 Welcome back to everybody who's been on the line in previous sessions so far. And welcome also to those who are joining us for the first time today. As I said, my name is Dorothea and with the SDSN secretariat and we at this stage in our 24 webinar, we already heard from five of our national and regional networks on a great variety of topics all related to sustainable development and wellbeing. So for those of you who maybe don't know the Sustainable Development Solutions Network is a global network of academic and knowledge producing institutions with currently more than 30 national and regional networks from all around the world. All of these networks are charged to help progress on the sustainable development goals in an effort to create a more sustainable and ultimately more happy world for us all by 2030. In these, of course, admittedly very challenging times we appreciate their efforts in bringing the global community together and a bit closer together actually and all bite in the digital space just as today. And we hope that you will enjoy their input just as much as we do. So let me start with several housekeeping items for a go-to webinar today. To increase the quality of our attendees we'll be able to unmute their microphones today. So however, we encourage everybody to actively participate in the sessions and ask questions at the chat box that you see to the right of your go-to webinar control panel. My colleague, Jorge Tamayunay, we remain available throughout the entirety of the session to answer any and all questions that you may have regarding the functionalities. So please feel free to drop us a line in the chat box anytime. So at this stage we have a little bit less than 18 hours of programming ahead in this 24 hour webinar which you will find all the details at the link included in your welcome message. As we are moving west around the globe I am now extremely pleased to welcome you all to this next session, which is a discussion on peace and the peace process in Afghanistan and the role of women therein. In fact, the SDS in Afghanistan is the latest addition to our global network and we are thrilled to have them participate in this global webinar today. I am now trying to hand it over to Mr. Ali Juma Takawi, analyst at the SDS in Afghanistan Secretariat, who will be our moderator for the session. Ali, the floor is yours. Thank you Dorothea. Hello everyone. Hope you are having a quality time with your families and making the best out of the lockdown. I am Ali Juma Takawi. I'll be moderating today's panel discussion hosted by SDS in Afghanistan. The topic for the discussion is Afghanistan's peace process, role of women, opportunities and challenges. First of all, I'll be talking about the layout of the webinar. So the whole webinar today will be consisting of four speakers. The speakers will speak for 10 minutes each and then we will have a final question and answer session. So just to go ahead and talk about the speakers. So our first speaker is Ms. Jamila Afghani. Our second speaker is Ms. Zarki Afthali. Our third speaker is Ms. Fiona Gaul. And lastly, Dr. Musa Jaffari will be speaking. I'll share some background information about each speaker before the presentation starts. So before we move ahead, I'd like to give you a little bit of context around the topic that we have for the panel discussion today. So the fall of the Soviet Union in late 1980s left a vacuum of power in Afghanistan. This led to the civil war in the country with the Mujahideen, with the most dominant power. In 1996, the Taliban took over Kabul and announced the rule of an Islamic state. The incident of 9-11 and Taliban harboring al-Qaeda in Afghanistan directed US invasion in 2001. So since then, the war between the democratic Afghan government, the US, and its allies in the Taliban is going on. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost in the past two decades. One of the major concerns during the Taliban era was human rights violations and especially women's rights violations caused by the regime on a daily basis. Ben from going out without proper hijab and a male companion, Ben from getting education, Ben from working outside home, child marriages, lashing, and stoning of women in public places, and thousands other human rights violations have been carried out against women during the Taliban regime and even it's going on right now in areas under the Taliban rule. So Taliban's radical approach towards governance and social justice is still being questioned by Afghans living within Afghanistan and abroad. The peace process with the Taliban has reached to a stage where discussion of ceasefire, prisoner exchange, and intra-Afghan dialogue are around the corner. There are arguments that Taliban have changed a lot in their leadership, intention, and mentality. Will the success of peace process undermine the status of women in Afghanistan? So that is the big question now. Going on, moving on to our first speaker. She is Ms. Jamila Afghani. She'll be the first speaker of today's panel discussion. She's the executive director at Medica Afghanistan. She's an activist for women's rights and education. Ms. Jamila Afghani today will be talking about Afghan government's stance on role of women in peace process. I'm being told that Jamila Afghani is not currently online. Do we have the second speaker online? Okay, so our second speaker today is Ms. Zarqa Yafthali. She's the director of Women and Child Legal Research Foundation. Ms. Yafthali will be speaking about peace process, human rights, and gender equality. We may come back to Ms. Jamila's speech after Ms. Zarqa Yafthali's presentation. May I please hand over the mic to Ms. Yafthali? Go ahead. What's up, Salam? Come in. How are you? I'm fine, I'm fine. I know. Do you hear me? Hello? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you, Mr. Ali, for your nice introduction. Respected member of panel, ladies and gentlemen, greetings and best wishes for the end of current COVID-19 crisis. My deepest condolence for those who have lost their arrest and wish for recovery for those who are infected. First of all, a special thanks to Cotter University and UNS DNS for launching this webinar, organized on women's situation and current peace process in Afghanistan. I'm supposed to talk on the following subjects briefly. Importance and lowering of peace management to end conflict in Afghanistan. Consideration of importance of human rights during peace process. Emphasize on equal persons of women and men and all political and social movement in Afghanistan. Importance of women participation in the peace process. This has been for four decades that Afghanistan people are suffering from conflict during this period of time, women were not safe. They are affected directly and indirectly. Within this period of time, many attempts has been made on for peace which has not resulted to a stable and inclusive peace in Afghanistan. In my point of view, failure of peace process in Afghanistan is rooted to internal and external causes which needs attention to pay on. External causes are confederation of regional countries and their conflict and interest of Afghanistan and as well as proxy war of hostile country using Afghanistan as their playground. Equipment and ammunition of terrorist manual, the conflict has pathed the way for huge production of narcotics which itself feeds the terrorist and insurgent groups in Afghanistan. What Afghanistan people anticipate from international community leading by United States of America in Afghanistan and especially Afghanistan woman is not to conclude the peace at the end of the fight between United States government and Taliban. And consider stability, security and justice and accountable and inclusive government as the objective of peace in Afghanistan and not to allow the human rights values, woman rights are compromised. This is abuse that all the people of even the nature itself want peace and wants the end of conflict according to security reports which is very much depressed with the figures of loss of loss thing 30 army man as an average on the daily basis if the soldiers of having their family and child with the death of everyone of them many families of left without any patterns widows and child are losing their caregivers their deaths as human being is having that is take social consequence as in society like Afghanistan. The man is the only person who has and come and feed their family with their dead only widows and orphans who does not know how to gain remence as it is itself an horrific crisis. Besides this, what has done for so far for name of peace process in Afghanistan not only has not resulted to any significant result but also modified the following to separate the message of victory to their followers and this has causes amplification on their attacks important of considering human rights and the peace process. Afghanistan is one of the country where citizens suffer from violation of human rights values over the decades that purity needs justice and observation of woman rights values without any doubt no attempt would be stable without ensuring justice and security. During the conflict years different groups, especially Taliban has committed violation of woman rights widely and their war crimes and it is quite logic logical that citizens should be concerned of violation of their right and justice. As a state, all of them do not respect the human rights value achievement which has been achieved in the past 20 years and did not officially provided any comments in this regard. When well their views of the freedom of woman woman employment and education are very restrictive therefore it is highly needed to have not negotiation points and read the red line during the peace negotiation and whatever agreement are made. Equal participation of men and women in all aspects Afghanistan women like other women all around them the world has fought for their rights at the differential aspects political, economical, and cultural for their purpose they have given thousands of sacrifices although women phobia is an issue which is resulted by war conflict and reasons and persons often ethnic, traditional, fundamental customs however we are all the witness of women persons along the history of this country whether it is before or after Islam which means that the preventing cases causes of women participation is developed and improved along the history based on traditional against against which is the woman counted and defended and finally has the success. After establishment of the new government with the support of international community and post-Taliban we are witness of women persons in all aspects which presented the best example of management hence it is vitally important for development, political management, economic and social issue of the country for formally consider women participation during the peace process and as well for the post-peace in the government structures. Importance of women participation in the peace process what is done so far about women participation in the peace process is mostly symbolic rather having authorized role however even the present is due to constant advocacy efforts or this has been respected observed as the political man of the country and peace process from the international community to not value the woman's role in this process. Well it is the task about Taliban automatically this concern has been raised that what they decide about work and activities of women a group that the woman did not have any any role during the rolling and even were not allowed to get out of their homes without having a legal maharam even for visiting doctors for their sickness they have been taken all the workings right education and women participation and all aspects past agreement with them with this group without having any grantee