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Soleh Four years now, Avon girls have not gone to school. They didn't become engineers and lawyers and doctors and nurses.
Wazhma Frogh A lot of them are committing suicide. We have, like, a country that would become, you know, a hell on the earth. And at the same time, there's a lot of radicalization that's happening. The younger boys are learning, you know, that no woman is allowed to get out of home. This is how you defend your religious duties. The things that the Taliban are teaching younger boys in schools and madrasas are very dangerous. (.......)
Sanam That's Wajma Froog, Afghan woman peacebuilder and lawyer and awardee of the Women of Courage Award given by the U.S. State Department on If You Were in Charge, with me, Sanam Naraghi Anderlini. Welcome, everyone. The show is brought to you by the Bijan Qisar Foundation and my organization, ICANN, where for 20 years we've been working with women peacebuilders on stopping wars and violence around the world. And each week I talk with other doers and imaginers about the tough issues they tackle. And on that note, I'd love to hear from you about your ideas and topics for guests. So get in touch with us at info at ICANN PeaceWork or sign up to our newsletter on our website ICANN PeaceWork.org. And you can find us on Spotify and Apple. (.) But to today's session, the conversation is about Afghanistan. It is a topic that is particularly close to my heart because I've been working on the issue of Afghan women's rights and particularly about the work of Afghan peacebuilders, women peacebuilders like Wajma for over 20 years. And it's heartbreaking because back in 2021, when the Taliban took over in Afghanistan, we were involved in helping many Afghans, specifically Afghan women and their families, just to find safety and shelter. (..) And it was a soul-searing process for me and my team at ICANN. We take some, I don't know, I don't know whether the word is joy, to be honest with you, but we helped about 1,100 people to safety. We've helped many others with shelter and emergency funds inside Afghanistan. But for everyone that we've helped, there were thousands of others who needed our help and we were unable to give it to them. So as I say, it's a painful experience. That said, from the outset, you know, prior to the takeover from the Taliban and in the subsequent years and since 2021, we've continued to support organizations that are still active in the country and people like Wajma who have continued to dedicate their lives to helping their country and specifically helping women-led families and issues around girls' education and prevention of violence and so forth. So the work still goes on and I wanted to have this conversation because Afghanistan is completely out of the media spotlight. Back in 2021, we effectively locked the doors and walked away and our politicians from, you know, President Biden onto, you know, European leaders and others kind of thought that whatever happened in Afghanistan would just stay there and nobody would care. But that's really not been the case and so I wanted to sort of bring the issues to the fore and also to be able to talk to someone who was still engaged and trying to help people underneath this very dark, heavy blanket of what the Taliban has imposed. A little bit of historic context. How far do I go back? (..) Very quickly, 1980, Afghanistan is occupied by the Soviets. The US, in conjunction with Saudi Arabia, start to initiate something called a, you know, Mujahideen, trying to sort of instigate a religious war against the Soviet occupation. So they bring the Saudis, they introduce a form of Islam, which is very extreme. It's the Wahhabi sect and the teachings are very, very extreme. And they kind of infuse that into the culture of Pashto ethnic groups in the area. And out of that emerges the Taliban in the early 90s. They were in power for a few years until 2001 when 9-11 happened. And under the Bush administration, with the goal and premise of trying to get hold of Osama bin Laden, they started targeting the country, but also made the case for an occupation to basically have American soldiers arrive there and have a NATO force that went in with them. And in that context, Laura Bush got on the radio in the US and said, yes, we must go to Afghanistan because also we must allow girls to go to school and fight for women's rights. So women's rights, Afghan women's rights became entangled with the political military agenda. So in a period of 20 years from that time onwards on to 2021, billions, if not, I think maybe close to a trillion or $1.3 trillion was de facto spent in Afghanistan on trying to help build their nation, push back terrorism, push back the Taliban and so forth. Now, there's an organization, a US department called SIGAR, S-I-G-A-R, that was doing regular reports about how much of that money was wasted and how much of it went to US contractors and so forth. So whatever is kind of the now the political narrative is around, oh, we spent all this money and blood and treasure in Afghanistan and it got nowhere. Actually, it's it's partly false because so much of that money wasn't spent effectively. And one of the key things that is a repeat is kind of like a sort of a broken record, if you want, is that in all of those years, Afghan women who rose up and, you know, whether it was the young ones who went to university and schools and colleges and became lawyers and judges and journalists and social workers, peace activists, police women, women who joined the army. I mean, I mean, there was just thousands of women dedicated their lives, Afghan women dedicated their lives to rebuilding their country. Some of them did that with some consternation from their own family members, because to become a police officer was was kind of against the normal cultural barriers or lines of acceptability for women, but they did it anyway. And the ones that I worked with who were often civil society, so they ran organizations, community based organizations and national organizations working on peace building in their community. So they would become interlocutors between community members and say the police and try to improve the way the police was behaving towards women and children and ethnic minorities and so forth. These people were active in their own societies, and from ICANN, we worked with many of them. Repeatedly from 2008 to 2012, when there was sort of the beginnings of discussions about peace negotiations and so forth, Afghan women that I worked with were saying, if there are going to be negotiations, we need to be at the tables to fight for what our rights are, but also on behalf of our country. And many of them were saying, yes, there should be negotiations with the Taliban, because trying to defeat them through war is not working, and it's actually making problems worse. You know, there will be bombs dropped, and they'd be attacking, they'd be trying to attack one person, and an entire family would get destroyed, and it would then give rise to many others who would either join the Taliban in revenge or retribution against the US or against the occupation. So the military approach was not working, and a political solution was needed, and Afghan women peacekeepers were saying, we need to have a voice and a say. And very importantly, in 2017, under the first Trump administration, the US passed legislation called the Women, Peace and Security Act. It was a bipartisan piece of law signed into law by President Trump at the time, that again said that when the United States is involved in any peace processes or conflict resolution processes, they must engage with women peace actors on the ground in these countries. So there is both the international context, the local context, but also what the rules were, or what the mandate would have been for the US diplomats, including the