PRT QALAT: PROGRESS ON WOMEN'S ISSUES--ONE STEP AT

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KABUL 000395 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR SCA/FO, SCA/A, S/CR, S/CT, SCA/PAB, EUR/RPM STATE PASS TO USAID FOR AID/ANE NSC FOR AHARRIMAN OSD FOR KIMMITT CENTCOM FOR CG CFC-A, CG CJTF-76, AND POLAD RELEASABLE TO NATO/ISAF/AUS/NZ E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PGOV AF SUBJECT: PRT QALAT: PROGRESS ON WOMEN'S ISSUES--ONE STEP AT A TIME ¶1. (U) SUMMARY: By their actions and through a series of meetings with the PRT, local women have expressed their desire for employment, education, and security in southern Zabul province. Key players for women's activities in Zabul are the Directorate of Women's Affairs (DOWA),two women Provincial Council members, and the director of the provincial capital Qalat girls, school. The DOWA director has been ineffective, and rivalries among all the women leaders impede progress in advancing women's causes. The girls' school in the provincial capital is filled with 1,100 students and is running smoothly. The PRT is working actively to help local women become more engaged in activities that will provide them with new skills; however, perceived security concerns are an obstacle to engaging them in such activities. END SUMMARY. -------------- Women Members Active in Provincial Council -------------- ¶2. (U) The Zabul Provincial Council (PC) includes two women. The third woman-designated slot on the council is currently vacant because no other women submitted their names for election. The two women council members are active in PC activities. They recently expressed their interest in attending the weekly Provincial Development Council meetings but noted that they felt that they would not be welcomed there by other (male) provincial leaders. Zabul's UNAMA representative has encouraged them to attend these meetings and has engaged with the Governor to try and ensure they are included. -------------- Qalat Girls, School Filled with 1100 Students -------------- ¶3. (U) The girls, school in Qalat is open and according to the school director, there are currently about 1100 students and 27 teachers at the school. (Note: The PRT built the school with the PRT Commander's Emergency Reconstruction Program Funds. The school cost approximately USD 150,000 to build. End Note). Students range from 7 to 22 years in age and are enrolled in grades one through nine. Not surprisingly, given the prohibitions during the Taliban years, the largest classes are comprised of the younger students; there are 395 students (approximately twenty five percent) in the first grade, but only nine students in the ninth grade. The teachers are not all professionals, and the majority are not from Zabul province. The teachers, which include three males, stated that they are usually paid on time; they receive USD 50 per month. Classes are taught in a variety of subjects, including religion, physics, Dari, math, history and English. During a December visit to the school, the PRT observed the higher grades in the middle of their exams; the lower grades were already out on winter break, with the higher grades soon to follow. Depending on the weather, classes are scheduled to resume mid-February. -------------- -- Women Want to Work But Lack Skills, Opportunity -------------- -- ¶4. (U) Local women have repeatedly expressed their desire to work to PRToff, but most do not have the training or experience to do anything more than the most menial tasks. Currently, the only viable opportunity for work outside the home is at the World Food Program-supported Green Afghanistan Initiative (GAIN) center plant nursery, where approximately 85 to 100 women receive basic agricultural training and then cultivate plants, nuts and trees. Last month, the GAIN center implemented a literacy program, where women can take classes after work. The PRT paid a visit to the GAIN center and observed approximately forty women in the training room learning to read. After twenty one days of work (and class, if desired),they are paid, in kind, with basic foodstuffs such as wheat, vegetable oil, salt and nuts. Apart from this group, very few, if any, local women work outside the home. KABUL 00000395 002 OF 003 The women Provincial Council members suggested that women would be willing to work at a factory if one existed, but (as PRToff pointed out) there would first have to be a viable industry that could sustain a factory. Such a project would also require better infrastructure, including transport, as well as a training program for the labor force. In short, it should be seen as a long term objective. -------------- PRT-Sponsored Training Programs Help Women -------------- ¶5. (U) The PRT is keenly aware of the influence that women in the province hold, especially within their families. Therefore, it shows its support by providing women of all ages with basic tools that serve as a first step towards making positive changes for them and their families. Working with the Director of Education and Gulnar, the PRT will soon begin a program to teach basic first aid, hygiene and family care to women at the hospital. Additionally, a local woman teaches rug weaving and embroidery to young women in her home. This class was originally part of the PRT-run trade school, but due to security concerns it is now taught as an extension class. At the request of the women leaders, the PRT built a suggestion box