Afghanistan. Since the war with Iraq started few people mention it, despite the fact that its invasion marked the beginning of the official “war on terror.” The US invasion however, happens to be the most recent in what has been 30 years of wars within the country. But not everybody has forgotten about Afghanistan. That was the message Thursday night, July 21st, when about 50 people gathered at Stony Run Friends Meeting House to learn about the women’s movement in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is reputed to be the third poorest country in the world. Its president, Hamid Karzai, was hand-picked by the White House and has little power. He seems unable to neutralize the power of the warlords or the drug dealers (who supply most of the opium and heroin to Europe) or disarm the various organized thugs including the Taliban and al Qaeda.
Fahima Vorgetts, Director of the Afghan Women’s Fund, has been providing relief and aid to women in villages scattered throughout the country. Vorgetts, an Afghani, who has lived in the United States since 1990 just completed her third trip to Afghanistan this year. She asserted that despite the rhetoric of the Bush Administration about liberating the women of Afghanistan little has changed. She said that women still face abuse, rape, arranged marriages (sometimes at the age of 7 or 8), honor killings, and no access to the majority of the education system. It this last issue that Vorgetts has specifically targeted in the majority of her work. She believes that if women are educated they will be more self reliant because “the ability to earn one’s living is fundamental to the empowerment of women.”
Afghanistan appears now to have been nothing more than a US stepping stone to Iraq as well as a pipeline for oil from the surrounding countries. One of the most talked about “accomplishments” of the American overthrow of the Taliban has been the improvement in the lives of women. Few observers would accept the Bush administration’s appraisal and certainly not Vorgetts. The key elements of Afghan society, she said, were “poverty, lawlessness, and lack of education.” There is no middle class left in the country, she noted, only the rich, which she said numbered 200 families, and the poor. As a consequence “there is no economic development.”
Vorgetts displayed slides from several of her trips to Afghanistan that she referred to during her talk. The slides documented both the projects she has sponsored as well as the grinding poverty of a war torn country. The relief projects have ranged from putting wells in rural villages, distributing medical and school supplies, to starting schools for girls. She admitted that the work is risky at times because the warlords who control much of the country are not pleased to see the results of her work. As a response to safety concerns she rarely announces where her work plans, stays in the villages for a short period of time, and dresses in traditional Afghan garb.
Interspersed among the slides of several of the projects, were pictures from hospitals that were inadequately staffed and supplied. There were several pictures of young children and women who had been burned all over their bodies. Vorgetts said that many women, acting in desperation set themselves and their children on fire because they were put of their husband’s home and have no way to survive.
The slides and Vorgetts’ discussion were marred by the absence of detail, their lack of political analysis, and a surprising lack of coherence. Nevertheless, her passionate commitment to helping Afghani women came through quite clearly. “I believe in women’s equality,” she declared, “and I have dedicated my life to the women of Afghanistan.”
There were several tables adorned with jewelry, books, and rugs from Afghanistan that were being sold to help raise money for digging a well in Sharana, the provincial seat of the Patika province.
For more information on the Afghan Women’s fund refer to www.womenforafghanwomen.org.

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