US senior envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, who led the US negotiations for many years, including through the Obama administration, and the Trump administration, and the Biden administration, frankly. And what many of us witnessed was that he did not engage with Afghan women seriously. In fact, we had colleagues who said that they had one meeting with him, and he laughed at them. He did not answer accurately regarding his engagement when he was questioned. And amongst the things that we saw in the process of the negotiations and the outcomes were things like deals that the US made with the Taliban to stop them from attacking US soldiers and the international forces that were there, but no conditions for stopping violence against civilian targets. So they would be negotiating with the Taliban in Qatar, in Doha, where the talks were happening, and a women's clinic would get bombed, or a women's university would get bombed. And nobody was held accountable for these kinds of things. And Afghan women, any time they said anything about it, they were completely shut down. So we saw the international community sell Afghan women and Afghan society, if you want, down the river in the tables of negotiations, at the tables of negotiations in Qatar, and frame the negotiations in a very strange way. So it was first the US negotiating directly with the Taliban, making some deals, and then once they'd made the deals, once they'd said that, yes, we're going to release 5,000 Taliban fighters from prisons, and given all sorts of concessions, then they said, now this is going to be an intra-Afghan negotiations. And the Taliban was 50% of the Taliban, so one side of the table, if you want, and on the other side was the so-called Afghan government delegation, but in that government delegation were shoved opposition political parties, and four women, and two supposed youth representatives. So the construct of the negotiations was flawed and doomed for failure from the beginning, because it made it look as if the Taliban represented 50% of the country, and they didn't. And there was no real representation of, you know, and there was no real representation of, you know, the fact that 60% of the country was under 25, or that 50% of the country are women, or that there were, you know, ethnic groups like the Hazaras and others, who wanted fair representation. So the design of the process was such that it gave the Taliban the upper hand. And all of that essentially led to 2021 when the U.S. pulled out in the dead of night from Bagram Air Base, and that was the catalyst for the Taliban to sort of rush across the country and then take over. And then the scenes that many of us saw of Kabul airport of young men and people hanging off airplanes and dropping to their death. But all of that happened up to 2021. Since then, the Taliban has been in power. They have issued over 80 decrees against women. So each, literally almost on a weekly, monthly basis, we see new laws that are being passed. Windows have to be bricked up, because God forbid Afghan women are sitting by the window and they get seen from outside. You know, girls' education is limited to the age of 11. Women can't go to many jobs. They can't, you know, as midwives, medical staff and so forth. Every month there seems to be a new decree against women. And the tragic irony of all of this is that the Taliban seem to think that the Western world cares about the plight of women. They think that if they put more pressure on Afghan women and girls, somehow sanctions will be lifted against them or that they will be, they will get concessions from the world. What they don't seem to realize is that, you know, if the world had cared about the plight of Afghan women and girls at the height of its power in Afghanistan, they would have listened to the women and they would have had the women at the tables and they would have taken their advice and heeded their words. (.) The world really didn't seem to care that much then. Certainly right now, given the dearth of attention that there is on Afghanistan, we could argue that there is absolutely no interest whatsoever in what's going on there. And then we're seeing also in the last few months with all the cutbacks in aid that assistance to Afghan women and Afghan women's organizations like ones that Wajma knows and ones that we support, that's also being cut back. So you have the Taliban thinking they can put pressure on women and girls and somehow get some concession from the world and the world basically shutting the door, pulling down the shutters and walking away and pretending that they had no responsibility for what is happening. And inside the country, people are in a desperate state, but specifically young girls are facing a future that is so profoundly dark. It's hard to imagine it, especially if you have your own kids and or if you're a young, young woman yourself, but people like Wajma are providing a light that they are the candle and they are providing some hope and some resistance and resilience. And so this is the conversation that I'm having with her today. I hope you find it interesting. And again, if you want more information, please contact us at info at icampacework.org. Thank you. I'm very excited to have my guest today, Wajma Frog, a longtime peacebuilding practitioner from Afghanistan, working inside the country, grew up in refugee camps, and currently based out of Waterloo, Canada. Wajma John, welcome to If You Were In Charge. Lovely to have you with me. Thank you, Salam John. Thank you so much. I wanted to talk to you today about what's going on in Afghanistan, because it's one of those places where for 20 years, the Western world was sending their soldiers and their money and there was so much attention there. And then in 2021, they pulled out, or I should say before 2021, President Trump made a deal with the Taliban behind the door, if you want. And essentially, it felt as if the country was sold to the Taliban without you guys really being involved.
Wazhma Frogh Is that how it felt for you? Oh, definitely, you know, like, it's, it's, it's hard for us, many, like, I became a refugee for the second time in my life. The first time was when the civil war started. And that's how, when the Taliban came in and took power, this was the late 90s, and the Taliban closed all the doors of education, work, employment for Afghans. Afghanistan became an isolated country. The humanitarian crisis was very, very much, you know, impacted everybody's life. And then eventually, millions of Afghans became refugees, not just to Pakistan and Iran, which are the neighboring countries, but also to the, you know, European and Western countries. But then, 20, 2001 happened, right? I was one of those people who rushed to Afghanistan. December 2001 was when I went to Afghanistan with the dream that we would all join hands and build our country. And this was like the golden era. You know, we worked on a new constitution. We developed our institutions. We worked to bring in new laws, new systems. And the women in the country started really taking up so much charge of their country. But then the insurgency of the Taliban became stronger, especially after 2012, when the U.S. forces started surge. And it actually created to the stability rather than creating stability itself. And then we had bombings, side attacks every day. Then again, we women took charge. We stood up together and we said, okay, now we need to find a way to deal with this. So we started doing our own local peacebuilding initiatives. We started bringing people together. And I have to say, I was, I'm so proud of an indigenous peace process that we started. You know, the provinces I went to, the national dialogue, we initiated. I was part of the high peace council. So there was a political peace process, but there were also a lot of community-based peace processes.
