Year Established: 2015 (Founder – Wazhma Frogh)

Organization name: Women & Peace Studies Organization – Afghanistan (Formerly RIWPS)

Women and Peace

The wars and civil unrest in Afghanistan have all been led and fought by men. The concept of war and peace has been entirely a man’s business in a country like Afghanistan. However, the informal and implicit roles and contributions of Afghan women have always been misguided or deliberately ignored. Afghan history books do not even name the female warriors; the society still cannot connect women with war and peace. Both are considered a man’s legacy and responsibility. Currently, a new wave of violent extremism and radicalization is breeding among the young men for untold and unheard grievances. Women, as mothers, wives, and sisters can prevent furthering violent extremism in their homes and communities if they have the right knowledge and tools. Women are critical in domestic affairs of families, tribes and communities in settling disputes, making big decisions and have a decisive informal role. Women can prevent extremism and insurgencies from within homes, communities and villages and this role need to be explored, studies and advocated for by the civil society organizations.

Afghanistan in 2015

Afghanistan started a formal peace process with Taleban in 2010. The High Peace Council of 70 members (including 9 women) and Provincial Peace Councils (with 189 women) established in almost all provinces of Afghanistan. They basically are mandated to find ways to address insurgency and create public acceptance as well reintegrate those foot soldiers that are ready to renounce violence. For the past 4 years since its establishment, the High Peace Council is increasingly criticized for not having a comprehensive conflict resolution and reconciliation process to include All Afghans, not just the Taleban and insurgents.

HPC has been able to reintegrate 10,700 foot soldiers, initiated community development programs in support of peace and reintegration and also created the grounds for the first historical face-to-face meeting of Taleban leadership and Afghan government on 7th July 2015. Concerns are arising about a wave of extremism and radicalization among youth in different parts of the countries that include young men and women inside and outside homes. This emerging threat to security and peace is not being addressed in anyways by the Afghan government or its regional and international allies.
Furthermore, women at large continue to be doubtful of their participation, inclusion and role in this process, though the country launched its First National Action Plan for Women, Peace and Security in June 2015.

Women’s role and inclusion still remain to be unclear in addressing peace and security in Afghanistan/. Women are likewise missing from the larger security lens and framework at the national level. In 2015, only 2600 female police are serving within the National Police forces and many serve at the lowest ranks and female police are seriously concerned about sexual harassment, lack of equal opportunities, and lack of promotion and societal stigma attached to being a female police.

In such circumstances, WPSO is building on the experience and knowledge of Research Institute for Women, Peace and Security (RIWPS-Afghanistan) and will advance knowledge and contribute towards the discourse of peace and security from a women’s perspective. WPSO will focus on the grassroots and local women leaders to share their experiences and agency with the relevant stakeholders in the government and outside.

WPSo will be seeking efforts to promote the non-traditional and non-military paradigms of security by placing women’s perspectives in the center of security approaches and discourses.

Women and Peace Studies Organization: WPSo
Women and Peace Studies Organization referred as WPSo here after is a civil society initiative built on the experience and expertise of previously existing RIWPS-Afghanistan and aims at furthering the knowledge and realization of women’s perspectives and roles within the framework of peace and security in Afghanistan.

WPSos rational is anchored on an understanding that Afghan women have critical and important roles and perspectives of peace and security locally and nationally and their knowledge and realization from a grassroots level need to be further explored, studied and advocated for – WPSos will document those experiences from the field, disseminate and empower women’s traditional leaders with tools and skills to become emerging women’s leaders in local and national level peace and security debates and frameworks.

To accomplish this aim, WPSo will document the perspectives of women research initiatives; feed those perspectives into national and international policies and programmes related to peace and security. WPSo will promote a understanding and realization of inclusive peace and security frameworks through conducting empirical research, policy analysis, and evidence-based advocacy to change and shape these policies for a lasting peace in Afghanistan. The research and policy analysis by WPSo will serve as tools for advocacy by the organization itself and its other partners and the larger civil society organizations in Afghanistan.

Vision

Promoting knowledge and realization that inclusive peace and security frameworks lead to sustainable peace & harmony in Afghanistan.

Mission

To create & explore knowledge about women leaders in grassroots movements, empower capacities, and support research and advocacy that will increase peace and security by systematic inclusion of women’s perspectives and roles in programs, policies and structures.

WPSo will strive to achieve the following objectives:

Promote the role of women as peace negotiators, mediators, peace builders and preventing violence extremism and radicalization
Create spaces and avenues for young women to enter the debate on peace and security from a people’s perspectives challenging the traditional and military peace and security frameworks
Contribute to knowledge being created and explored on the roles and contributions of women leaders at the local and national levels to transform homes, communities and villages and preventing youth from engaging with insurgencies and extremism

Priority Areas

Engendering Security
Conflict transformation and preventing violent extremism
Build constituencies for peace

WPSO-Afghanistan is in designed phase of a new initiative called “Weinparliament”. The project weinparliament.com is an effort to monitor the performance of house of people often referred to as “wolesi jirga in pashtu”. It is currently the only tool of its kind available to Afghanistan, bringing the global trend of parliament monitoring to Afghanistan.

The English side of “WJ monitor” is under development and soon will be available for a non-afghan audience. We aim to help you understand what issues are important to Afghans such as, How the WJ and its closely associated institutions work, while providing you with a weekly snapshot of what happens in WJ.

Contact: nzulfiqar@wpso-afg.org
Facebook: wpso-afghanistan
Twitter: WPSOAFG
www.wpso-afg.org