Tuesday, March 21, 2023
No Result
View All Result
  • Media
Support Us
Macdonald-Laurier Institute
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
    • Women’s History Month Fundraiser
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy Program
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Annual Reports
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
    • Women’s History Month Fundraiser
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy Program
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Annual Reports
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media
No Result
View All Result
Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Remember Afghanistan’s women and girls: Khorshied Nusratty for Inside Policy

August 27, 2021
in Columns, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy Program, In the Media, Inside Policy, Latest News, Middle East and North Africa
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
Credit: Adapted from Canadian Forces Image Number AR2011-0200-43 by Cpl Tina Gillies.

While going to war in Afghanistan was controversial in Canada, Canadians were united in their sympathy for women and girls who suffered so terribly at the hands of the Taliban, writes Khorshied Nusratty. We should remember what we achieved for them over 20 years, and reflect on the fate they have been left to with the final withdrawal of the West.

A shorter version of this article can be read in the Toronto Star. 

By Khorshied Nusratty, August 27, 2021

Canada’s evacuation effort in Afghanistan concluded Thursday, essentially ending two decades of Canada’s presence in the country.

Canada’s role in Afghanistan after September 11, 2001, was controversial for many Canadians. During the five years I spent in Ottawa from 2004-2009, the war in Afghanistan became the dominant foreign policy issue among politicians, the media and everyday Canadians. There was a struggle to understand why Canada – which had historically taken on a peacekeeping role around the world – became involved militarily in a war that didn’t make sense to many people, especially as the events of 9/11 had occurred in the United States and Afghanistan was a faraway country with no real foreign policy connection to Canada.

Despite the ongoing struggle among those questioning the Afghanistan war, there was one area of consensus among Canadians that brought their disparate and sometimes clashing views together, and that was the advancement of human rights and social gains for Afghan women and girls. Canadians wholeheartedly supported programs and projects that would help pull Afghan women and girls out of abject poverty, oppression and despair.

Prior to 2001, Afghan women and girls were seen as less than second-class citizens by the cruel and barbaric Taliban regime, who viewed women as chattel, trading them for livestock or bestowing them as sex slaves upon their comrades.

Under the Taliban, Afghan women and girls were forbidden to work, attend school, participate in any public aspect of Afghan society, and could not leave the house or travel without a male companion. They had no rights whatsoever and were whipped in the street for showing as much as an ankle beneath their blue burqas. It was a hellish existence that no Westerners had ever experienced.

The world responded in shock when images of Afghan women being brutally shot or stoned to death in public stadiums were released across the airwaves. How could anyone ignore the barbaric cruelty that was happening in this impoverished, war-torn nation? Luckily for the people of Afghanistan, and especially the women and girls, the world didn’t turn away. Instead, numerous countries, including Canada, joined forces to first oust the Taliban and then to form the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in order to establish order under a new Afghanistan government and stabilize a country that had undergone nearly 25 years of conflict at that point due to the Soviet occupation and a brutal civil war.

After 2001, millions of Afghan women and girls were able to return to school and pursue an education. They returned to work in droves and started businesses, became doctors, lawyers, judges, parliamentarians, and joined the Afghan government. A burgeoning media and dynamic civil society launched thousands of Afghan women journalists, human rights activists, and political figures. Women appeared on television and competed in talent shows. Girls were able to participate and flourish in sports, and proudly represented Afghanistan in the Olympic Games in Athens (2004) until more recently in Tokyo (2021).

The parliamentary elections of 2005, 2010 and 2018 resulted in a record number of Afghan women becoming members of the Afghanistan Parliament, and two women ran as vice presidential candidates in the presidential elections of 2014 and 2019.

None of these gains would have been possible without the financial support and dedication of the international community working on humanitarian and reconstruction programs across all sectors in Afghanistan, backed by the military engagement and protection of ISAF and NATO forces. Every sector of society suffered and most infrastructure was destroyed throughout the many years of conflict, requiring major reconstruction projects across the nation.

