Afghan troop boost is not the answer: activist

Updated September 8, 2010 11:28:32

The US and NATO commander in Afghanistan has asked for another 2,000 troops for the foreign force fighting the Taliban insurgency, despite waning support for the war in contributing nations.

NATO officials said the request by General David Petraeus to bolster the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was made last week. It included a call for about 750 more personnel to train local Afghan security forces. However, Afghan human rights activist Suraya Pakzad says her country needs good governance and economic development, more than troops.

Presenter: Sen Lam
Speakers: Suraya Pakzad, executive director of the Voice of Women organisation

PAKZAD: Through economic development Afghanistan can stand by its own, because Afghanistan is agricultural based country and instead we are importing everything from neighbour countries. There is no job opportunity for people. They are travelling to Pakistan and Iran and that is an easy place for them to encourage them to insurgency group, part of the Taliban group. Women are staying at home, they don't have any job, they are not sending their children to school. The poverty is at a high level, if you would like to decrease the poverty, you have to invest in economic development project and create some small job opportunity for the people to be able to stand by themselves.

LAM: Afghanistan, of course, receives a lot of international aid, what would you like donor countries to focus on, if you had to advise them, what would you tell donor countries?

PAKZAD: The money spent in Afghanistan unfortunately the majority of the money went to the military operations in the idea that they would provide security and provide peace, but fighting does not providing security. We have to work in another way and for the humanitarian services also, the UN agencies and other companies, the big companies like USAID are spending a huge amount of their money for their administration costs. They money never went to the people of the country and the community to really benefit from that money and especially the government is not capable to implement the project when the international troops pull out there from Afghanistan, because there was not enough investment of capacity building of the government of Afghanistan that at least today, we have a viable government that will be able to continue the same activities for the people of Afghanistan, to work on the corruption and then create a place that everybody can have the right to work. We need qualified Afghans, women and men to start in a high level positions because it still we live on project base, short term project based and many of the projects have a consultant from outside Afghanistan. At the end of the day, the impact of the project is very low, because people who are working throughout, they don't have a view of the complex of Afghanistan and the culture of Afghanistan as they should know about that.

LAM: Nine years after the Taliban was ousted, has human rights improved a little bit for women and girls in Afghanistan do you think?

PAKZAD: Yes for sure, Afghanistan has seen tremendous changes after the Taliban fall. The Taliban time we did not have the right to walk on the streets without being accompanied by a male relative, but today, women like me have the right to travel, even there is lots of challenging, but still we have ministry of women's affairs, we have three female ministers are sitting in the Karzai cabinet. Afghanistan Independence and Human Rights Commission is leading by a women.

LAM: Life is pretty challenging for you, isn't it? You still receive death threats?

PAKZAD: For sure, when you swim against water, you have to be ready for that. When you are fighting against injustice and then you're fighting against the terrorist and the extremists, it is not easy to do that. I am facing lots of death threats, but I'm sure that the international community, the organisation, like Amnesty organisation are taking care of us. I have to do that, otherwise the future generation of Afghanistan will suffer the same that today they are suffering in our country.

LAM: What is the Ministry of Womens' Affairs doing, is it effective in its work?

PAKZAD: They are, they try to change the policy, have their policy maker body in the Government of Afghanistan due to the leaders of their work and the work of civil society activists and other women organisations. Today we have violence against womens' laws adopted and the practice now, that criminalise the violence against women in Afghanistan. And when you have 25 persons of the parliament member are women, it is another progress that was the lobbying and advocacy that policy that Ministry of Womens Affairs has made in this way. Today in constitutional framework, you have a lot, but we know the implementation is smooth, the implementation of those laws are still in the hands of the war lords and the hand of the people who was involved with narcotics. They are in the high position of power and they are creating so many problems, so that is why we are working hard to fight against that injustice and provide the equality of the country. We try to change the behaviour of men towards women and with international community support and commitment, hopefully we will achieve that big campaign of gender sensitisation and we believe that we start from a position of inequality and well aware of the importance of our roles at this critical stage of this nation building in our country and we believe we will restore our own position and we will regain our position in the country and one day we will enjoy our freedom like women in this beautiful country of Australia today are enjoying. Next generation will enjoy if not today.