Face to Face Celebrates International Women's Day
	Mehet Kermani, 70 year-old Activist
	Ursula Asraf, Founder of HAWCA
	Abda Jasmir, Trainer and Educator on Reproductive Health
	Fahkra Khan, Founder of Schools for Girls and HIV/AIDS Educator
	Noreen Gul, Developer of Girls Programs
	Italian Partner Continues Supporting Women in Afghanistan
	IPPF Director Travels to Pakistan
	UNFPA Brings in Crucial Supplies to Afghanistan
	Joke van Kampen, A Journalist Making a Difference

To celebrate International Women’s Day, this month’s Update focuses on four Pakistani women changing their country and the journalist who brings their stories to us. Following their sketches, read about organizations promoting the rights of the women of Afghanistan.

At 70 years old, Mehet Kermani is one of the oldest volunteers at a family planning clinic run by the All Pakistani Women’s Association in a Karachi slum. Yet she considers herself less an activist than someone who is just doing whatever she can to improve the prospects of other Pakistani women.

The inequality of men and women in Pakistan is common knowledge. In education and basic opportunities, men have always had the advantage. More surprising are the results of a survey conducted by the Association which found a shocking gap in basic health awareness between girls from well-off families and those from low-income households. In response, it established a series of educational programs for low-income girls. Kermani is one of the educators.

“These girls had such bizarre ideas about their own bodies,” Kermani says. “They thought that taking a bath during menstruation would cause infertility, that masturbation would ruin their lives.”

Kermani considers herself lucky on many fronts. In her family, the boys and girls were treated equally, a very rare situation. And as the wife of a Pakistani army officer, she was able to travel the world and has friends as far off as Rome and New Jersey.

Her experiences have given her perspective on the width of the gap between men and women back at home, and the obstacles to narrowing it, a substantial one being their own families. To reach these girls away from the critical gazes of their families, the Association came up with a program of skills training, which includes classes in sewing, healthy diet, and reproductive health. Since the girls are not allowed to leave their homes unaccompanied, volunteers pick them up.

“In the beginning, they would not talk,” Kermani says. “But once they started, it was like a flood. Now that they have confidence in us, they ask about incest, homosexuality.” The program also includes discussing the importance of educating their own daughters, which means that even if Mehet Kermani doesn’t consider herself an activist, there is the very real possibility that in the slums of Karachi, she is creating activists.

Ursula Asraf knows the power of an education. As the Director of Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of Afghanistan (HAWCA), an organization which helps to educate girls in the refugee camps around Peshawar, the 27 year-old Asraf is doing everything she can to spread that power.

Her own education did not come easily. In 1989, the encroaching war forced her family to flee from their house and comfortable existence in Kabul and settle in a Pakistani refugee camp. Asraf, the daughter of a teacher mother and an architectural engineer father, was fourteen and had just finished the seventh grade, and though she was able to continue her education in Pakistan, attending a university was out of the question.

Unwilling to be idle, she organized literacy classes for other women in the refugee camp, and later created HAWCA. The demands of running the organization required that she take intense courses in computers and English; the latter skill she continued to perfect with the help of newspapers and her portable radio.

The notion that women don’t want or need an education angers her. “In Afghanistan, thousands of girls and women risked their lives to attend illegal schools,” she says. “And here at the refugee camps, everyone wants to learn.” As someone who did not take her own education for granted, Asraf is doing everything in her power to give them that opportunity.

As a village motivator in Rawalpindi, trained to educate women on reproductive health, Abda Jasmir is frequently faced with those who object to talk of family planning. Most often, it is the men and the elderly, particularly those who are religious and practice Purda (strict limitations on rights of women). In response, she will often quote from the Quran.

“I was lucky enough to go to a progressive Quran school where we read books in translation,” Jasmir, 38, says. “In the tenth book are all sorts of things encouraging you to take good care of your family. The way I see it, family planning is a way of doing just that.”

Still, she has to be subtle about her message. Jasmir calls on ten families a day, never stating directly the purpose of her visit. “First I talk to the elders in the family, and then to the mothers-in-law. We talk about their health and their problems. We drink a lot of tea.” Typically, she’ll move on to discuss the family’s financial status and the children before leaving them with informational materials on family planning and how it works.