Sanam Can you just, just, just, just, I want to stop you there because, you know, people listening often don't even know what it means to say you do local peacebuilding, right? I mean, you and I have been working on these issues for many, many years. //S00: Yeah.// But what does it look like?
Wazhma Frogh What were you actually doing in those days? So one example, so in, in Helmand, which is the southern part of the country, that's where the majority of, you know, suicide attacks were happening. A lot of recruitment of young, the Taliban and ISIS and other terrorist groups, because it's a bordering province, you know, Iran, Pakistan, there's a lot of infiltration that happens. So when we started working with the mothers in the community who are, like, very much worried about their sons, the young boys, who don't, they don't want to lose them. Our facilitator, who was a provincial, you know, a counselor, she facilitated a group of 20 women. And these 20 mothers, they started learning how to identify if the son has actually become, you know, exposed to extremism. So these mothers started literally actually teaching, you know, I noticed he has become violent to his sister or his religious views have become so radicalized, which is so new. I found this little piece of paper with a number, no name, just a number in his shirt when I was washing it. So mothers started identifying different patterns. And then, like, we had a mother calling our provincial counselor to make sure that he doesn't become more radicalized. You know, another part of our community peacebuilding was bringing people together, identifying sources of the conflict. And there was a direct link with how women were feeling. For example, in Wardak, which I worked a lot, the girls' schools got closed. And we were like, what happened? We found out that there's a lot of insurgents' activities. And one of the first things they did was to close down the girls' school. But then while we were doing all of this, U.S., somewhere, you know, miles away from us, sitting in Doha, did a power-sharing deal with the Taliban. That is, you know, February 2020. And I remember asking the U.S. special representative, the U.S. negotiator, why don't, why are women not part of it? Because then he was like, no, no, it's all technical stuff. When we reach to women's rights, then we will invite you all. And that's how, you know, they made the deal in February 2020. And when the deal was made, the Taliban did not see the need to engage with the Afghans. So we were, like, ready for that. But that political transition never happened. So in the 1990s, the first time that you became a refugee, and then in 2001, when you
Sanam returned back to Afghanistan to start this kind of work, how old were you when you started your peacebuilding work?
Wazhma Frogh You know, when I came to Afghanistan, I think I was around 19, 20 years of age. Yeah, 20. And this has been, you dedicated your life to this work.
Sanam Yeah, exactly. And now I'm 44. And it's been going on. So you're doing this work on the ground. Obviously, you're leading, as you were saying, you know, you are a woman and you were working with women doing conflict prevention, doing de-radicalization or, you know, prevention of radicalization. And meanwhile, at the higher levels, the assumption is that, oh, women just talk about women's rights. Exactly. There isn't an understanding that you're actually doing the really hardcore peace and security work and you're dealing, you're in those spaces or you have access within communities that an American would never have. Even an Afghan American would never really have, right? A hundred percent. And what did, you know, when you think about the rhetoric of the U.S., the rhetoric of the U.S. envoy, who I guess was, and the warnings that you were giving, who was, who, who from the international community listened to you guys and understood what you were doing? (.)
Wazhma Frogh Was there, was there anyone that was on your side? I think, you know, a lot of feminist organizations, international supporters who had done this in other parts of the world, like people who engaged in peace processes in Colombia, people who engaged in peace processes in the Philippines, for example, you know, or our Indonesia. They actually understood, but sadly, they did not, they did not have much leverage on the states who were doing this, like the U.S. Security Council or the U.S. administration at that time. I'm part of WASL Network, which is Women Alliance for Security Leadership, for over 20 years now, you know, like we have shared these, which within all our challenges and they have stood by us through ICANN. So I think, you know, those who have done the real work, they understand it. I very much agree with you. The moment we say it's about women's, it's not just about women are talking about women's rights. No, we opened up the space for other groups. I was part of the constitution process in Afghanistan in 2000. I went to different provinces and opened up the space, not just for women, for ethnic minorities, because we were not considered a threat and not a political enemy and not a political opposition to the community and spaces who were actually, you know, marginalized over the years. So ethnic groups, minority groups, social groups, political groups came and said, can we also join you because we find your process more inclusive. That's why we got, you know, the first Shia personal status law in the history of the country. Afghanistan has 20% Shias and all their civil and legal matters were handled. And the Hanafi, which is the majority, you know, legal jurisprudence. But we were able to open up that space for the ethnic minorities and religious minorities. That's why we got a constitution that recognized the language of Uzbeks, for example, who were massacred during the Taliban, but integrated as a national language. So it's, it's just women open up the space for other groups and that's how you bring stability, right?
Sanam Yeah. Yeah. And meanwhile, as you say, you have an envoy who is of Afghan origin. Yeah. who comes in and makes a deal that is, excludes, excludes all of you, excludes women, excludes young, young people, the minorities, everything. If you had a chance to speak to him now, what would you say to this man? Ah, you know, I, I. Can it, can it be said in polite company?
Wazhma Frogh Uh, I, the sad part is that, you know, it's not just that man, right? It's, it's a lot of systems actually that's involved like that. So it's, it's hard, like even in the past three years, when we see many countries engaging with the Taliban and not engaging with women, you know? So it's, it's very sad that that's the real politics, right? So as you see, for example, like for me, the Western democracy seems to be very solid, right? Like when I was growing up, I was like, you know, when I was learning about democracy and inclusion of participation, equality for everybody, I was like, the West would very, the West is very solid, but living here for the past, you know, three and now four years in the, getting exposed to the Western democracy. And I see, wow, this is so fluid. So it's very much, you know, and things are changing. So I kind of feel that, you know, it's a lot of systems. So that guy was sadly the representative of a system.
