Wanted to bring back to your notice an Afghan Women Organization who had been doing yeomen service for the oppressed women in Afghanistan and former Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. It is called RAWA or Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan. RAWA was founded in Kabul in 1977 as an independent organization to fight for political, social and human rights of Afghan women. Unfortunately their leader Meena was assassinated in 1987 by Afghan KGB agents acting with help from Afghan Islamic fundamentalist warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Be it under the Soviet occupation, the era of mujaheddin/warlord continuous bombardment or under the repressive rule of medieval Taliban, RAWA had steadfastly worked to uphold the ideals that it was built upon by its founders.

RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, was established in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1977 as an independent political/social organization of Afghan women fighting for human rights and for social justice in Afghanistan. The founders were a number of Afghan woman intellectuals under the sagacious leadership of Meena who in 1987 was assassinated in Quetta, Pakistan, by Afghan agents of the then KGB in connivance with fundamentalist band of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar . RAWA's objective was to involve an increasing number of Afghan women in social and political activities aimed at acquiring women's human rights and contributing to the struggle for the establishment of a government based on democratic and secular values in Afghanistan. Despite the suffocating political atmosphere, RAWA very soon became involved in widespread activities in different socio-political arenas including education, health and income generation as well as political agitation.

Before the Moscow-directed coup d'état of April 1978 in Afghanistan, RAWA's activities were confined to agitation for women's rights and democracy, but after the coup and particularly after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in December 1979, RAWA became directly involved in the war of resistance. In contradistinction to the absolute majority of the vaunted Islamic fundamentalist "freedom fighters" of the anti-Soviet war of resistance, RAWA from the outset advocated democracy and secularism. Despite the horrors and the political oppression, RAWA's appeal and influence grew in the years of the Soviet occupation and a growing number of RAWA activists were sent to work among refugee women in Pakistan. For the purpose of addressing the immediate needs of refugee women and children, RAWA established schools with hostels for boys and girls, a hospital for refugee Afghan women and children in Quetta, Pakistan with mobile teams. In addition, it conducted nursing courses, literacy courses and vocational training courses for women.

Find more at http://www.rawa.org/rawa.html

One can see the brutalities of religious fundamentalism and oppression of women and children and suffering of Afghans in general. Please browse through the photo gallery and the mediaclips on the RAWA website.

http://www.rawa.org/gallery.html

http://www.rawa.org/women.php

RAWA is still working for establishment of a free democratic and secular Afghanistan. It is a rather uphill task.

Whenever fundamentalists exist as a military and political force in our injured land, the problem of Afghanistan will not be solved. Today RAWA's mission for women's rights is far from over and we have to work hard for establishment of an independent, free, democratic and secular Afghanistan. We need the solidarity and support of all people around the world.

Let us spare a moment of thought for a progressive organization working in a rather difficult part of the World. For more about RAWA

http://www.rawa.org