• pub­lished: 30 May 2013
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Fawzi Koofi, an Afghan MP, was left out to die under the sun the day she was born, ac­cord­ing to a story she re­counts in her au­to­bi­og­ra­phy. She is now set to run in Afghanistan's pres­i­den­tial elec­tions next year. Among West­ern­ers, she is re­gard­ed as a cham­pi­on for Afghan women. In Afghanistan, her record is more mixed. Her re­cent push to get par­lia­men­tary rat­i­fi­ca­tion of a pres­i­den­tial de­cree for the elim­i­na­tion of vi­o­lence against women - at the po­ten­tial risk of throw­ing out the cur­rent law - has cre­at­ed un­ease among some women's rights ac­tivists. Ac­tivists worry the par­lia­men­tary de­bate that took place last week has put reg­u­la­tions they spent years lob­by­ing for in jeop­ardy. For some women's rights ac­tivists and fe­male lead­ers in Afghanistan, the 20-minute de­bate sur­round­ing the Elim­i­na­tion of Vi­o­lence Against Women (EVAW) law came as lit­tle sur­prise. Though ini­tial media cov­er­age framed the short de­bate in terms of con­ser­va­tive ide­olo­gies, many at the van­guard of the na­tion's women's rights move­ment saw it as pure pol­i­tics. "When it comes to women's is­sues, ev­ery­thing in Afghanistan is po­lit­i­cal," said Pal­washa Has­san, a Kab­ul-based ac­tivist. To many Afghan fem­i­nists, the ar­gu­ments in Sat­ur­day's ple­nary ses­sion had as much to do with a lack of sol­i­dar­i­ty among fe­male MPs as they did with the con­ser­va­tive ide­olo­gies es­poused by those men who op­pose the law on re­li­gious grounds. Pol­i­tics as usual In push­ing for the law to be in­tro­duced into the par­lia­men­tary agen­da, Koofi's po­lit­i­cal gam­ble may have alien­at­ed women's rights ac­tivists - but she has also pro­pelled her­self into the spot­light. A wid­owed moth­er of two, Koofi's life story has earned her con­sid­er­able West­ern media at­ten­tion. But in a closed door meet­ing in the Afghan cap­i­tal last week, fe­male ac­tivists called Koofi's de­ci­sion a be­tray­al, ac­cus­ing her of pro­mot­ing her own po­lit­i­cal am­bi­tions. For her part, Koofi wor­ried that a pres­i­den­tial de­cree lack­ing the "pres­tige" of par­lia­men­tary ap­proval could be over­turned by Karzai's suc­ces­sor in 2014. Fear­ing a tu­mul­tuous po­lit­i­cal cli­mate and a con­ser­va­tive ma­jor­i­ty in the Wole­si Jirga, the lower house of the Afghan par­lia­ment, ac­tivists tried to get the law off the par­lia­men­tary agen­da. Rather than try­ing to get their male coun­ter­parts to vote in favour of the law, Frogh said, "[Fe­male MPs] should have boy­cotted Sat­ur­day's ses­sions if they truly be­lieved in women's rights". A woman and for­mer MP, who spoke to Al Jazeera on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said Koofi's vi­sion of 138 vot­ers was not based in par­lia­men­tary re­al­i­ty. Koofi's West­ern no­to­ri­ety and power in the par­lia­ment has cre­at­ed sev­er­al po­lit­i­cal ri­val­ries for her among fe­male law­mak­ers in Afghanistan. For fe­male politi­cians, it is not just out­side pres­sure that sways them to vote in one way or an­oth­er, ex­plained the for­mer MP. "The per­son ad­vo­cat­ing" for a law can play just as large a role in the de­ci­sions of fe­male MPs as can their own per­son­al feel­ings to­wards the topic at hand, she said. In her term in of­fice, the fe­male MP said she only wit­nessed a sin­gle oc­ca­sion where the ma­jor­i­ty of the 69 fe­male par­lia­men­tar­i­ans stood in unity. Orza­la Ashraf Nemat, an Afghan human rights cam­paign­er who sat in on sev­er­al par­lia­men­tary dis­cus­sions on the law be­tween 2008 and 2009, said Koofi's po­lit­i­cal cal­cu­la­tions were in­cor­rect. "It is very sim­plis­tic to ex­pect all the fe­male mem­bers of the par­lia­ment to vote in favour of the EVAW law," be­cause the strug­gle for legal pro­tec­tion of women's rights is still ham­pered by their po­si­tion in so­ci­ety and pol­i­tics, stat­ed Nemat. "This re­al­i­ty has to be ac­cept­ed by all those who hon­est­ly are con­cerned about pro­tec­tion of women," she said. A sin­gle per­son When she took the podi­um last Sat­ur­day, Koofi said: "The pro­cess of mak­ing a law is not owned by a sin­gle per­son. It is a na­tion­al pro­cess." How­ev­er, ac­tivists say the ac­tions of the woman hop­ing to be Afghanistan's first fe­male pres­i­dent be­trayed her own words. Ever since Koofi an­nounced her in­ten­tions, ac­tivists and civil so­ci­ety work­ers have been work­ing on two fronts. On one side, they are try­ing to con­vince the women's com­mis­sion from bring­ing the law to fur­ther par­lia­men­tary de­bate. On the other, fe­male lead­ers have not had enough time to pre­pare for a con­ser­va­tive back­lash. At the start of the ple­nary, Farkhun­da Zahra Naderi, daugh­ter of Sayed Man­soor Naderi, a po­lit­i­cal­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed Is­maili spir­i­tu­al lead­er, said "the EVAW law is valid; there is no need to put it on the [par­lia­men­tary] agen­da". Naderi said that 70 sig­na­tures pre­sent­ed to the ad­min­is­tra­tive board call­ing for the law to be taken off the agen­da were un­suc­cess­ful. Those close to the sit­u­a­tion said that Koofi's in­sis­tence only fur­thered rifts be­tween fe­male MPs.