“I tell the women that a difference between humans and animals is that people should think,” she says.

Since she opened the first girls’ school in her rural Pakistani area, Fahkra Khan, 26, has encountered far more enthusiasm than resistance. Even the men are very supportive, believing that more active and educated women will lead to a more prosperous village. Ironically, some of the most poignant objections have come from women who fear that well-educated daughters will find their mothers ignorant. Khan’s response was to examine the possibility of creating a literacy program for the mothers.

A native of the village, Khan discovered a program which would provide training for teachers who wanted to work in the countryside. In no time, her school has expanded to include reproductive health classes for adolescent girls. Although the average age of marriage in Pakistan has gone up, most people are married, and often parents, by age 18. One course she finds particularly important is a primer on HIV/AIDS. Though it has not yet reached epidemic proportions, it is spreading rapidly through the country and Khan works to dispel myths about the disease.

In at least one instance, the ensuing discussion surprised her. “We were talking about how HIV/AIDS is transmitted and somehow the women started talking about their husbands being unfaithful and their fear of them taking a second wife,” she said. “Most were convinced that they didn’t want to live like their mothers who were so suppressed that they never spoke out.” Through Khan’s school, the women are learning to do just that.

Of all the women’s freedoms regularly curtailed in Pakistani society, Noreen Gul believes that limits placed on young girls’ self-expression is one of the most damaging. To give these youths an outlet, Gul works for a center in the slum of Hazara that provides classes for girls who are otherwise confined to their houses until they marry.

“Girls are not allowed to talk freely, to be spontaneous, or to express themselves. They are punished for that,” Gul says. “No one ever listens to them. They think about the future but they see no possibility to change it.” At the center, girls learn about sewing, diet, and reproductive health, but most importantly, they have a chance to talk to each other and share their feelings.

Just getting the girls to the center can be difficult. Their mothers are frequently afraid to let them go because of the chance that they will somehow damage the honor of the family. To counteract that fear the center organizes married female chaperones to escort the girls to and from their homes.

At 22 years old, Gul is unmarried, which is considered suspicious in Karachi, a seaport city of 12 million. This suspicion often leads to taunts and outright harassment, but Gul continues to work for the rights of each girl, as well as her own right, to be herself.

In recognition of International Women’s Day, Campaign Partner AIDOS(The Italian Association for Women in Development), has intensified its informational activities and fund raising efforts for projects addressing safe motherhood in Afghanistan and the education of Afghani girls.

Groundbreaking Photo Exhibit

AIDOS has prepared a new exhibition on the condition of women in Afghanistan featuring photographs taken prior to the Russian invasion, before the take-over by the Taliban, during the period of Taliban rule, and documenting the historic Summit of Afghan Women in Brussels in early December 2001. All through the month of March the exhibition will be mounted in the cities across Italy. To reach a broader audience, Aidos will then distribute the exhibition to schools on CD-ROM.

Ballet By Afghani Princess

The Afghani princess, Hamdam Malek, granddaughter of King Amanullah (who fled to Italy in 1929), is a well-known dancer. She has prepared a 20 minute ballet for AIDOS with the students of her dance school Viva la Danza. The first choreography, by Luca Russo, "Requiem ad Patriam Deserunt," represents the main exodus of history until our time. The second dance is a solo about women and the burqa entitled "Hi people!” with choreography by Hamdam Malek accompanied by classical Afghan music. During the dance, an Afghan poem by Suliman Liaq, entitled “Hi people, people" will be read in the Italian translation. The ballet will be performed on stage in several cities and will be recorded on video for future presentations.

Support for Girls’ Education

Posters and bookmarks have been produced for a number of women's organizations that are organizing events for AIDOS projects working to educate girls in Afghanistan. They are supporting several important projects: two informal schools in Peshawar with the local NGO the Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of Afghanistan (HAWCA); a scholarship program to enroll Afghan girls in the private-school system of Pakistan; and a health counseling center to be established in Kabul, to serve as a model for similar centers in various cities.