Sanam So you come to 2020 or 2021, and what was it like for you seeing the American pullout? You know, the night in July when we woke up and Bagram Air Base, which was the biggest military airbase,
Wazhma Frogh was suddenly abandoned and all their equipment was left.
Sanam And even the bio data of Afghan soldiers and, you know, you wake up and they've gone. What was going through your mind in terms of the people you're working with, in terms of your family, in terms of the women and the police, the women in the army who had risked their lives to serve? Like, what was it like that period?
Wazhma Frogh You know, even in 2009, when the U.S. did a surge, they did a surge of around 2,000 additional forces. Like, they had a full-fledged war going on in Afghanistan with bombs and a lot of ammunition and military, you know, equipments. And we were telling them that, you know, this is not going to be won through this very conventional war because the insurgency is so embedded inside communities. You cannot just drop a bomb on a community. That's not how the war should be fought. So, the war had problems. But anyways, when the U.S. started, you know, pulling out, when the deal was signed in 2020, slowly, slowly, you know, the moral of the Afghan soldiers became kind of, they became demoralized because every day, you know, the U.S. media was projecting Afghanistan would fall in six months. Afghanistan would fall in 30 days. Afghanistan would not survive. And on the ground, all the ammunition was the U.S. contractors. So, imagine you are an Afghan soldier fighting in a far district, and then there is no way that you can ask for more support because your radio communication doesn't work or because there is no aerial support. So, Afghan soldiers continue to beg and yell for this kind of support for years, which never happened. And we actually thought that, you know, this was a very intentional sort of situation because the U.S. envoy did not like the president at that time, President Ghani. So, there was a lot of clashes because it seems that there was a deliberate hand over Afghanistan. And that was shown in the way Bagram was. Bagram was the largest, you know, American presence, but also Afghans who were part of the airbase. But they left in the dark of the night. And the people woke up, you know, in the morning that Bagram is left open, you know. And it had, you know, hundreds of prisoners, you know, terrorist prisoners from the Taliban that they had kept and people didn't know what to do with them. 300,000 Afghan forces, you know, thousands of women within them. The Taliban see them as their direct enemy and these people have no way to escape because just the political leaders fled. They were the ones who had access to evacuations. Soldiers, these female cadets, these female lieutenants, you know, women who were in the army. Afghan, you know, when I was working on the WPS, Women, Peace and Security, with the Ministry of Defense, we had women who were in the special forces. So we had ANA, special Afghan National Army, special forces, a battalion of young women who were trained in India, used for, you know, these home raids and, you know, for different kind of operations. (.) These people, like, were left on their own and female police was left on their own.
Sanam For me, it was such a heartbreaking moment because I remember getting a call from a UN colleague saying there are 3,797 women police officers and they've been abandoned and their families were also scared to take them in because, as you say, they were perceived as enemies. Do you know what's happened to some of these people? I mean, I know, you know, we've all helped and we've tried to help bring some of them out. But do you know where, these are thousands and thousands of people, as you say, that didn't
Wazhma Frogh have the visas, that didn't speak English, that weren't connected to the international community? Where are they now? Some are living and hiding inside Afghanistan. Some have disappeared. They have, for example, you know, there are many who have actually been identified by the Taliban spies within the community. They have been detained and nobody knows about them, including, for example, Ali Azizi, who was the jailer from Herat, for example. That's just one example, right? But there are hundreds who have disappeared and the families are so scared because the families have been warned and also it's an embarrassment and honor issue that to say that my wife is taken away or detained by the Taliban or my daughter is detained by the Taliban. So families don't even share what happened. A lot of them have been taken into custody or detained by the Taliban and we don't know what happened to them. Some of them are living in Pakistan right now in a very, very difficult time, trying to find a way to flee. Some of them fled to Iran, for example, and living in hiding. So thousands of just that police, but also have an army. But, you know, I was talking to this girl who was, you know, detained by the Taliban and she made it to Canada. So she was saying that when she was detained by the Taliban, some of the women who got her, they were former workers, former staff of the NDS, the National Directorate for Security. But then the Taliban is saying, if you don't cooperate with us, we will kill the whole family. So then this woman goes around, arrests other women, beats other women. The Taliban, for example, she said that a Taliban, you know, a soldier with his gun standing on there and asking this woman that, you know, beat this woman as much as you can with this big stick. And she said the woman was beating and crying as well and says, I'm sorry, I just have to do this because they will kill my children and my family. So it's, it's like mind, you know, boggling when you see that how the Taliban are using some of these women that they have found out about.
Sanam So, so again, one of the, one of the things, I mean, first of all, this is just heartbreaking and horrific to think this was happening in 2025, right? //S01: Yes.// And one of the things that I think, again, from the media perspective, (.) was a really wrong narrative was that, oh, you know, 20 years of all this money being spent in Afghanistan, which as you say, most of it was going to contractors anyway, but this money being spent in Afghanistan and no change. And yet here you are talking not only about yourself as a young woman going to rebuild the country, but you're talking about women who opted to join the police.
Wazhma Frogh And we, you know, there were lawyers and journalists. I mean, it was a country that was young.
