Join us for a high-level CSW69 side event on Afghan women’s rights, education, and the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. Featuring Afghan women leaders and experts, the discussion will address the challenges they face, the impact of their exclusion on stability, and pathways to fight for their rights and access to education.
As we commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the plight of Afghan women and girls stands as a stark reminder of our collective struggle for gender equality. For over three years, the Taliban’s systematic repression has stripped Afghan women and girls of their fundamental rights, including the right to education, barring them from secondary and higher education. This has not only stifled their individual potential but has also jeopardized Afghanistan’s long-term peace, security, and development.
The Beijing Declaration affirms that education is a cornerstone for gender equality, poverty eradication, and sustainable development, calling for the removal of systemic barriers that prevent girls from learning. Likewise, the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda underscores that sustainable peace is impossible without the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women in all aspects of society. Compounding these challenges, climate change has disproportionately affected Afghan women, particularly those heading households, by worsening food insecurity, malnutrition, and displacement. Prolonged droughts and extreme weather events have eroded traditional livelihoods, intensifying women’s vulnerability and limiting their access to essential services. The deliberate exclusion of Afghan women and girls from education and public life, coupled with the climate crisis, is not just a violation of their rights—it is a grave threat to Afghanistan’s security and stability while setting a dangerous precedent for gender equality worldwide.
This milestone anniversary offers a critical moment for global action. The international community must reaffirm its commitment to both the Beijing Declaration and the WPS agenda by ensuring their support for Afghan women and girls to reclaim their fundamental rights.
Event Overview
This high-level side event will underscore the vital role of women’s participation in fostering stability, peace, and security in Afghanistan. Through a panel discussion featuring Afghan women leaders, policymakers, and peace and security experts, the event will highlight how the systematic exclusion of women from the Afghan society have severe effect not in their lives, but in the generations of young girls and boys. It will also explore pathways to ensuring Afghan women’s access to education .
Panel Discussion: A Generation at Risk – Afghan Women’s Struggle for Stability and Peace
This event will bring together prominent Afghan women leaders, peace advocates, and WPS experts to:
- Discuss the impact of Taliban policies on Afghan women’s rights and their ability to contribute to stability and peace.
- Explore the direct link between women’s participation and Afghanistan’s long-term security and governance.
- Highlight the challenges in accessing education, particularly ways to overcome and mitigate these barriers.
- Address the intersecting challenges of climate change, security and Afghan women’s participation in shaping the region’s long-term sustainable peace and development.
- Provide concrete recommendations for international actors to support Afghan women’s effort to education, ensuring their full participation in society
This event will serve as a platform to galvanize policy commitments, funding, and amplify advocacy efforts aimed to upholding Afghan women’s rights. It will call for urgent international support to ensure their voices are heard, their future remains a priority on the global agenda, and Afghanistan’s sustainable peace and development are realized with Afghan women at the forefront.
Speakers
Habiba Sarabi is a pharmacist, politician, and reformer of the post-Taliban era in Afghanistan. In 2005, she was appointed as governor of Bamyan Province, becoming the first woman ever to be a provincial governor in the country. Sarabi served as Minister of Women's Affairs from 2002 to 2004. During the Taliban days in 1990s, she worked as woman rights and education activist and taught girls and women in refugee camps in Pakistan. She joined Dr. Zalmai Rasul’s ticket as vice president in 2014 presidential elections and was the most prominent woman running in that year’s elections. Upon the formation of the National Unity Government, Sarabi served as advisor on women and youth to Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the Chief Executive of Afghanistan. She was later appointed as Deputy to the Afghanistan High Peace Council in 2016.
Habiba Sarabi won the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2013 for her work in good governance and girl’s education. She was awarded the N-Peace prize in 2016 for her unrelenting work to bring peace to Afghanistan while ensuring attention on gender equality and women’s empowerment. Habiba Sarabi was a member of the Afghan Government peace negotiation team with the Taliban. Currently, she is a member of the steering committee at Women Forum on Afghanistan (WFA). She is a resident fellow at the Princeton SPIA Afghanistan Policy Lab.
Dr. Sarabi, a former governor of Bamyan province, former Minister of Women’s Affairs, and a member of the Afghan Government Peace Negotiating Team, is a prominent advocate for human rights, with a strong focus on women’s rights.
Pashtana Durrani (Boston, MA) is an Afghan human rights activist and community development expert whose focus is girls’ education. Durrani is the founder of LEARN Afghanistan (@LearnAfg), a grassroots organization established to safely and securely provide education to girls through a distributed network of tablet computers using an offline platform. Through LEARN, she has educated 7,000 girls and boys in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and trained more than 80 teachers in digital literacy. LEARN also focuses on girls’ health, and has trained 700 girls in menstrual hygiene management.
