AIBU to ask how to help women and girls in Afghanistan

[Aplone]

... Following the takeover of the Taliban? Are there any practical steps which we in the UK can take to help women and girls who will now undoubtedly lose rights and freedoms under this new regime. I feel so helpless watching these events unfolding, and really want to be able to do something. Are there any reputable organisations* to donate to? Any other actions we can take (petitions etc. although please no links as they are not allowed!!)? Thank you very much.

*not Oxfam! After the way they behaved in Haiti I don't trust them one iota!

(Inb4 - "what about the menz?" I want to help women and girls and "what about our homeless veterans?" I want to help our homeless veterans too, infact it is an issue very close to my heart but I have some idea of what charities etc. offer support and you can support more than one cause!)

Thanks, @Aplone, that's a really good collation from the thread.

Apparently this thread isn't showing up in Active?

I just looked and it's very far down the page. Which is a shame for such a good discussion.

@Aplone

Have finished reading the thread now and have collated the charities and ideas suggested. Thank you all xx

charities
Turquoise Mountain
Women for Afghan Women
CARE
Rukhshana Media
womenforwomen.org.uk
www.street-child.co.uk/afghanistan
Linda Norgrove foundation
ICRC (Red Cross)

UNICEF and OCHA though these are related to the UN, which has a horrible track record with its "peacekeepers"

Also -
support for refugees in camps in Pakistan / Iran

twitter thread with suggestions on how to support mobile.twitter.com/KateOfHysteria/status/1427141576980115456

write to MPs re support for free passage for refugees and sign the petition www.change.org/p/priti-patel-call-on-the-uk-government-to-resettle-20-000-afghan-refugees

Thanks for all the comments saying how all charities "on the ground" are having to work with / via the Taliban. Just horrible.

I read an article earlier which mentioned a family unable to afford a taxi to Kabul, so they sold their dead son's widow to pay for the fare! And this was in order to escape the Taliban. I can't even.

Thank you so, so much for this collated link post, and just for posting the main thread. The situation is so awful and the helplessness... I remember being so horrified by a friend's boyfriend's complacent assertion that women in Afghanistan, "Don't mind, it's their culture" back in 2000 that I just burst into tears of rage, and to see it all coming back again... just unspeakable.

Thank you for doing that Aplone

I read this earlier. Women who have never worn burqas are now forced to are trying to find them to make themselves safe. I can't even begin to comprehend how that must feel.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/16/there-are-no-women-kabul-street-stayed-home-fear-beaten-taliban-fighters

Sorry that was a bit garbled. It's so upsetting.

Thanks for this thread. It's horrible, just horrific.

That's ok, I thought it would be useful to have everything in one place

I feel physically sick at what I have been reading, girls of 12 being used for "Quanimaht" or "spoils of war". They really don't see females young or old as human.

Just seen this on another thread also

Practical action please can everyone tweet Boris Johnson and your own mp and post on their facebook pages and instragrams with #Nowzad animal shelter Afghanistan, save its staff from certain death.

For those who don’t know Nowzad set up the first ever animal shelter in Afghanistan its has dogs, cats and even donkeys. It was set up by former royal marine Pen Farthing. It trains young women and has trained 500 young vets since it started. They will be seen as British collaborators and face certain death and for the women worse, if the 25 staff and their families are not got to the safety of the UK. Please act now as they Nowzad did for the Afghan people and our troops. Tomorrow is too late it has to tonight

Early morning BUMP.

This issue lies much deeper, we are talking about tribes where the majority of men support the suppression of women and girls. Even the Afghan woman MP said that many men in the street support and welcome the Taliban and their view of Islamic ideology. Where educating girls is punishable and women kept under the strictest misogynistic terms and where the youngest girls are used as sexual fodder for male depravity.

I think we have to step back and understand that huge swathes of the world's population do not believe that women and girls should be educated or be allowed to be independent or to do anything other than serve men and boys. Many believe this is God or Allah's word for how humans need to live.

The West provides an alternative ideology but let's not be naiive and think the majority of the men and women in the world agree with it.

This has always been a gendered war. Just look at the sheer numbers of young men compared to women who end up seeking refugee status.

If your husband, your brother, your father and your son aren't prepared to support your freedom then it's folly to think trillions in resources are going to make any difference.

Point the finger at Afghan men, patriarchal tribalism and the belief system and ideology. Nowhere else.