Enduring Support

Aidos has shown an enduring commitment to the women of Afghanistan. In 1999, AIDOS sought to educate the public about the Afghani women’s struggle by running a series of ads in 20 major Italian newspapers and periodicals featuring the Olympic skier Deborah Compagnoni and by placing Face to Face Campaign messages on local radio stations. Aidos will maintain this commitment beyond International Women’s Day and well into the future.

International Planned Parenthood Federation has been extremely active in the ongoing development of women’s rights in Afghanistan. During the week of March 4-8, Director General Ingar Brueggman traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan to attend a meeting organized by the Family Planning Association of Pakistan (FPAP) whose participants included local NGOs and activists and to visit Afghan Refugee Camps within the country.

Director General Brueggemann briefed the attendees on IPPF’s plans for Afghanistan. Projects are already underway in Pakistan and Iran to provide immediate support to Afghan refugees. Further support from BMZ (Germany) will allow IPPF to work in Afghanistan. This meeting was the first step in developing closer links with local organizations working inside the country. IPPF is ideally placed to provide technical and financial assistance and support in the area of health and will collaborate with other agencies to coordinate input in other fields. The long-term aim for Afghanistan is to establish a local IPPF affiliate. Support for this venture will be sought from other international agencies as well as the government of Afghanistan.

Director General Brueggemann visited an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan, which is receiving assistance from FPAP. The Turkoman Refugee Camp, near Peshawar, is home to over 18,000 people. Within the camp, FPAP has created Family Health Centers where women receive information, counseling and reproductive health services. FPAP also runs a non-formal educational program for children, a water supply, and skill development and income generation activities for women. The DG met with staff and clients as she visited various project activities and was especially pleased to see that girls in the camp were also receiving an education. She felt that FPAP could use its expertise and experience to train staff from local Afghan NGOs in areas such as reproductive health and community development activities.

The Family Planning Association of Pakistan (FPAP) organized the meeting and aimed to initiate dialogue between Afghan organizations based in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to identify immediate and long term needs of people affected by years of fighting and drought inside Afghanistan and those languishing in refugee camps in Pakistan. The meeting was attended by representatives of 50 Afghan NGO’s, International Planned Parenthood Federation Director General, Ingar Brueggemann, and the Regional Director of the IPPF South Africa Region (SAR), Dr. Indira Kapoor.

The NGO representatives, at least one third of whom are women, highlighted the tremendous need that exists for primary health care, training for paramedical staff including traditional birth attendants, HIV/AIDS information and education, and strengthening of community development activities by providing support for literacy, small scale reconstruction projects and vocational training for income generation. The involvement of women in program activities to ensure their full participation in the life of their communities was also stressed by many of the attending NGO’s.

The DG, who will go on to visit Afghan refugee camps in Balouchistan, met with various donors to brief them on her visit so far and to discuss their future plans for Afghanistan. Meetings were held with the German Ambassador, Dr. Christoph Brummer, the Japanese Minister, Mr. Tamotsu Shinotsuka, UNFPA and GTZ, all of whom see Pakistan and Afghanistan as priority countries in need of their support.

On Saturday March 2, the
United Nations Population Fund began bringing crucial medical and other health-related equipment into the Afghan capital, Kabul. A UNFPA statement issued to IRIN in Kabul over the weekend stated that three plane loads of equipment arrived containing two ambulances, each worth one million US dollars. “Within a week, in three successive plane loads starting on 2 March, UNFPA will provide sufficient medical and related equipment for Malalai Maternity Hospital, Rabia Balkhy Maternity Hospital, and Khair Khana 52-bed Hospital,” the statement said.

Afghanistan’s maternal mortality rate is estimated to be 1,700 deaths per 100,000 live births, and is the world’s second highest. Some 16,000 women will die of mostly preventable pregnancy-related causes this year.

Joke van Kampen, a Face to Face director and international journalist, travels country to country. She helps us all stay current with what’s really happening, told to her, by the women who know, face to face. Then Joke sends her stories to international newspapers and journals, where they are published in several languages. She keeps her finger on the pulse of women all over the world with one on one and group conversations. She’s committed. Involved. And immensely talented. Joke is making a difference.

Joke often works with Arjen van de Merwe who we have to thank for the photographs accompanying the women profiled above.

Special thanks also to Kate Staples, a Face to Face volunteer who provided invaluable editorial and writing assistance.