Storytelling and the Search for Solidarity – Afghani Women Visit South Africa

A delegation of exiled Afghani Women is in South Africa for a week-long visit, on a mission to share their stories, and to create a knowledge- and insights-sharing platform, in their search for solidarity to end gender apartheid.

Malala Fund, in partnership with End Gender Apartheid Campaign, the Civic Engagement Project and Lawyers for Human Rights, has hosted a series of roundtable dialogues and discussions with some of South Africa’s leading human rights activists as well as members of the judiciary.

At a roundtable hosted at Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg, panelists included Professor Thuli Madonsela, Professor Farid Esack, Judge Margie Victor, and three Afghani women who are part of the delegation.

Escaping a forced child marriage. Suffering a broken nose for lifting a Burka in public. Shutting down beauty salons and schools. Keeping women and girl children ‘in line’ with physical punishment. Running underground schools. These were not sub-plots of a movie, instead, the horrifying truth of the lived experiences of the Afghani women in the room.

An activist and human rights defender for nearly 30 years, *Horia said she believes the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan “a silent tsunami”: “This is not our religion, this is not Islam, this is the Taliban. In Afghanistan, women who are found guilty of ‘moral crimes’ are subjected to ‘honour violence’, in the form of public beatings, torture and imprisonment”.

Horia said that the delegation is in South Africa to draw on the experience of women who were subjugated under apartheid, and to learn more about the role the judiciary, civil society and the media could play in their fight for freedom.

Commenting on the voice of the judiciary, Judge Shehnaz Meer remarked: “Judges generally don’t have conversations. We talk through our judgements, in so doing be both apply and interpret the law and it is open for us to do so in a humane manner and in a way that and advances humankind. In a society like Afghanistan where gender apartheid is legislated, there are no raw materials available for judges to converse about human rights through their judgements. This is reminiscent of a period in South Africa, post-apartheid, where judges had very few raw materials and were by and large, state sympathisers.”

Meer went on to describe what she refers to as “the activist judge”, who is mindful of respecting the dignity of women in court, not shying away from intervening to protect their dignity in the case of gender-based violence or other. She also said that the activist judge does not preside as a silent arbiter, and ensures this standard is upheld at all times, without fear, favour or prejudice.

“This is the judicial voice that must be brought to bear in discourse on global gender apartheid. If the blueprint of judges in this country can be applied internationally , then judges would lend their voices in a meaningful and productive way to end the scourge that has resulted in women in Afghanistan being excluded from society and rendered invisible, in the workplace, education and (barred from) operating as human beings in society.”

Storyteller and activist *Gaisu said: “The stories I’ve been collecting, women of Afghanistan as a grassroots movement have come together globally to unite, to use ‘Gender Apartheid’ as a tool or a framework for us, and serves as a reflection of what’s happening in our country.”

Gaisu referenced the story of a women in Afghanistan about the clothing she is required to wear, a black burka: “What once felt elegant, now feels suffocating to me”. Another woman shared with Gauri that her life is marked, by “There is no laughter, I’m just trying to survive”. Her collection of stories offer a vivid picture of Taliban oppression which arguably, mutilates the voices and the lives of women in her country.

Professor Thuli Madonsela says she has seen just how unsustainable injustice is: “Ubuntu teaches us about our interconnectedness. It doesn’t matter where you are, injustice catches up with you. So what is happening in Afghanistan, will happen in another country, and another. What we tolerate, we are indirectly condoning.”

The delegation visited other countries before this visit to South Africa and they have been asked the same questions: “What is South Africa saying about gender apartheid? Do you have their support?”

While the acceptance and universal adoption of ‘gender apartheid’ remains a subject for discussion and review, the Afghani women who participated in this exploratory visit to South Africa are clear: “We want our stories to be told. We want to be heard. We want our mothers, our sister, our daughters to live in a free society that no longer oppresses or silences them.”

Horia offered the first roundtable food for a little more than thought: “We will remember the words of our enemies. We will remember the silence of our friends”.

By Diane Naidoo

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*Full names of Afghani delegation are not used to protect the identities of the women, and their families who still live in Afghanistan.