Hasina Safi is the Director, of the Afghan Women's Network. With an outstanding velocity, starting from the membership of Afghan Women Network (AWN), interred the right platform to expand and continue to her struggle all the way. She has been one of the strategic advocators for women’s rights, representing civil society and Afghan women in national, regional and international events such as Peace consultation Jirga, traditional Jirga, London Conference, Kabul Conference, SOM etc. She is a great supporter of education; she believes quality education is the key solution towards the sustainability of a nation. Her journey towards success never lacked challenges – not something to doubt about an Afghan woman’s life. She also believes in a balanced professional and personal life. Here is her story in her own words.
I was born on 10
December, 1975, in an open minded, educated and religious family in
Afghanistan.I was five when we immigrated to Pakistan due to the Soviet War in
Afghanistan. I was educated there, and went to school. At that time, though there
was no school for Afghan refugees separately, so I went to Pakistani girls’
school. After that, the first refugee school for girls’, called the Nahed-e-Shaheed Girl’s High School was
established, so I was transferred there.Then, I went there till high school
and gave the university entry exam, passed to medicine, and studied for one
year, but because of the lack of technical medical sessions within the
university, I planned to change my field to teaching and teacher training.
About working for
women, this was something that was a part of my body from my birth. From a very
early age admired my mother for being so calm, strong within and growing us up
in a very practical way, which I guess most mothers do. I was the first girl in
my family, very warmly welcomed by the whole family, not only mother and
grandmother, but also father, brothers and uncles. As a result of that, I was
the first girl who went to formal school. There was always mutual respect in
the family, respect to elders and kindness to younger ones within the whole family.
As an elder daughter and girl in the family, my family members always
encouraged me; in fact, I was quite close to my father.Perhaps that was my
tryst with activism, because I was always expected to do more and to be more
than my age and my physical appearance. I always thought we had to help each
other, live in a very happy environment and work together. This was the kind of
family value system I was inculcated with – to respect each other, to support
each other and to be very dedicated to each other through mutual respect. We
would always discuss the daily issues as a family, in order to cope with the
challenges outside home.
Through that
developmental focus, and also my own enthusiasm, perhaps, and maybe eagerness
to do something, I always spent time repeating the news that I heard on
television, after the newsreader. I was very interested in English. I would
take my book and read and hear my voice and feel very happy that I had a good
accent. It was my earliest opportunity at a time when Afghan refugee women were
allowed to go and be part of the broader development circle of the community,
that I started taking English classes as a student. For two years or so, I did an
intensive diploma course, and then continued onwards for a six-month intensive
English language and teacher-training course at the International Rescue
Committee (IRC). That gave me confidence. They wanted to have the students of
the batches continue with them as teachers.I wanted to give back and be a
teacher, but, because of my age, I couldn’t go forth with that – and they
didn’t want to let go of me for the sake of a mere technicality, because they
did invest in me and I had the skills, so they retained me as a librarian. That
was how I started my work – as a librarian at age fifteen. During that job I
planned several activities such as reading, listening, speaking and discussing.
Since it was English as a second language, most of the students were teenagers
and adults from different fields such as doctors, engineers, teachers etc.
Being
a fifteen-year-old librarian helping adults, it was sometimes frustrating, some
students would make fun of my age, calling me a kindergarten teacher, which
really made me feel low, since I knew, I was young, but I didn’t know how to take
it as a strength, until, I took it home and discuss it with my father; the
moment I started discussing it with him, the tears began to flow. He looked at
me and told me, “Be proud of what you do. You are fifteen and you are teaching
teachers, doctors and women in other fields who are 25, 35 and 45 years of
age!” I had really never, thought of the other side of it. After that, I
realized what I was doing was not very common in that age, that realization was
a fundamental confidence building step in my personality. I have always worked
with women for women, since then. However, I still didn’t know about violence,
domestic violence and the like. I had a development-oriented mindset base on my
experience of working in the education field. I knew that women could
contribute, could go to school, be educated and educate, and participate until
entered the new era. In the year 1998, I got married;my brother picked up on my
enthusiasm and told me that I could be more than what I was doing and my
husband supported, whereas, I thought the best way to support was teaching.
Without,
consulting me, my brother sent my CV to the women economic empowerment pillar
of DACAR; a Danish organization working for Afghan refugees in Pakistan.They
called me for an interview, topped in the interview for a practical exam about
computer knowledge. I had no knowledge of computers to the extent that I didn’t
even know how to hold a mouse, or what a cursor was??? The person in charge
came in, gave us each instructions to type a memo up, to see our typing speed.
