Revolutionary Association of The Women of Afghanistan - Recent Activities

Recent Activities

RAWA collects funds to support hospitals, schools and orphanages and still run many projects in Pakistan and Afghanistan, including a project in conjunction with CharityHelp.org for orphan sponsorships.

Recently RAWA restarted its mission inside Afghanistan and organized some of its events in Kabul. They marked International Women's Day in Kabul in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

On September 27, 2006, a RAWA member for the first time (perhaps in the whole history of RAWA) appeared on a round table debate on a local Afghan TV channel, TOLO TV. She had a debate with a representative of a hard line Islamic fundamentalist group. She named the top leaders of the Islamist groups and termed them "war criminal and responsible for the ongoing tragedy in Afghanistan". Tolo TV censored the audio of any sections where names were called.

On October 7, the Afghan Women's Mission (AWM) organized a fund raising event for RAWA in Los Angeles, California. Eve Ensler was the chief guest and Sonali Kolhatkar and Zoya, a member of RAWA, were among the speakers.

"Zoya" is a pseudonym for an active member of RAWA's Foreign Committee who has traveled to many countries, including the U.S. and Spain as well as Germany. In 2003, she received international acclaim for her biography Zoya’s Story - An Afghan Woman’s Battle for Freedom.

In 2009, RAWA and other women's rights groups strongly condemned a "Shia Family Code" which is claimed to legalise spousal rape within Northern Afghan Shia Muslim communities, as well as endorsing child marriage, purdah (seclusion) for married women, which was passed by President Hamid Karzai to garner support for his coalition government from hardline elements within the aforesaid communities, as well as the neighbouring Shia-dominated Islamic Republic of Iran. In addition to the above, the new "Family Code" also enshrines discriminatory legal status in the context of inheritance and divorce against women.

In June 2008 Zoya testified to the Human Rights Commission of the German Parliament (Bundestag) to persuade the German government to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

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