Women, Peace & Rights

Episode No. 11Recording: June 21, 2022Host: Rita Manchanda, Women's Regional Network (WRN) Board Member.Guest: Dr. Habiba Sarabi, Member of Afghan Peace Negotiation Team, former Deputy Chair High Peace Council and former Bamyan GovernorDr Habiba Sarabi as a refugee today in Germany shares with Rita about the fading rights of the displaced people of Afghanistan. The 3rd largest group of the displaced population in the world,the Afghan refugees, asylum seekers and the IDPs. How the prioritization of Ukraine refugees further deepens the plight of Afghan refugees? 90% of Afghans face starvation while the international community’s joint responsibility diminishes. Is Afghanistan not a priority anymore for the international community? Roll-back of Afghan Women rights within Afghanistan: the return of restrictions, practices and denials. Where is the hope? Can the international community still intervene in Afghanistan’s human rights and humanitarian support? www.womensregionalnetwork.org/podcast

Episode No. 10Recording: June 8, 2022Host: Amalini De Sayrah, a writer, journalist and editor | Sri LankaGuest: Radhika Coomaraswamy, former United Nations Under Secretary General andthe Special Representative on Children and Armed Conflict | Sri LankaAmalini discusses with Radhika about the Movement to End Voilence Against Women: Progress, Changes & Challenges.1. Gender-based violence  progress in terms of awareness and readiness. The significant positive changes since the 1990s and glaring oversights, discourse and solidarity.2. The 1325 review and the Rohingya crisis, changes over time, between the conflicts of the 90s, early 2000s and now.3. Women, Peace and Security mantra just a focus on post conflict political economy.4. Role of civil society, and especially women peace networks, impact and the miss out. 

Conversation date: 23 May 2022Host: Rukhshanda Naz, Ombudsperson, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, PakistanGuest: Justice(Rtd) Nasira Iqbal, Former Justice of the Lahore High Court, PakistanJustice Nasira, with her profound experience in the judiciary of Pakistan, talks about how women can break the glass ceiling and join the much needed legal professions in the country. The conversation navigates through below discussion points.  What are the challenges for women to enter the legal profession? How do we incentivize women to be part of the judiciary as lawyers and judges? Only 17% of judges are women in Pakistan. The need for women judges is increasing. However, why are male lawyers often reluctant to appear before women judges? Women have to work hard twice as much as men in workplaces, especially in the judiciary. Yet, their upward mobility in their career is blocked by the glass ceiling due to the perception that women after marriage are not called for professional work and women’s physicality doesn't allow them to take much higher positions compared to men. How can we encourage women to overcome these challenges? Case studies on how having more women in the judiciary can impact access to justice for women in Pakistan as well as benefit the country as a whole. 

Date: 11 April 2022Host: Rita Manchanda, Women's Regional Network (WRN) Board Member. Guest: Nimalka Fernando, Lawyer, President of International Movement against All Forms of Discrimination (IMADR), Former Commissioner of the Office of Missing Persons, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s full-blown financial meltdown has sparked a political crisis that has brought thousands of women and men to the streets demanding a regime change. A regime that swept into power on the Sinhala Buddhist majoritarian platform in 2019 worked to further deepened the ethnic divide. It has intensified militarisation, surveillance and brutal suppression of freedom of expression. It has derailed the accountability process of war crimes and undermined the investigations into enforced disappearances. Sri Lanka has the highest enforced disappearances in the world. Listen to the coversation between Rita and Nimalka on the following areas: What are some of the worse features of the rollback on human rights and accountability in the country? Have the Office of Missing Persons been able to continue?How are the vulnerable, particularly the women coping during the economic crisis they experience with high inflation, shortage of essentials, power cuts and disruption in income? Sri Lanka is known for women’s mobilisation during the ethnic war. However, the current demonstrations highlight more the mobilisation of ethnic groups. Is the current rallies and protest bridging the deepening ethnic divide? What are the prospects of loosening the suppression of human rights imposed by the government? Will there be a rollback on anti-terror laws, suppression of descent, and freedom of expression?Does the financial help offered by India and Bangladesh and any support from South Asian civil society groups help in this situation?  

Date: 7 April 2022Host: Rukhshanda Naz, Ombudsperson, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, PakistanGuest: Bushra Gohar, Former Member of Parliament, PakistanIn a country that experienced military rule and democratic government, women struggle to have a significant role in Politics. Bushra Gohar, a Former Member of Parliament - Pakistan, lays out her experience, efforts, challenges and the possibilities for Women in Politics in Pakistan. Bushra Gohar, in conversation with Rukhshanda Naz discusses; the role of women in political decision making, party politics and women’s challenges, the disconnect between women groups and political parties. The struggle to ensure more women seats in the parliament, as well as how to allow more women to vote continues. 