Sanam It's, it's a young population, right? And they were, they were building the country. And, and then all of a sudden, August of 2021 comes and it's this, it feels like a big black wave that, that, that's come and is covering the lives of women. What is happening now? What is going, what are you, what are people able to do? What are women able to do? Women's organizations that you know of, um, what's the kind of work that's happening? Because that's still a part of the story that's invisible, right? That despite all these horrific things, there is still resilience and there is still resilience and there's still life. What's that? What, what, what are the sort of, you know, points of light that, that you know about that
Wazhma Frogh that are going on? Yes, we do. You know, with, um, hundreds of women in different provinces of Afghanistan. So when, um, September, uh, in September, 2021, uh, we were like, what do we do now? The Taliban are here. They do not allow women to work. Do we close down the organization? Do we go like everybody else? But you know, the women who were members of the organization, 215 women, they said, no, we are here, we have not given up. We will do what we can. So we, we started actually, you know, adapting and finding ways to continue. These women turned their living rooms into classrooms. They turned their living rooms into meeting rooms. They brought women together. So for example, our work, we started modeling the self-help groups because institutions close down for women. There is no, you know, if you are a victim of violence, if you were, you know, you were a lawyer, you were a judge, you were a deputy governor, you were a doctor, you were a nurse, everything, you know, you cannot do that anymore. So then, you know, the self-help sessions we started was run by these women. They brought other women together. So some level of solidarity was established, but also mobilization. And they started identifying, okay, what we can do, how we can engage with others in the community. And then somebody said, my daughters are not going to school. They are very distressed, you know, and Afghanistan girls above grade 12, grade 6 to 12 cannot go to school. And these are girls of 12 years of age, 11 years of age. And the rate of suicide is so high between these until 20 years of age, very much. So then, you know, the lawyer said, I'll start teaching these young women in my home. Another woman, you know, who was a judge, she said, I'll start doing this for them. So a lot of those are happening right now. A lot of people started home-based classes, home-based, you know, sessions where they're teaching girls, online sessions, online classes for younger women have started. (.) So I am just amazed. So we do these monthly dialogues with hundreds of women. And I'm amazed that, yes, there is a lot of anger. There's a lot of frustration. They're stuck. Imagine, like, you can't get out of home. Even you cannot see outside window now because the Taliban leader, you know, announced that women should not actually see outside window. So you cannot even go out in your courtyard or your backyard or front yard, for example. (.) So these women still have not given up. They find a way. If four women come together, the Taliban think there is a revolution. So they would not allow for it. Even women who used to go to, you know, weddings and funerals, they were not able to sort of, you know, go there anymore. But they have, you know, found out ways. But the major challenge is, like, resources. So, for example, we do not have a lot of resources because the funding to Afghanistan has been, you know, closed down. And I was, you know, at a donor meeting in New York yesterday. And I showed the picture of the girls working, you know, on a project in Paktia province. And I said, this is funded by a U.S. foundation. And I received an email to tell these women, there are 750 of them, to tell them that we can't fund you anymore, that we cannot, you know, that you are, you know, we cannot have our staff working with you. We cannot bring the supplies anymore. And I still haven't done that, you know, because I don't have the courage to go to these women and say, you are doing this bravery, despite all the facts that you, the challenges you're going through. But we don't have the funding to support you.
Sanam And, Wajmajan, so just in terms of 750 women in that particular project. Yes. How much money are you talking about?
Wazhma Frogh And I'm talking about $60,000, $70,000 a year.
Sanam Yeah.
Wazhma Frogh I'm not talking about those millions that go to contractors or U.N. agencies, right? So these countries, like the donors were telling us yesterday that they have actually funded millions to U.N. agencies and for humanitarian funding. And, you know, I said, these women are not asking for handouts. Like, I have a woman who is a lawyer, who was a lawyer. She was working in the prosecution unit. She's asking for, you know, loans to buy cows so that she can actually help other women do some home-based businesses. But she says, under this, you know, project, I can also teach other girls. You know, I can also run a class inside home because then if I have this economic aspect of it, maybe, you know, it's easier for people to engage in.
Sanam And the Taliban is willing to allow women to run business, like, to make money, basically. Yeah, they can do that. Yes. //S01: They're allowed to make business, but they're not allowed to go to school. Exactly. Not allowed to be doctors.// They're not allowed to be teachers. But money is okay.
Wazhma Frogh But, yeah. And women are so smart. They are using these opportunities to bring in other elements of work. A group of young women in Kabul are learning how to repair mobiles, not just to earn an income, but they are also saying the Taliban are finding women through mobile phones. So when we are engaging in a technical work, understanding how mobiles work, how the security and safety of mobile works, then we are going to teach other girls so that they can actually be safe and secure. So when they, so they show it as an, you know, as a skill and economic project, but this is actually a safety, you know, project. So the women are so smart and they find out different ways, but I'm so embarrassed that we are not able to support them.
Sanam And this, and it's not just the American money, right? Like we're hearing from other countries. //S01: Yes.// That the funding is going down. It's heartbreaking. It's, I have, as you know, I have, my heart has been in shreds about what the world has done to Afghanistan. When you talk about all these women and girls doing this, what's going on with the men and boys? Are they, you know, are they kind of enjoying this moment of, you know, patriarchy or is it, are they also under pressure or how do we get them to support the efforts that you guys are engaged in?
Wazhma Frogh You know, it's complicated. Like I have my uncle, you know, who came forward after August, 2021, he was never part of my work, you know, in 20 years in Afghanistan. And then he came forward and he called me and he said, is there anything I can do to help your organization? (..) And because I know how there is nothing else we can do to support our daughters. But if I can help, you know, an organization to teach girls who are helping women who are creating, you know, skills and jobs for women and helping them really prevent suicide, I want to be part of it. And I was, like, amazed at that. So there are many men, you know, who feel so helpless and hopeless because they are scared because men are punished five times more than women. If they do anything against the Taliban rule, they lose their lives. They are not able to actually, you know, revolt against what the Taliban are doing. So, but then they are also very much under pressure because they have lost their jobs as well. So the level of violence goes up, the mental, you know, trauma is very up among men.
Sanam The international community and region, regional governments, but also I think some in the European context are basically trying to normalize relationships with the Taliban, right? So, okay, it is what it is. They are de facto the government. So legally, let's just recognize them and get on with it. What would you say to that? (.)