I got up and returned the instruction paper to the lady and apologized for not
knowing how to use a computer. She looked at me and said, “You don’t know how
to use a computer?” I said”yes”. She asked me if I had fingers. I said yes. She
asked if I can see the alphabets on the keyboard. I said I could. She told me
to use my fingers and start typing. I told her that I was there to be evaluated
for the speed of my typing – but she told me to go ahead. A week later, after
they did a reference check, I got the job, as an administrator. This was
another huge confidence-building step in my life, because a woman I had not
known at all helped me, and she supported me through a simple act of
encouragement. This was the step, where I entered the ground realities of women
refugee, facing problems and issues in the camps, apart form contributing in
development initiatives.
In 2000, I found out
more about their issues. At the center I was working at, widows did
hand-embroidery work, tailoring, and the center was exhibiting them for sale at
a showroom, and the profit was given to women in camps based on their own work.
I met these women, talked to widows, met mentally hurt women, very brave and
very weak women. I found out that women are beaten and are widowed, and face a
lot of problems – not only the lack of education. Until then, I thought life
was beautiful; we always had books, food, and television and went on picnics.
But when I came here, I really saw how difficult it was for a mother of seven
or eight without a husband, forced to earn for her family by using one needle
in her hand. Some women served the family, earned for them and then, were
beaten by their addicted husbands. That’s how I got involved with problems that
women faced. Not the movement for women’s rights, yet. I was one of the
individuals, who saw all these problems, and I really felt internally that I
wanted to help them and I started my work wholeheartedly in higher and higher
positions. That is how I got involved with women’s problems. I felt very happy
when I helped them, because it felt like I was directly helping them.
Meanwhile, we were
following up the hardships women were facing in Afghanistan during the Taliban
regime through media; stopping them from schools, universities, jobs, social
activities etc.…It was a terrible situation for women. After Taliban were
attacked by US, people came to Afghanistan and so did my family.
My father encouraged
us to give back to our country. The reason we had immigrated to Peshawar,
Pakistan was because my father would say that the wind of Afghanistan comes
here. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were large-scale migrations from
Afghanistan to western countries, but we never attempted for it, since we wanted
to be a contributor to standing up with our beautiful country Afghanistan. With
pride, today, I can say that all of us siblings are busy in our country for our
own people.
In 2004, I started
working with IOM for Out of Country Voting and Registration for the
presidential election in Pakistan for refugees, because that was the first
Presidential Election in Afghanistan.
In 2005, I had
returned to Afghanistan after 1980 – twenty-five years later. Through, the
coordination of my brother-in-law, I got connected to an organization called
AWEC – Afghan Women’s Education Center. This organization was one of the
founding members of Afghan Women’s Network (AWN) working in the field of
education as a priority.
I did not formally know
about a very known advocacy - meaning, that I had no idea, I was into advocacy.
I was not an advocate with any agenda but the belief that I was there because I
wanted to do what I was doing for women. As women, I
would always want to find solutions to the identified problems to help women
back. I started as a capacity building manager. With all the things I learned,
I was in the middle of the women’s movement. In the meetings I went to, I saw
the other faces of several issues in Afghanistan – I had learned about
development, and then violence, and then I heard about themes like the
constitution, resolution and conventions. I learned a lot – so, at this point,
it was about me entering the women’s movement.
In 2005, I entered the
women’s movement at what I call the basement – it was a huge learning process
for me. It was a network a group of women with a common vision and a drive to
work towards it. Next, I became an AWN member as an individual, and began to
learn about the connectivity of the issues on the ground and laws, policies and
frameworks for women. Being a member through networking and sharing experiences
learned about the different contextual issues of women within the country
within the various geographical locations. Following that I was honored to be
the elected board member for AWN for two terms (four years).
In 2006, I went to Sri
Lanka, where I met a Gender Mainstreaming Group, and learned that women in the
region had problems too. Following that I participated in various conferences
and forms in the region and the world, where I met women from the different
countries. I saw the concept at play – women are women wherever they are. They
have problems wherever they are – but the face of the problem is what is
different, due to the differences in the traditional and contextual frameworks.
From 2013 till date I
am serving as executive director of Afghan Women’s Network and an advisor to the
High Peace Council in Afghanistan formally. Besides, that I contribute in
several other committees and boards relevant to women empowerment.
In my journey so far,
I have not had any direct threats. I have always worked with people –
grass-root and policy levels, however, indirect threats yes. The mob killing of
Farkhunda was a very huge moral threat not only to me but also to the entire
women movement and Afghan people.
Thank you for taking
the time and write up, as I indicated earlier, we always need each other’s support.
I value what you are doing, because as a woman through this piece of writing
you are helping out with more and more confidence-building steps (where I
started from, and where I am today – through this journey, I have always
had very strong woman along with me; of
course committed men as my family, friends and colleagues).We ought to
contribute without any expectations today, thus we have the reward, the way we
aim it.