Date: 1 March 2022Host: Judge Najla Ayoubi, Chief of Coalition & Global Programs at Every Woman Treaty.Guest: Heather Barr, Associate Director, Women's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch in Pakistan.Heather talks to Najla Ayoubi about the human rights situation in Afghanistan and its impact on women and girls.1. As per the Human Rights Watch 753-page report 2022 released in January, the political change in Afghanistan has worsened the human rights crisis in Afghanistan. Taliban denies the report. What are the major worsening crisis the report highlights? 2. The Taliban have imposed rights-violating policies that have created huge barriers to women’s and girls’ health and education, curtailed freedom of movement, expression, and association, and deprived many of earned income. What are the ground realities that are impacting women and children?3. Taliban is everyday introducing policies rolling back the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan. How can the global community make sure women in Afghanistan are heard and their rights are upheld? 4. We are witnessing the invasion of Ukraine which is forcibly displacing more people and we also see many Afghan people across the world are in solitary with them. What is happening to the refugees from Afghanistan, particularly in the neighbouring countries? 5. Situation of Afghanistan refugees in Pakistan.

Date: 17 February 2022Host: Akanksha KhullarGuest: Zarqa YafataliSo as we have seen that after seizing power in Afghanistan on 15 August 2021, Taliban leaders made statements in which they claimed that their new regime would protect women's rights in the country. However, given the extensive history of the group’s discriminatory outlook towards women combined with the group’s newly imposed diktat and actions, it has become evident that Islamist Fundamentalists are set to implement massive rollback of women’s rights and equality. Against this backdrop, this podcast is an attempt to contribute a perspective on the condition of Afghan women in the past six months of the Taliban’s rule and the big picture considerations that come with it.

Date: 3 December 2021Host: Ilana Landsberg-Lewis Guest: Ruth Ojiambo OchiengIlana Lansburg-Lewis is in conversation with a lifelong activist and expert, Ruth Ojiambo Ochieng from Uganda, offering some feminist reflections on women's rights and peace activism.

Guest: Betty Reardon, Founder of Peace Education Program at Teachers College, Columbia UniversityHost: Swarna Rajagopalan, Founding member of Women’s Regional Network.Professor Reardon's pioneering work in peace, Education and Human Rights has laid the foundation for a new cross disciplinary integration of peace education and international human rights, from a gender global perspective, one of the first to make clear the connection between sexism, patriarchy and militarism, she has held the gender equality and justice are a prerequisite of peace, and women's participation and agency, a precondition of any sustainable peace. Swarna Rajagopalan, reflects with Professor Betty on some of the most pressing concerns. Q. In the 20 years since United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, on women, peace, and security, was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council, what has been the most tangible successes, and what are the most regrettable failures on our part, in your view? Q. Talking about Afghanistan, in what way to recent events that reflect the shortcomings of the effectiveness, where has 1325 worked, and having an NAP worked for Afghanistan, and where has it not?Q. With regard to international affairs, because you feel that you're this one small citizen in some distant part of the world, and your voice is too faint for the world to hear. So where would you suggest that people start as peace builders? Me? Conversation: 24 September 2021

Guest: Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin (Ireland), United Nations (UN)  Special Rapporteur on Human Rights & Counter-Terrorism.Host: Rita Manchanda, Women's Regional Network (WRN) Board Member."If the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda doesn't mean something now it's worthless!” says Ní Aoláin to governments and women’s networks on 20 years of commodification and misuse of Afghan women’s voices.1. What kind of response is possible of the international community and how do you see your role in particular, especially vis-a-vis the most vulnerable in Afghanistan today? Girls and women.2. How do you feel about in fact this whole militarization of the women, peace and security agenda?3. What are the issues that you have actually prioritized and engaged with/without governments? 4. You're seeing de-radicalization camps set up in Sri Lanka, the suspect community, this time being, of course the Muslims. Do you engage on this? 5.  With COVID 19, how do you assess the gender impact, particularly on women of this expansion of the securitized infrastructure? 6. In view of what is happening in Afghanistan and the slew of security measures, anti-terrorism measures that are likely to be brought in by nervous states, particularly like India?7. Do you feel a roll back of authoritarian exceptionalism, justified in the name of COVID, that we're likely to see actually more repressive measures, more surveillance or more authoritarian, regulatory laws? Conversation: 17 August 2021

The first episode of the Women, Peace & Rights Podcast. Host: Rita Manchanda, Women's Regional Network (WRN) Board Member. Guest: Mary Lawlor, United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders. 1. Will the death of Fr Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest in India be treated as a death in custody? 2.  Will Facebook and other social media platforms provide safe spaces for Women Human Rights Defenders in Pakistan?3. Women Human Rights Defenders in Afghanistan, who the Taliban sees as transgressing all the norms of a good woman, how can we protect them? How can anyone protect them?4. How can we protect  frontline health workers during COVID19? 5. How to create the space to negotiate and talk to governments? www.womensregionalnetwork.org/podcast