@Smudgingpastels

This issue lies much deeper, we are talking about tribes where the majority of men support the suppression of women and girls. Even the Afghan woman MP said that many men in the street support and welcome the Taliban and their view of Islamic ideology. Where educating girls is punishable and women kept under the strictest misogynistic terms and where the youngest girls are used as sexual fodder for male depravity.

I think we have to step back and understand that huge swathes of the world's population do not believe that women and girls should be educated or be allowed to be independent or to do anything other than serve men and boys. Many believe this is God or Allah's word for how humans need to live.

The West provides an alternative ideology but let's not be naiive and think the majority of the men and women in the world agree with it.

This has always been a gendered war. Just look at the sheer numbers of young men compared to women who end up seeking refugee status.

If your husband, your brother, your father and your son aren't prepared to support your freedom then it's folly to think trillions in resources are going to make any difference.

Point the finger at Afghan men, patriarchal tribalism and the belief system and ideology. Nowhere else.

Agree with this

Why would the men come out and defend their country when they aren't the ones losing out.

It's the women and children who will suffer the most and they cannot fight.

I doubt the e isvany instnct to save 'their country' because tribal loyalties come first.

There is little sense of ever coming together as a country, except historically when booting out foreigners.

Women in Afghanistan are now beyond Western help

I disagree, and I'd like to quote the film Pride

He basically says when you are in a battle with a much stronger enemy finding out you had a friend is the best feeling in the world.

We might not be able to throw money at the problem just now but we can listen to women's voices, put out their stories, fears find ways to support women.

And as we know there will be deaths we can count these women and remember their names. Their actual names not their father's or husband's.

We can apply political pressure to our own and other leaders.

How do we do this? I haven't a clue, upthread there are suggestions to contact MPs and that is probably a good start.

@Smudgingpastels

This issue lies much deeper, we are talking about tribes where the majority of men support the suppression of women and girls. Even the Afghan woman MP said that many men in the street support and welcome the Taliban and their view of Islamic ideology. Where educating girls is punishable and women kept under the strictest misogynistic terms and where the youngest girls are used as sexual fodder for male depravity.

I think we have to step back and understand that huge swathes of the world's population do not believe that women and girls should be educated or be allowed to be independent or to do anything other than serve men and boys. Many believe this is God or Allah's word for how humans need to live.

The West provides an alternative ideology but let's not be naiive and think the majority of the men and women in the world agree with it.

This has always been a gendered war. Just look at the sheer numbers of young men compared to women who end up seeking refugee status.

If your husband, your brother, your father and your son aren't prepared to support your freedom then it's folly to think trillions in resources are going to make any difference.

Point the finger at Afghan men, patriarchal tribalism and the belief system and ideology. Nowhere else.

I understand why you might think this but I believe there are significant flaws in the argument and it’s bordering on anti-Islamic.

Most Islamic people and countries fully support the education of girls. Individuals might not (same as in the white working class areas here in U.K. or many members of the GRT community).

Islam puts emphasis on the importance of knowledge, study, and understanding. Islam believes that obtaining knowledge is the only way to gain true understanding of life, and as such encourage both males and females to study. Even in Saudi, the most conservative of Islamic nations, women can go to one of 36 universities. Nobody is suggesting there is equal access, but women’s education is supported.

All wars and most crime are ‘gendered crime’. Even in the U.K. in WWII there were 384,000 soldiers killed. They were entirely male. More recently in the Falklands campaign it was 255 male combatants who died and just three island women. The ‘just’ is about numbers not trivialising their deaths. All war, all conflict is gendered and it is women who suffer in wars led by men.

The main reason most refugees seeking access to the U.K. by boat are male adults and teenage boys (I’m assuming that’s who you mean, (since most large refugee camps are full of women and children), is because families feel that their strong, healthy young men are best able to make the treacherous journeys fro.m their home nations and so support them traveling to safer places. Many do this in the hope of bringing their families to safety once asylum has been granted.

@sashh

Women in Afghanistan are now beyond Western help

I disagree, and I'd like to quote the film Pride

He basically says when you are in a battle with a much stronger enemy finding out you had a friend is the best feeling in the world.

We might not be able to throw money at the problem just now but we can listen to women's voices, put out their stories, fears find ways to support women.

And as we know there will be deaths we can count these women and remember their names. Their actual names not their father's or husband's.

We can apply political pressure to our own and other leaders.

How do we do this? I haven't a clue, upthread there are suggestions to contact MPs and that is probably a good start.

