In Afghanistan, we suffered war for more than four decades. When the Taliban got strong enough to challenge the government, especially after 2010, different countries wanted to mediate. President Hamid Karzai established the High Peace Council. But it was unable to mediate with the Taliban, partly because of interference from other countries like Pakistan. And in 2011 the Taliban in Pakistan assassinated the chair of the High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani. Different countries wanted to mediate – Germany, Norway and some others during Karzai’s time in office. Later, Uzbekistan, Russia, and then Qatar all wanted to mediate the process.

Civil society also tried to do mediation. But the government wanted to have its own strategy, its own road map, its own way forward. In the middle, I felt that the UN mission, UNAMA, from the beginning did not play its role in mediation role very firmly. During the Qatar talks in 2020, Qatar claimed that it was facilitator, not mediator, of negotiations between Taliban and Afghan government, and that the two sides should talk and resolve their problems. We felt that the facilitation did not work, so we requested UNAMA to bring a mediator between the two parties. But the US was also involved, and the UN was too slow – and in the end, as you know, in 2021 the Government of Afghanistan collapsed.

Afghan women and peacemaking

Women are a part of a society; half of the society cannot be ignored. We have to be present to talk about ourselves, to talk about our own difficulties, to talk about our own problems, our own challenges. Several women’s organisations worked alongside the High Peace Council, especially after Afghanistan adopted its first National Action Plan on Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2015. They had funding from different countries and donor agencies and worked especially on peacebuilding and peace education in the rural areas and lobbied to bring more women into the peace process. There was not enough coordination between these organisations on how they could combine their efforts and the government did not take the efforts of women or other civil society actors seriously. But some actors started to push the High Peace Council on this, including UNAMA, Finland, Canada and Sweden – it was mostly countries with feminist foreign policies involved in pushing women into the peace process.

As a result, in 2016 I was appointed as deputy chairperson of the High Peace Council, and six other women joined the High Peace Council executive body. In that position I felt respected, but respect is one thing and support is something else. When I wanted to initiate something, for example the Mothers of Peace, an initiative that involved a network of women from the local and provincial levels, we did not get the necessary support from the High Peace Council or president’s office.

During the negotiations in Qatar, we met further resistance. When it came for the negotiating team to be chosen, there was a lot of pressure for it to be inclusive. The government and the president encouraged political parties to nominate women, but all of them nominated men; two of them – Atta Muhammad Nur and Marshal [Abdul Rashid] Dostum – nominated their sons. In the end the president chose four women for a bigger 21-person delegation. There was just one woman out of five members of the Contact Group created to facilitate negotiations in a smaller format with the Taliban’s Contact Group – all men of course.

In some respects, we did not meet resistance from male colleagues in our delegation; in Qatar we were told that we were the ‘stars of our team’ because we were very involved, very active. But the Taliban played a kind of trick. Their tactic was to tell us that they had changed. There was an Intra-Afghan Dialogue during June 2019, with 11 women out of 35 delegates. Some of women would talk with Taliban during the lunches: they went to their table intentionally and asked about women’s rights, and questions relating to clothes, the hijab. And the Taliban were very positive, especially of course Stanikzai [Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the head of the Taliban delegation, now Afghanistan’s Deputy Foreign Minister]. He said, ‘no, no, there is not a problem about clothes, and under Islamic law, you can study up to a high level’. The only thing issue for them was that a woman could never be president or chief justice. And during the talks too, most of them were very respectful, especially in the smaller meetings with the Contact Group.

However, when it came to the plenary session, it became more unpleasant. For example, they had some kind of shawl and they covered their faces so as not to see the women. Or when a woman started saying something, they started speaking themselves, with their lips moving. Even in the lobby of the hotel, some would turn their faces and did not want to talk to women. Before that, there had been a lot of talk, especially from our US allies, about how the Taliban had changed, that they now agreed with women’s education, and blah, blah… but when we were in the plenary session and saw their reaction to us it showed us their real mindset. They had not changed.

In response, we concluded that however and whenever they reacted to us, we had to impose ourselves, and show our reality. Whenever there was a meeting, even the smaller, backchannel meetings, we tried to be there. But it was very difficult. In meetings we did get into, we talked. We had different ideas and wanted to be engaged.

Where next for peacemaking in Afghanistan?

Now things are very hard. The Taliban leader thinks he represents God, and he knows everything. We cannot work with that. We have to think about rights, education and the future. Rights are universal, but they cannot be implemented uniformly in different countries and communities. In today’s Afghanistan, there is no education for women. And women are facing different sorts of violence from Taliban and other people. There are no investigations, there is no protection for women inside Afghanistan.

I don’t see possibilities for change coming quickly, but I believe in the resistance of people, especially women. Despite facing violence, women still resist the Taliban. It is different from the first era of Taliban power. Back then there was no internet, no social media, no publications – even the international community was silent on Afghanistan. Now there are several different movements, in a kind of network, many connected on WhatsApp groups. But it is not easy – the Taliban search for people who put videos on Facebook, Twitter (now called X) or other social media, then try to find them, and harass or detain them.

All women of Afghanistan are looking to continued pressure from the international community. Support from Western countries is important and can help impact the UN, but the involvement of Muslim-majority countries – Indonesia, Qatar and others have been supportive – is also needed. They can put pressure on the Taliban on the basis of Islamic values, and one day facilitate mediation. The Taliban are not yet ready for this, but if there is evolution inside, with support from outside, mediation of some kind should happen, shaped by both women and men.

This is an edited interview with Dr Habiba Sarabi.