On Women in Peace Negotiations

There has been an emerging consensus since around 2011 among international
donors, numerous academics, other researchers, and Afghanistan experts that
peace must be negotiated between the Government of Afghanistan and AOGs
mainly because international aid and military presence of NATO forces cannot be
sustained indefinitely. There is much talk among these actors of making the High
Peace Council more empowered and inclusive, particularly of women, in its dealings
with the myriad of AOGs whose two main sources of discontent are the international
military forces in Afghanistan and the Government of Afghanistan.
APPROs research suggests that there is a wide and sizeable constituency of Afghans
who wish to hold on to most of the key gains made since 2001 including the right to
vote, womens place in society, public health, and basic and higher education.
Ordinary Afghans worry that these gains may be used as bargaining chips in peace
negotiations. The unprecedentedly high numbers of voters in the first and second
rounds of presidential elections, despite the serious threats of violence by AOGs,
confirm this worry.
The strong showing at both elections, particularly in the first round, was a clear
indication that the overwhelming majority of Afghans want free elections despite the
cheating, and are defiant against threats to exercising their democratic right to vote.
Given this simple but powerful indicator, it is rather remarkable that there is such a
strong consensus among the international donors on promoting peace negotiations,
with or without a high presence of women in the High Peace Council and most
certainly without any representation of the young and educated Afghan individuals
who have come of age in the last 13 years.
An estimated 80% of the voting population came out to vote on the first round of
elections on April 5 and of that around 38% were women. 1 In absolute terms these
are the highest numbers ever in any election in the entire history of Afghanistan.
Also, according to demographic estimates between 60-70% of Afghanistans
population is under the age of 25. A sizeable number of young people in Afghanistan
who have grown up to be adults in the last 13 years want to keep what they have
accomplished in education and material well being. There appears to be no
empirical grounds for assuming that the youth or women would agree to arbitrary
terms of a peace negotiated at the expense of these gains. Afghans are weary of
threats and instability but they are also wary of forced peace.
There remains a desperate need to first establish what Afghans, particularly the
youth and women, want before prescribing solutions to their actual or perceived
problems.
Peace negotiations, like all sound decisions, need to be grounded in empirical
evidence. No one has ever really asked how ordinary men, women, and youth think
about the peace negotiations, and what these thoughts might imply for the terms of
engagement between the parties negotiating for peace. With 2014 coming to a
close, and the imminent and full departure of the international military forces and

1 This is according to Afghanistans Independent Election Commission (IEC), available from:

http://www.iec.org.af/results/en/elections

many aid providing organizations from Afghanistan, there is an urgent need for
allocating adequate resources to catalogue the hopes, aspirations, and concerns of
ordinary Afghans about the future of the country.
This will not require carrying out comprehensive and many pages long national
public opinion surveys but a series of rapid assessments to monitor the thinking
among the populace about the issues that concern them the most. The assessments
may well reveal that the desire for peace at all costs is indeed the prevailing
sentiment among the general populace. If that is the case, then peace making can
be advocated on the basis of popular sentiment and not because the departing
international organizations think that is what Afghanistan must have.
Image: Thomson Reuters, http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/afghan-peace-bid-onhold-over-kabul-taliban-protocol-row-382562
Image 2: http://dudelol.com/