Honestly I know you are clutching at straws but the reality is not one bit of that will make any difference at all. Do you really think the Taliban give a shit about negative publicity or the fact someone’s local mp was pressurised? The decisions being made are made at a very high level across many countries

Right now the poster is right, these women are beyond our help, as devastating as it is. Their own army took the decision not to fight the Taliban, the west has pulled out. If there own men folk won’t help, and the west has protected them for twenty years, trained and weaponised their own people to protect them snd they didn’t , then nothing can be done.

I would like to see the Muslim world help now the West have pulled out.

Can we stop with the hatred of all Afghan men please. There are very many good men there, family men who are afraid for the repercussion on their children and wives if they resist or fight back. There are men who helped our troops. Men who face maimings, torture etc if they resist joining the Taliban. Men who are LGBT.

As for the scenes yesterday, In a panic situation, the fittest people will get to the front, that doesn't mean they are bad people. Blind panic means you push and shove and try to save yourself. When thousands of others are doing that too, it is the vulnerable and the less strong who make it to the front. It's the same in this country too - when people flee from a terror incident, they all charge at the same time. They don't say 'let's hold back and get the women and children out'. Just as the stronger women don't hold back for the less strong ones. It's horrid, it's ugly, panic makes you selfish.

The women and children of Afghanistan need focused help. I absolutely support this. I feel utterly, utterly sick at what they are facing now and I'm really glad that people are trying to find a way of helping them, in whatever way we can. I'm looking too as to what I can do. I only know of aid agencies based here. But it isn't a binary afghan men are evil, afghan women are good situation.

I know of a couple of good groups that are based in the UK focusing on women and children that have made it here.

helprefugees.org/uk/meena-centre/

www.facebook.com/kentrefugeeactionnetwork/

Thank you for this thread and links.

Quanimaht - they actually have word for this??

Practical action please can everyone tweet Boris Johnson and your own mp and post on their facebook pages and instragrams with #Nowzad animal shelter Afghanistan, save its staff from certain death.

For those who don’t know Nowzad set up the first ever animal shelter in Afghanistan its has dogs, cats and even donkeys. It was set up by former royal marine Pen Farthing. It trains young women and has trained 500 young vets since it started. They will be seen as British collaborators and face certain death and for the women worse, if the 25 staff and their families are not got to the safety of the UK. Please act now as they Nowzad did for the Afghan people and our troops. Tomorrow is too late it has to tonight

Nowzad have also asked for as many people as possible to email or tweet the following MPs to ask for safe evacuation of all its staff.

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

Utterly heartbreaking.

@Errno

Practical action please can everyone tweet Boris Johnson and your own mp and post on their facebook pages and instragrams with #Nowzad animal shelter Afghanistan, save its staff from certain death.

For those who don’t know Nowzad set up the first ever animal shelter in Afghanistan its has dogs, cats and even donkeys. It was set up by former royal marine Pen Farthing. It trains young women and has trained 500 young vets since it started. They will be seen as British collaborators and face certain death and for the women worse, if the 25 staff and their families are not got to the safety of the UK. Please act now as they Nowzad did for the Afghan people and our troops. Tomorrow is too late it has to tonight

Nowzad have also asked for as many people as possible to email or tweet the following MPs to ask for safe evacuation of all its staff.

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

Utterly heartbreaking.

Thank you for this. I read that one of the employees is pregnant, and missing. As is the wife of Pen

@wannagetoutofhere

Quanimaht - they actually have word for this??

Commanders have ordered imams to bring them unwed women aged between 12 to 45 for their soldiers to marry because they are viewed as "qhanimat" — spoils of war. From Mirror article linked below. Also being reported elsewhere. (I spellt it wrong.)

www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/taliban-celebrating-resurgence-seizing-girls-24752882

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9899151/amp/Taliban-maraud-streets-Kabul-hunting-girls-young-12.html

metro-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/metro.co.uk/2021/08/12/taliban-gain-territory-in-afghanistan-as-they-seize-girls-to-wed-15078078/amp/?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16292266796282&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fmetro.co.uk%2F2021%2F08%2F12%2Ftaliban-gain-territory-in-afghanistan-as-they-seize-girls-to-wed-15078078%2F

www.latintimes.com/taliban-fighters-reportedly-go-door-door-grab-underage-girls-serve-spoils-war-481111%3famp=1

@urbanbuddha

Amnesty? They will at least shine a light on it.

And that's about all. All talk no do IMO.