed January 7, 2020]).
  6. ↑ a b c Jamila Afghani. (No longer available online.) In: n-peace.net. N-Peace network, 2011, archived from the original on September 5, 2013 ; accessed on January 7, 2020 (English).
  7. ^ A b c Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences: Lecture: “Current status of women's rights and peace process in Afghanistan”. May 2019, accessed on January 7, 2020 .
  8. ^ A b Project for Afghan Women's Leadership: Afghan Women Leaders Speak. (PDF) In: kb.osu.edu. Mershon Center for International Security Studies, The Ohio State University, November 19, 2005, p. 8 , accessed January 7, 2020 .
  9. ↑ NECDO Founder & Chairperson Jamila Afghani's Bio in letter. In: necdo.org.af. Noor Educational and Capacity Development Organization, accessed January 14, 2020 (American English).
  10. ↑ a b c Jamila Afghani, Medica Afghanistan: “Peace cannot be bought with women's rights”. In: medicamondiale.org. June 28, 2019, accessed January 7, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Christine Vallbracht: Jamila Afghani, Medica Afghanistan: “Peace must not be bought with women's rights”. June 28, 2019, accessed January 14, 2020 .
  12. ^ Afghanistan Chronology of Events: Security Council Report. Retrieved January 14, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Shereena Qazi: The activists leading efforts for women's rights at Afghan talks. In: aljazeera.com. July 8, 2019, accessed January 14, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Women's Rights Must Not Be Sacrificed during Political Deal-Making in Afghanistan, Civil Society Expert Warns Security Council amid Calls to End Bloodshed | Meetings Coverage and Press Releases. In: un.org. United Nations, July 26, 2019, accessed January 8, 2020 .
  15. ↑ 2017 Aurora Prize Finalists. Accessed January 7, 2020 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Afghani, Jamila
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Afghan women's rights activist and peace activist
DATE OF BIRTH 1976
PLACE OF BIRTH Kabul