Wazhma Frogh You know, that actually also normalizes then putting a dictator, an oppressive regime on women. So imagine in five years, it's four years now, Afghan girls have not gone to school. They didn't become doctors. They didn't become engineers and lawyers and doctors and nurses. So, you know, then Afghanistan, and imagine like five more years, this generation, a lot of them are committing suicide. We have like a country that would become, you know, a hell on the earth. And at the same time, it's also very dangerous for the safety and stability because it's not just women who are being impacted, but there's a lot of radicalization that's happening. You know, younger people are being radicalized. The younger boys are learning, you know, that no woman is allowed to get out of home. This is how you defend your religious duties and, you know, you have to fight and you have to become radical. So the things that the Taliban are teaching younger boys in schools and madrasahs are very dangerous. (.) So, yeah, imagine if you have an Afghanistan like this for another five to ten years, you know, that is a real kind of, you know, dangerous spot in other parts of the world. And sadly, it will not remain inside Afghanistan, you know.
Sanam Yeah, I think that's that's one of the things that it's what happened in Afghanistan. Afghanistan doesn't stay in Afghanistan. It doesn't stay there, right?
Wazhma Frogh And imagine, like, I see a lot of policies from U.S., European countries against refugees. If we don't like refugees, then let's not make more refugees, right? Especially, and as you said, this is a young country. 65% of the population are under the age of 25 or 25. So they are, like, doing everything they can to leave the country. But at the same time, you know, you have a country that would actually turn into a living bomb. So we are also kind of watering, you know, extremism and radicalization. And that's very dangerous.
Sanam And so, so, you know, again, one of the things that we've seen in the last four years is that since, since 2021, there doesn't, the international community seems to have zero strategy on what
Soleh to do, right?
Sanam So if you were in charge, if you'd be looking at what you know is happening inside the country and then the implications of this continuing, if you were in charge, what would you advise the world to do right now? Whether it's the U.N., whether it's the U.S., whether it's the region, what, yeah, tell us
Wazhma Frogh what you would do. I think I would ask for them to have no engagement with the Taliban, but engage with the people, engage with the people of Afghanistan. That means supporting the local voices there, because the change can only come from inside. In these people already, inside Afghanistan, there is, there are political groups, there are social groups, you know, who are ready to actually continue, you know, mobilizing themselves. But when they see countries making deals with the Taliban or engaging with the Taliban, you know, they get, they are very much, you know, a sort of discouraged. So the deals and the engagement needs to be done with the people of Afghanistan, but also supporting local voices so that we strengthen, strengthen the internal resistance movement. And that doesn't have to be an armed resistance movement. It could be a social resistance movement. That's very much done by women. The women are in charge and taking charge of resistance in any parts of the country that you see right now in Afghanistan.
Sanam Yeah.
Wazhma Frogh And when you say supporting them, what does that, is it, is it about money? Is it about politics? What is it, what does that look like? It's all, right? These years that are being lost. How do we compensate that for the younger millions of girls who can't study? They are growing older, right? They would have been, you know, doctors by four years, you finish university, but they have lost those years. So when ICJ cases happening, you know, at the International Court of Justice, I said, the Taliban assets should be frozen and that should be given to the women. Give it, give it to women so that they can start doing scholarships in all different countries and find out ways how to kind of build themselves. So it's also about compensating all these years that are being lost, you know, but I very much ask for, you know, not just support of financial, but also, you know, engaging with the people because Afghans feel isolated, younger girls feel isolated and that's pushing them towards, you know, very, very, you know, life risks that they are taking.
Sanam And it's, and we keep having these, um, political negotiations, Doha one, Doha two, Doha three, and consist, again, it's the international community. It's, it's, and consistently, have they done anything to engage women leaders, civil society, people from inside, outside?
Wazhma Frogh What's the, what's happening? Sadly, no, you know, they are not because when we advise them against it, they don't want to take up the trouble of talking to us again. You know, they think that this, because they're just checking the boxes, right? Like they check the box. We had a Doha meeting. Yes, we had a Doha meeting, but what was the result? Who was part of it? You know, what was the women inclusion? Nothing. So the Taliban said the woman cannot be included and the UN agreed to it. Women were excluded from the Doha meeting. And then they, they, like, it has literally zero result. The Taliban have issued 140 decrees just on women. You know, UN is sitting there for the past four years. There has been engagement with the Taliban in the past four years. No single, you know, impact. Why?
Sanam It's a big question, right? So my next question, which I think you've kind of answered in the past, but is if you were the, if you were a billionaire, if you had a, you know, if you had the money, what would you be putting it into?
Wazhma Frogh I would buy a, you know, a number of satellites so that the girls in Afghanistan could get free access to internet, you know, get them the tablets, like free tablets so that they could actually get connected with the rest of the world and see what's happening. And because I find these young women so innovative, so energetic. And at the same time, I would also provide, you know, kind of teach them to engage, you know, businesses and learn how, how to do businesses so that, you know, I would open up an Amazon, you know, store for them online so that they could sell their products that they are making online. Yeah. You know, these are the women who can actually change the world.
Sanam It's amazing because, because in all of this, right, you don't ever mention that, oh, we should arm the women so that they can fight for themselves. Right. And again, we've heard that from Western leaders. I remember many years ago, there were people who were saying the Afghan, you know, we should arm the women, women of Afghanistan. And that's been the logic. The logic has been that, you know, the most violent ultimately get what they want. And, and in our field of practice and women, peace and security, we've always said, it's not about the violence. It's about changing the paradigm for men and women. And so here you are again, talking about access to information and education and livelihoods and well-being and not about a military or an armed insurrection led by women, right? Exactly.
