tpaine posted:

Message Recipients: Barack Obama (Democrat) - President, Rajiv Shah - Administrator of USAID, Leon Edward Panetta (Democrat), Hillary Rodham Clinton (Democrat)

Subject: Don't Trade Away the Rights of Afghan Women!

Dear (recipient name),

I am writing to ask you to ensure that human rights, including women's rights, are not traded away during or after the peace talks with the Taliban and Afghan government.

When the U.S. and NATO entered Afghanistan in 2001, one of the justifications of the mission was to ensure the protection of human rights, including women's rights. More than ten years later, peace talks between the Taliban, Afghan government and the U.S. jeopardize women's human rights.

I urge you to adopt an action plan for Afghan women to ensure that Afghan women's rights are not traded away in the transition. The U.S. should make clear that human rights, including women's rights, are non-negotiable and ensure that mechanisms are in place to uphold those rights after any agreement is reached.

This action plan should include these steps:

• The U.S. government should work to guarantee human rights in the peace process with the Taliban and other insurgent groups by creating a robust monitoring mechanism that ensures human rights are not violated during or after the reconciliation process.
  
• U.S. diplomats should communicate in all of their interactions with their counterparts in the Afghan government and the Taliban that ensuring human rights, including girls' and women's human rights, is a priority for the US that is non-negotiable.
  
• The U.S. government should ensure that reconciliation talks are inclusive and reflective of Afghan civil society, including minorities and women. Afghan women should be meaningfully represented in the planning stages and during the reconciliation talks, in keeping with UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and the U.S. government's National Action Plan to implement Resolution 1325.
  
• Gender parity should be sought in all negotiating teams. To this end, the U.S. government should urge the Afghan government to set at the least a 30 per cent quota for Afghan women.
  
• The U.S. government should ensure that any political agreement includes verifiable benchmarks for the parties' conformity with international human rights laws and standards, in particular with regards to women; for instance by documenting: trends in school attendance, especially of girls; trends in women's access to health care; trends in maternal mortality and infant health, access to family planning and reproductive health services; and the ability of aid workers and civil society activists -- in particular women's human rights defenders -- to operate in areas under the respective control of the parties.
  
• The U.S. government should provide support, including funding and logistical assistance, for local level and national consultations with women in all provinces facilitated by women's rights representatives and groups to ensure that their concerns and recommendations are incorporated into any reconciliation agreement.
  
• The U.S. government should promote and fund women's education programs for women and girls at all levels of education.
  
• The U.S. government should promote and fund women's empowerment programs.
  
• The U.S. government should ensure that reconciliation talks do not result in impunity for serious violations of human rights and war crimes. The 2005 Action Plan for Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation should be reinvigorated and its recommended activities fully implemented within an agreed time-frame.
  
• The U.S. government should immediately perform a gendered assessment to determine potential trends, threats of escalating violence and opportunities for mitigating violence in the run-up and wake of US withdrawal. Such an assessment will help identify entry points and potential actions that could be taken to mitigate violence, and link prevention to peace building.
  
• The U.S. government should support efforts to prevent, investigate, prosecute, and proportionately punish violence against women in all forms and ensure safety and assistance to survivors by working through the U.S. State department, including INL, USAID, DOD and other U.S.-government funding, to strengthen the capacity and expertise of local justice institutions and related needed legal reform, and monitor their progress and accountability.
  
• The U.S. government should urge the Afghan government to guarantee that safe homes, or women's shelters, will be allowed to continue to operate without political interference, and should support NGO's working to provide assistance and shelter to women at risk.
  
• The U.S. government should support programs to strengthen and reform the criminal justice system, including training of the judiciary and police in order to implement national and international law and standards which promote and protect the rights of girls and women.
  
• The U.S. government should push for implementation of the Elimination of Violence Against Women law in the courts in Afghanistan.
  

I will continue to expect that the United States keeps the promises made to the women of Afghanistan. Please do not sacrifice human rights, including women's rights, as U.S. troops withdraw from the country.