Durrani was named an Education Champion by the Malala Fund for her outstanding work to advance Afghan girls’ education. She was a global youth representative for Amnesty International and a board member of the steering committee for the Global Environment Facility, an international partnership to address pressing environmental concerns. She is also a winner for the 2021 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Emerging Leader prize, which recognizes leaders who have addressed complex global challenges in innovative ways. Her outstanding work placed into The BBC’s 2021 Most Influential Women list, as well as the 2021 #Times100talks. Learn more at www.learnafghan.org.
Follow her on Facebook: @pashtanadurrani.barak / Twitter: @BarakPashtana / Instagram: @afghania_barakzai
Dr. Mirwais Balkhi joined the Afghanistan Policy Lab at Princeton University in September 2024. He is also a fellow at the Wilson Center, Washington, D.C. He served as the Minister of Education of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from 2018 to 2020. Dr. Balkhi holds a Ph.D. in International Relations with a specialization in West Asian Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India. He has published numerous academic articles including the books "Saudi Arabia's Foreign Policy Towards Afghanistan: 1991-2014", "A Critique of Afghanistan’s Regional Integration", "American Nation-Building: A Comparison of Afghanistan and Iraq", "An Introduction to Regional Studies in International Relations", and "Afghanistan and the Region: A West Asian Perspective".
Additionally, Dr. Balkhi has edited and co-edited several books, including "Afghanistan After 2014", "How to Be an IR Expert?", "How You Became an IR Thinker?", and "What is the Main Issue in International Relations?".
Dr. Balkhi has lectured at several universities, including Georgetown University-Qatar, Kabul University, the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF), the University of Afghanistan (UofA), and Rana University. He is currently the Chief Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Diplomacy & International Studies.
Richard Bennett serves as the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan. Mr. Bennett has previously served in Afghanistan in various capacities including as the Chief of the Human Rights Service with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) from 2003-07 and in 2018-19. He has been a long-term adviser to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. He also served with the United Nations as the Representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and head of the human rights components of peacekeeping operations in Sierra Leone, Timor-Leste, and South Sudan From 2007 to 2010, He was the Representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal. He has also been Chief of Staff for the UN Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Sri Lanka and Special Adviser to the Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights in New York. Mr. Bennett worked for Amnesty International from 2014 – 17, initially as its Asia-Pacific Program Director and later as head of Amnesty’s United Nations Office in New York. From mid-2019, he worked as a consultant on UN human rights assignments in Afghanistan, Myanmar and New York. Mr. Bennett is a visiting professor at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund, Sweden, which has commenced an Afghanistan programme.
Dhivya O’Connor is a dynamic charity leader, with over 22 years' experience across both the charity and commercial sectors. Dhivya has served as CEO for organisations including United World Schools, Chartered Institute of Fundraising and Children with Cancer UK. She is a Board Member of Book Aid International, a library development charity operating in over 30 countries; sits on the Steering Committee of Groundbreakers, a network promoting women leaders in the voluntary sector; and is Governor of a London state primary school.
Prior to joining the third sector, she held various strategy, business development and leadership roles, and helped drive transformative growth, working in organisations including Lloyds Bank, GE Capital and OctopusTravel (now part of Expedia Group).
Dhivya is also the creator and executive producer of the chart-topping The Charity CEO Podcast.
Lamar Zala Gran – Afghan Activist, Writer, and Founder of Empowering Afghan Women Lamar Zala Gran is an Afghan activist, writer, and political science student at Berea College. She is the founder of Empowering Afghan Women, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting girls’ education and providing online learning opportunities for Afghan women under Taliban rule. A passionate advocate for women’s rights, Lamar has spoken at high-level international forums, including the United Nations, where she addressed issues of gender apartheid and youth inclusion in peace processes. Her activism began in Afghanistan, where she defied societal norms to pursue education and civic engagement. After the Taliban’s takeover in 2021, she was forced to flee but continued her advocacy from exile. She has met with global leaders, including Hillary Clinton and U.S. ambassadors, and spoken at events hosted by the Australian Embassy and the UN. Lamar has also worked with organizations like Silatech, the Education Above All Foundation, and the International Youth Conference, representing youth voices at the UN High-Level Political Forums. Her work has been featured in BBC News, Al Jazeera, and Tagesspiegel, where she has written extensively on Afghan women’s struggles. Despite personal hardships, Lamar remains committed to amplifying Afghan women's voices and fighting for their right to education and freedom.
Sponsorship of an event does not constitute institutional endorsement of external speakers or views presented.
