Afghan men: crucial advocates for women's rights
*Afghan civil rights campaigners say women a priority
*Male advocates more easily heard by hardline conservatives
*Male and female campaigners face uphill battle
Jan Harvey from Kabul
Being a feminist in Afghanistan isn't always easy, even for a man. Kabul university student Ferdous Samim has had trouble persuading even his own mother that the work he does pushing for women's rights is worthwhile.
"Part of the problem in Afghanistan is that most women think like men," said Samim over tea in the garden of a Kabul cafe.
"I don't have a sister, but I'm sure if I did, and she tried to go outside the house, my mother would be asking where she was going, what she was doing, why she was going out." A member of the male advocacy wing of activist group YoungWomen4Change, he is part of a small but critical group of male activists helping Afghan women fight for a better life.
His modest goal for the next two decades -- that women should be able to walk in Afghanistan's streets and markets without harassment -- is a reminder of the scale of the challenge women still face.
Forced marriage is still rife, rape victims have been jailed for "forced adultery", and a woman is more likely to die in childbirth in Afghanistan than anywhere else on earth.
And many of the men with power to change how women are treated -- from mullahs to tribal elders -- are not willing to listen to female activists.
Men have played an important role in feminist movements around the world, but the segregation of much of Afghan society makes their role particularly important.
Ahmad Nader Nadery, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) commissioner, said opening doors for female campaigners is one of the most important things he does.
"Once we open the door to the mullahs, we engage them in discussion, we break the ice," he says. "Then our female trainers come and they also speak. But we start first."
FAMILY PRESSURE
Activists admit that despite their work, change will be hard. Conservative values can be so strict that women who fail to conform are persecuted by their own families.
And campaigners struggle against a widely held assumption that those agitating for women's rights are pushing an anti-Islamic, or anti-Afghan, agenda.
Samim says fighting for women's rights is not only compatible with his religion and nationality, but part of it.
"I believe in order for me to be a good Afghan or a good Muslim, I must be a good human and respect everyone's rights," he says.
Working in activists' favour is a widespread hunger for a better life. In rural Herat, a bearded, turbaned elder says he is mobilising nearby villages to encourage women's education in a bid to cut the western region's abysmal maternal death rate.
In Kabul, the capital's young professionals say they need women's input to rebuild the Afghan economy after three decades of war.
"We can't develop Afghanistan without the participation of women," says Farhad Ahmad of law firm Alexander, Safi & Associates International.
"We should be encouraging women in politics, in social life, in economic life, in every aspect of life."
Source: Reuters