Wazhma Frogh Are you worried about something like that ever happening? (.) I don't think women would do that because, you know, I have worked over the 20 years in inside the communities where I've met women who have worked with, you know, armed men trying to help them to surrender, trying to help them to lay down arms. Because the moment a woman talks to, you know, an armed person, she worries that he is the father, he is a son, he is, you know, help. So I, this would not help. And also we believe that, you know, the more violence would not eradicate violence. And, and that's how, what we have practiced and, and within the communities we see it, you know, we have practices, local practices of Nanawati where women come together and go to tribes tribes to help them, you know, resolve their animosities so that more killings can be stopped. So those are the roles that women have. So, and we can talk to anybody. We can engage with anybody of any view, any political view.
Sanam We do not, you know, we are not looking at that. And you personally, I mean, if they, if they suddenly said tomorrow that yes, if there's a delegation and we can go talk to the Taliban, whether or not, Amir and Ghandahar or wherever, be out there talking to them.
Wazhma Frogh Yes, I worked with the, with the Mujahideen leaders, right? I was on the High Peace Council together with the Taliban from the first term, the Taliban Minister of Justice. And then when I was traveling to provinces, he was, he would be, act like my father. So, and, and that was the relationship, you know, I built with him. So, yeah, you know, we are like completely, because we bring that, that roles that we have, different roles that we have in the society, right? And then we look at how this impacts other communities, other members of the society.
Sanam And then, Wajmajan, in all of this, with all the, these decrees that go on, with the funding cuts, what gives you hope? How do you keep doing what you're doing?
Wazhma Frogh Yes. You know, so in the past four years, when we changed our work to home-based and other very low-profile kind of setup. So, I created this, a Slack, you know, channel, where we put all the pictures of daily work. So, every morning, when I wake up, that's the first thing I see. So, for example, I, I woke up and I saw in Ghazni, you know, Ghazni, which is a far province in a very hard time. I saw, you know, a woman having a paper and five other women are, are, are looking at her and they are talking about something. And this morning, that was my morning start in, and that's something that I feel like, you know, it's kind of gives me life. It gives me energy. And that's why I started this channel where, you know, I see, so my colleagues put, you know, the pictures of the office and, and, you know, the work they did or, you know, a shopkeeper in Kabul and things like that, or a woman, you know, who is doing something and, and all of that. When I see these human beings who haven't given up, you know, I just want to, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of like, I want to do this for another, you know, 25 years of my life. (.)
Sanam Thank you for that. Thank you for this incredible conversation and for all the work that you're doing. And, um, and yeah, let's, you know, keep, we just have to keep doing it. Yes.
Wazhma Frogh And thank you for being our ally. I met you when I was a very young girl and we are still, we both are still young. That's what I want to be. //S02: Very young.// But thank you for being our ally. And that sisterhood I have had with you is incredible. Thank you. Thank you. You too. Much love. (.........)
Sanam Hey, Sosie. How are you this morning?
Soleh Good. Sunny day. Good.
Sanam It's finally spring. Good. Yeah, exactly. It's finally spring. Um, so sobering conversation about Afghanistan with my colleague Wajma Frog. Thoughts?
Soleh I mean, her personal story is pretty, it's pretty incredible kind of to hear. And the fact that she's so young still was, I mean, it's pretty incredible kind of to hear everything that she's been doing.
Sanam What I find extraordinary is that, you know, for 20 years, from 9-11 onwards, the US, the UK, effectively NATO forces. So all, you know, European countries, mainly, and others, actually, non-NATO, were spending money. They were sending troops and civilians into Afghanistan to do what we call a kind of a support, a nation-building project, effectively, right? It was like recreating or creating a new state, a constitution, laws, judicial system, etc. They were doing it, Afghans were doing it, but it was, you know, with the support of the international community. And what's extraordinary is that none of the positive developments really ever made it to the news internationally. Like, what we would hear on the news would be, there was a bombing, and then there was a killing, or there was corruption, or there was, you know, but...
Soleh We would occasionally hear, like, can we edit this out if I'm wrong? But the whole, like, girls in school, like, wasn't that the whole Laura Bush thing? Or was that in Iraq?
Sanam So, so the, so, you know, they, the irony is that they, that the U.S., when it wanted to go and, and occupy Afghanistan, like, to go in and, you know, find Osama bin Laden, and that was the, that was the premise, but it was going to be kind of taking American soldiers into Afghanistan. They had Laura Bush on the radio and TV in the States saying, we must go and free the, you know, girls of Afghanistan and let them go to school. (.) And, and actually a lot of the soldiers who went found that part of the mission, or like, the fact that they were there to try and bring security so that women could go to, you know, and girls could go to school. That was something that made sense to them, right? In the 20 years that they were there. But what happened in, so one was Afghans were rebuilding their lives and, and there were women judges, there were women lawyers, people like Wajma who became peace practitioners in their communities and, and believed in building their state and their nation, you know, rebuilding everything. And then meanwhile, from the political angle, the U.S. lost interest really quickly. And from 2008, 2009 onwards, it was really trying to find a, an exit strategy. And, and they had a, um, the U.S., the senior U.S. diplomat was a guy called Zalmay Khalilzad, who was himself Afghan, Afghan American. And he, both between Democratic and Republican administrations, kept getting the same position. And in the end, he was the one who was negotiating. And he really kind of, you know, many people would argue that he sold Afghans down the river. And especially Afghan women and Afghan, you know, sort of questions around Afghans, right? Afghan women's rights. He wasn't alone. I mean, I, I met other U.S. officials and international officials who would say things like, Oh, but it's their culture. And it's got, you know, that kind of thing. And it's like, no, it's not their culture. First of all, culture changes. But secondly, the Taliban's version of Islam, or whatever they call it, it's not even Islam, is not the normal culture of, it's not the historic culture. Or, uh, some, some were like, well, this is going to be an intra-Afghan issue. It's got nothing to do with us. Like, what do you mean it's got nothing to do? You guys used the excuse of girls' education.
