Afghan Women and the Peace Negotiations

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture

4.1 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2019

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jenni speaks to Mary Akrami, director of the Afghan Women’s Network and Sunday Times Chief Foreign Correspondent and author, Christina Lamb who has been reporting on Afghanistan for decades. Why are there no women involved in the current peace negotiations involving the US negotiators and the Taliban? And what could be the consequences for women? Clara Schumann might not be the best known composer with her surname, but her ability and talent as a pianist made her a star in the 19th Century. 2019 is her bicentenary, and she’s being celebrated around the country. We’re joined by curator of the Clara Schumann Festival, Beverley Vong, and Lucy Perham, whose tour ‘I, Clara’, tells the composer’s story through her letters and music. Over the last 6 weeks we have been hearing from listeners about the family secrets they have discovered and how their lives and relationships were changed by the revelations. Lots of you have been in touch to tell us how the tales and their tellers have chimed with you. Psychotherapist Sue Cowan-Jenssen discusses the power and fall-out of family secrets. Laura Bates has just written her debut novel for young adults called The Burning. Inspired by the real stories of teenage girls contributing to the Everyday Sexism Project Laura created in 2012, the book tells the parallel stories of two young women, 15 year old Anna who is mercilessly bullied after a topless photo of her is shared by a boy at her school and Maggie, who lived 400 years earlier and was accused of witchcraft.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts
0:04.4	Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to Thursday's edition of The Woman's Our Podcast.
0:10.1	Laura Bates is the founder of Everyday Sexism and she's been inspired by some of the stories
0:15.4	she's heard from teenage girls to write them a novel. The burning compares the impact of
0:21.5	online sexual abuse with the treatment of women 400 years ago accused of witchcraft.
0:28.6	2019 is the bicentenary of the birth of the pianist and composer Clara Schumann.
0:33.9	How will the talent so often subsumed by the reputation of her husband be celebrated?
0:40.6	And family secrets, how common are they and how damaging?
0:45.9	Now peace negotiations between the Americans and the Taliban have been going on during the
0:50.8	past week. The Americans are keen to withdraw from a conflict that's lasted for 17 years
0:57.0	and cost more than a trillion dollars but there's a problem. No women are involved in the
1:03.6	negotiations even though three were named as part of the Afghan negotiating team.
1:10.0	Why are women who suffered so much during the era of the Taliban being excluded?
1:16.8	Well early this morning I spoke to Christina Lam, the chief foreign correspondent at the Sunday
1:21.6	Times and Mary Akrami, director of the Afghan women's network who joined us from Kabul.
1:28.0	What concerns does she have about the way the talks are being conducted?
1:32.2	Our main concern as a citizens of Afghanistan and half of the population of the country
1:37.0	is that neither the Taliban nor the US care about the fundamental rise of Afghan people
1:43.2	and especially women of Afghanistan. We have concerned that the US government is ready
1:48.7	to sacrifice the gain of the past 17 years to reach to the peace deal with Taliban.
1:55.1	We know there's a symposium that was held by the United Nations called for 50 percent
2:02.0	of the negotiating team to be women. We also know that three women were named as part of the
	...

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