Afghan women officials visit NATO

The event included general briefings on NATO and Afghanistan; discussions with NATO experts; a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, lunch with Mrs de Hoop Scheffer; and a roundtable discussion with media representatives.

The visit provided a unique opportunity to discuss the situation in Afghanistan and, in particular, the role of Afghan women in policy making and capacity building in the framework of the country’s reconstruction and development.

Real rights

While praising the progress made in recent years to integrate Afghan women at all levels of society, speakers underlined the need to maintain efforts aimed at ensuring that Afghan women benefit from the human, economic, social, political and civil rights they are entitled to.  The current historic political empowerment of women in Afghanistan, with 68 women parliamentarians in the Wolesi Jirga, was acknowledged.

NATO was urged to sustain its efforts to re-establish security throughout Afghanistan.

Quoting Dr. Sima Samar (Chair of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission), the NATO Secretary General said “women’s rights and human rights will not be real unless there is enough security and law enforcement in the country”.

The visit formed part of a week-long “Afghan Women Project” organised by NATO and the US Hunt Alternatives Fund.  The group also visited Joint Force Command Brunssum, the European Parliament, the offices of the International Crisis Group and the Belgian Senate.