Soleh It's like you were intra-Afghanistan for a while, you know.
Sanam Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, so, it's a very convoluted history of involvement and responsibility.
Soleh Yeah, yeah, it's very kind of, it's like, I mean, from the outside, it's like a roller coaster of kind of constant change, it seems. I mean, from what she was saying, it seemed like, you know, whatever was happening, their work was kind of continuing, trudging forward, which was, I mean, you always say, like, what gives you hope? That's kind of, it's always good. I mean, it's nice to, to hear that she's also, like, wants to, is always going to continue, you know. She's like, I mean, I'll do it for the next, I think you would say, are you going to, it'll keep you on, going on for another 20 years or something. And she's like, yes, of course. (.)
Sanam Yeah, because, I mean, I think, I think two things. One was, when Mojman was speaking about the community-based mediation that they were doing, when the big, you know, the high-level talks were happening, like, beginning, right? And, and they were saying, we're actually working in our own society on interterms and finding negotiated solutions and, and finding a pathway forward. And the fact that it was completely ignored and then destroyed effectively, right, by what the top-down approach was. That I found. But yet they still keep going. Yeah, they keep doing it because, because they have to, right? Because it's people's lives. And when she says, I'm going to carry on for, you know, another 20 years doing this, the question for me is, well, wouldn't you, right? Like, wouldn't, if this was, this was your country, the girls, and, you know, if this was //S00: in America.//
Soleh Oh, but a lot of people would say no.
Sanam Right. So some people would give up, right?
Soleh A lot of people wouldn't even have started in the first place.
Sanam Many wouldn't start in the first place. They wouldn't care. If, if you, you know, if suddenly in the, in England right now or in America tomorrow, they started taking away the rights for girls to go to school or certain university courses or jobs, which, you know, weirdly things are happening in the U.S. right now. (.) Do you just sort of say, oh, okay, that's the new law. You know, we can't have girls going to, you know, study bioengineering anymore.
Soleh Right.
Sanam Oops. Sorry, Solit. You know, your life is, you know, you can go work in a coffee shop. Or do you say, I'm going to fight it and I'm going to, I'm going to.
Soleh I mean, you say this as like a rhetorical question where, like, of course, I think both of us are, would say, of course, you fight it. But I do think that a lot of people wouldn't. I mean, a lot of people would say that they would fight it, but probably weren't actually faced with the question, wouldn't.
Sanam Well, exactly. Exactly. I mean, they, they wouldn't because maybe it doesn't affect them. Maybe they don't think that it's such a big issue. Okay, so you can't do bioengineering.
Soleh I think that doesn't affect them question also was because she, when you ask, when you point out that, you know, often women peace builders and, and people like that are sidelined because they think, oh, it's only, like, you only care about women's issues. And then, you know, she talked about the Shia status laws and things like that. And yeah, it's like, it does affect everybody, even if it has the potential also to affect everybody, even if you don't think it will like immediately affect you. //S02: Yeah.//
Sanam Well, it's, it's, you know, when people say to me, women's issues, I'm like, nuclear bombs are my issue. And, you know, road safety is my issue.
Soleh It's also always, the thing that I find confusing, it's like, they'll say women and children. I'm like, well, everyone was a child at some point.
Sanam Yeah.
Soleh And everyone can have, well, I mean, any kind of person can have children. So it's just like, what? Yeah.
Sanam Yeah. And also it's the other side of it, which I, which I find really offensive is that, you know, the assumption is that, okay, so the minute you are 18 years and over and you're a male, teenage boys or young men are considered what I think what the U.S. calls combat age males. Because you could be in combat, therefore you're now eligible for us to come after you and kill you.
Soleh Yeah.
Sanam Is, is insane, right? Like their humanity is completely taken away from them.
Soleh But mommy, that's a men's issue. So you shouldn't care about it too much. (.)
Sanam Yeah. Because I, because I only do, I only, I can only talk and think about women, right? Like that's, I actually had that once I was at the briefing in Nepal and the, and the UN political advisor was like, you can only talk about women. And I was like, are you crazy? Only the women are worried about.
Soleh Well, maybe it's just more telling of how they think, right? Where like, they don't think about, they only think about the men. Yeah.
Sanam Yeah. Well, they, they just, no, I think what happens is that it's just a level of dehumanization that exists when we're talking about war and, you know, war issues. And again, the agenda I work on and the people I work on, we bring, we're like, yes, there is war, but actually we're going to bring the humanity back. You know, there are ordinary people, there are, you know, kids and men and women and old people and young people and, and, and just this assumption that, yeah, you label them as over 18. I mean, in, in Gaza, they're having this issue as well.
Soleh Yeah.
Sanam Anyway. So yeah, the hope question, was it more hopeful than you thought? Like, did you, did you just, yeah.
Soleh Well, she seemed, I don't know, she was just so like, I mean, she was so like positive in a way that was kind of, kind of, I don't know, like nice. Like, how do you, yeah, it's.
Sanam Okay, cool. Thank you. And, and, um, I'm not going to ask you about, about my favorite bacteria and things, because I know you've been away and it's still, things are starting again, but we'll talk about it next week. //S02: Okay.// Okay. Big, big hug. Miss you. Bye. //S00: Bye.// Bye. My thanks to the Bijan Reisar Foundation, my own organization, ICANN, and Africa Digital Audio for making these podcasts possible. If you have ideas for topics or for people that I should invite and have a conversation with, please let me know at info at ICANNpeacework.org. Info at ICANNpeacework.org. You can also follow the events on our newsletter, which is on the ICANN website, same address. I really hope that the conversations, the ideas, the solutions, the hope and the inspiration that you've heard in these conversations keep you going over the next week and that you join us again. So stay well and see you soon. And I hope to hear from you. Thank you. Bye-bye.