and delivered it to the girls, school, where women in Qalat can anonymously deliver suggestions and complaints to women leaders. In a recent meeting, the women complained that they do not have the opportunity to travel to other districts to see and talk to women outside the provincial capital. Two days later, the PRT invited women PC members to travel to Mizan district via helicopter as the PRT accompanied Governor Arman to the district center to hold a meeting with local leaders, with the hope that they would arrange a woman's meeting as well. The women initially said they would travel to Mizan, but they canceled the day before the trip without explanation. -------------- - Women's Resource Center Is Focus for the Future -------------- - ¶6. (U) The PRT is working on a plan to make the Women's Resource Center not only functional, but, indeed, the center of women's activities in Qalat. The PRT will equip the Center with computers and plans to provide computer training. It also intends to move the courses currently being taught at the girls, school and the rug weaving and embroidery being taught in a private home to the center. The hope is for the Women's Resource Center to become regarded as a place where all women can feel safe as they acquire the skills that will allow them to work within their communities and aid their families. -------------- Director of Women's Affairs Is Ineffective -------------- ¶7. (U) The focal point of women's activities in Zabul province should be the Directorate of Women's Affairs (DOWA), headed by Dr. Gulnar. Until recently, Dr. Gulnar had been an ineffective director at best, and an active obstructionist at worst. She has spent a great deal of time away from Zabul, usually in Kabul. While away, she is impossible to contact. She claims to have a representative that can act in her stead while she is gone, but in practice that does not happen and little gets done during her absences. There recently has been improvement, with Gulnar engaging with PRTOff on a variety of issues, including the start of a women's health education course. ¶8. (U) USAID recently funded the construction of a Women's Resource Center in the provincial capital Qalat, which was completed in September 2006. Gulnar and her staff have yet to move into the building and, until recently, despite constant encouragement, took very little interest in making it a functioning and sustainable center for women in the province. Gulnar has recently agreed to hold an opening of KABUL 00000395 003 OF 003 the building in February and then hold the celebration for International Woman's Day on March eighth in the center. She has also agreed that the computers the PRT is purchasing should go into the center and that computer and other courses should take place in the center. -------------- Fighting Among Women Leaders Hinders Progress -------------- ¶9. (U) Ironically, an obstacle to progress for women is the animosity that exists among the key women leaders in the province. The PC women members believe that Gulnar is ineffective, and allege that she is not using her budget properly. They assert that she is giving donated items intended for women to men in Zabul instead. They said that they were lobbying the governor to pressure Gulnar to step down as Director of Women's Affairs and go back to being a medical doctor. The women PC members have a personal grudge against the director of the girls, school, apparently stemming from a family dispute. The first time the PRT visited the girls, school, accompanied by the women PC members, the school director attempted to bar the PC members from entering. They were eventually allowed in, but the tension in the room was palpable. There is a marked difference in the dynamics of meetings depending on which women are present. -------------- -------------- Perceptions of Inadequate Security Impedes Progress -------------- -------------- ¶10. (U) The women's perception of a lack of security is an obstacle to making progress on women's issues in Zabul province. For the past six months, women have refused to attend classes held at the PRT compound or even to meet with PRT officers there due to personal safety concerns. In a November meeting, DOWA director Gulnar and the two women PC members asked the PRT to supply them with personal weapons. Having a weapon, they said, would increase their comfort level as they walk around the city. The three women recently reiterated this request, explaining that the Taliban have come to houses in Qalat at night and told husbands not to let their wives go out. (Note: These women did not say the Taliban have come to their own homes, just that Taliban come to houses at night in general. End Note.) When asked what could be done to improve security for women, they suggested that police should be hired from their home village to protect their village. (Note: This is the intent behind the auxiliary police program currently being implemented in Zabul and encouraged by the PRT. End note.) -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶11. (SBU) Zabul province provides a snapshot of the challenges facing women, women's leaders and advocates, and programs for women across Afghanistan. There is progress, but it is slow. Pushing for more than the system can bear at a particular moment is counterproductive, but the PRTs and the Embassy look for opportunities to push the agenda in every province and with the central government. END COMMENT. NEUMANN