New York (NVI): Women must be a part of peace negotiations in Afghanistan as there can be no sustainable peace if women are not at the negotiating table, former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
“Women are essential to combating corruption, building economic growth and ensuring the longevity of any agreement that is reached. If women are sidelined, the prospects for sustainable peace are slim,” she said in New York at the meeting of the Group of Friends of Women in Afghanistan, while commenting on the US-Taliban peace deal that was signed in Doha on February 29.
“If society is torn apart and women pushed to the margins, it is more likely that terrorists will find a haven. There can be no sustainable peace without women’s participation and rights” she said while adding that women must be included, and women’s rights respected, as part of any peace negotiation in Afghanistan.
“To this day, they remember how they would be whipped in public for the slightest infraction; how they were kept secluded and deprived of going to school, seeking medical services, or interacting socially, and how they had to endure cruel punishments such as stoning decreed by outlaw courts. In addition, quite a few of them lost their closest and most dear relatives to Taliban acts of violence: an occurrence that unfortunately continues until today”, she said.
“We need our allies, international partners and supporters to elevate the strides of my fellow Afghan sisters for not only having a seat at the negotiating table but for a comprehensive peace agreement that protects the constitutional rights of every Afghan woman”, she stated.
“Because women’s rights are human rights,” she added.