Without military security and periods of stability, little progress would have been achieved over the past 20 years. However, these advances did not come about without an extraordinary investment of dollars and the loss of thousands of lives, especially among Afghan civilians, soldiers and police. Canada lost 158 soldiers and seven civilians during its military involvement in Afghanistan which ended in 2011, and the last Canadian soldiers left the country in early 2014.

As the security situation has deteriorated over the past few years once NATO forces started to drawdown and the ISAF mission ended in 2014, the Taliban and ISIS-K have wrought immeasurable destruction and loss of life among the Afghan population. In the first half of this year alone, 350 Afghan women and girls have been killed at the hands of these barbaric terrorist groups. It is no wonder that Afghan women feel abandoned by the West, and their futures are hanging in the balance.

With days left until the US military withdraws completely from Afghanistan, there is a great feeling of disbelief, anger, fear and panic among Afghans and the global community that has worked, lived and stood side by side with them since 2001. The world watched in horror as the Taliban quite easily took control of Afghanistan within a few weeks after it was announced that America was finally ending its longest war.

No one thought the United States or NATO forces would remain forever in Afghanistan, but certainly no one ever imagined we would see the tragic images of fleeing Afghan men, women and children as Taliban forces rolled into Kabul and hoisted their black Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan flag above the Presidential Palace.

When the last Russian soldiers finally left Afghanistan in 1989 after ten years of an unsuccessful occupation resulting in 1.5 million Afghans killed, Afghanistan expected political support and reconstruction efforts from the United States, which had backed Mujahideen forces leading to the defeat of the Soviets and the end of the Iron Curtain.

Unfortunately, American assistance never materialized, and Afghanistan fell into years of a bloody civil war out of which emerged the Taliban in 1994. In its failed state status, terrorism under the Taliban and Al-Qaeda was allowed to flourish leading to the fateful events of 9/11. Afghan women have much to fear with the return of the Taliban, but so should the rest of the world if we allow this nightmare to run its course. We owe the Afghan people more than that for everything they have endured.

Khorshied Nusratty is a former journalist who worked for ABC News and Fox News in Afghanistan from 2002 through 2004. As an Afghan American women’s rights advocate, she has promoted the cause of Afghan women and girls for most of her life (www.forafghanistan.org, www.voicesontherise.org). She was married to Omar Samad, the former Afghanistan Ambassador to Canada; they lived in Ottawa from 2004 – 2009. Khorshied is the Principal Communications Advisor at Gallup in Washington, DC.

Tags: AfghanistanForeign Affairsforeign policyKhorshied NusrattyTalibanWomen
Previous Post

A Message to Canadians from Amrullah Saleh, Acting President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

Next Post

Focus on the Victims of Terrorism: Sarah Teich and Daniel Eisen for Inside Policy

Related Posts

Making Canada’s Arctic security paradigm fit for purpose: From exceptionalism to geostrategic competition
Commentary

Making Canada’s Arctic security paradigm fit for purpose: From exceptionalism to geostrategic competition

March 21, 2023
Oaths, trust and Canadian democracy: Stephen Van Dine and Karl Salgo for Inside Policy
Inside Policy

Oaths, trust and Canadian democracy: Stephen Van Dine and Karl Salgo for Inside Policy

March 17, 2023
Preparing for the Foreign Threats to Canadian Democracy: Straight Talk with Richard Fadden
Inside Policy

Canada and Japan’s common miscalculation in cyberspace: Koichiro Komiyama for Inside Policy

March 15, 2023
Next Post
Focus on the Victims of Terrorism: Sarah Teich and Daniel Eisen for Inside Policy

Focus on the Victims of Terrorism: Sarah Teich and Daniel Eisen for Inside Policy

Macdonald-Laurier Institute

323 Chapel Street, Suite #300
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 7Z2 Canada

613.482.8327

info@macdonaldlaurier.ca
MLI directory

Follow us on

Newsletter Signup

Support Us

Support the Macdonald-Laurier Institute to help ensure that Canada is one of the best governed countries in the world. Click below to learn more or become a sponsor.

Support Us

Inside Policy Magazine

  • Current Issue
  • Back Issues
  • Advertising
  • Inside Policy Blog
  • Privacy Policy

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
    • Women’s History Month Fundraiser
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy Program
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Annual Reports
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.