is not without to offer a scan racist concern of women and based on this woman persons during negotiation with Taliban is a very important woman should have persons and defend from their rights and not to allow their rights and the freedoms are compromised now we are limited time and the issues that are needed to be discussed in relation to woman and peace process a lot it requires fair opportunity to discuss the details but then the points that I have noted down as a woman activist who has been active for 13 years is raised and discussed about these needs attention also I believe that any peace process without consideration the internal and external causes and conflict that are one is done without the stable and long lasting resolving and of internal causes resolving of power conflicts ensuring persons of accountable and blue inclusive system covering all the techniques securing justice and having the way for further development resolving of external causes and creation of understanding between regional players on the peace process of a woman and handling proxy war in the country thank you for your attention and here thank you miss miss Yaftali now we will move on to our first speaker who was miss Jamila Afani if she is if she will be available and her mic will be working we'll listen to her speech otherwise we'll move on to miss Fiona miss Jamila Afani is the executive director of medica afghanistan she is an activist for woman rights and education she'll be speaking on the topic afghan government stands on role of woman in the peace process miss afghani can we have the floor to you now thank you very much good morning everyone my name is Jamila Afani I'm leading medica afghanistan which is a woman support organization we provide psychosocial and legal advices for the victims of jbp and sgbp with almost turnover of 13 000 direct victim on annual basis at the same time I'm voluntarily leading woman international league for peace and freedom of anistan section since 2015 we are we are engaged in UN advocacy issues since 2017 but especially with UPR, CIDA, CRC, UN CRPD by development of advocacy briefings presentation and shadow reports therefore I have been actively engaged on the ongoing peace talks and I also participated then go ahead and go up on the yellow and lost June 2019 we aim to raise voices of the most are vulnerable upon women to different advocacy level and we enhanced to be engaged on localization of women peace and security agenda I'm a woman activist and human right defenders since past 23 years of my life I will start my presentation by presenting a short overview overview of current challenges of women's right in Afghanistan and then I will address the issue of peace talks and women participation the Taliban ruled the Panasonic from 1996 to 2001 a period in which women were essentially invisible in public life bared from going to school or working Afghanistan is the longest war in the American history the U.S. led an international military campaign in Afghanistan immediately after 9 11 all leaders including those of UK and USA often seated the need to improve Afghan women rights as a justification for their intervention the military campaign was presented in the part of fight for the right and dignity of women after 18 years and almost 2 trillion later the countries are still in turmoil the Taliban maintained their grip on almost 60 percent of the country women are badly affected by the conflict despite gradual improvement of women's right in Afghanistan remain a serious concern women die in pregnancy and childbirth on average of 60 out of 10 children died before their fifth birthday 80 percent of women have no formal education and are illiterate female students are only 18 percent of the students in third level women life expectancy is 51 years old the lack of security for four decades of war and the risk of kidnapping and rape rape has also prompted many families to force their young daughters into marriage women activists reported that up to 80 percent of marriages and poor rural areas are either forced or arranged more than 50 percent of Afghan girls are married or engaged by the age of 12 some girls are betrayed into marriage to repaid the debt and resolve a dispute despite the Afghan government and international donors efforts since 2001 they educated to educate girls and estimated two-thirds of Afghan girls or still do not attend school psychologists attributed this anomaly anomaly to an endless cycle of domestic violence and poverty targeting of a school and educational personal nitrates on household abduction and recruitment of boys for armed violence violence against journalists and media workers and health care facilities structure of conflict related detainees abduction and assassination of religious leader and sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls continue to exemplify the human rights situation and Afghanistan now I'm coming on the issue of peace talks yet despite the fact that women are affected by the conflict and all the women and youth make up the majority of our population they are minor players in political life and the economy women remains excluded from public life and sidelined in the current peace talks after the four decades of war Afghanistan is today a critical juncture of two important results at the head ahead of us the result of peace process and the result of political conflict after the presidential election result announcements the election initially planned but the polls are counting for 4.2 million out of 8.8 million registered to vote many of them appeared to have a state at home instead of going to polling station due to fear of violence by the Taliban and lack of trust on the transparency of election commission voting was also made by technical obstacle and corruption all over the country we are also concerned about the possibility of a failed election and waste of resources the result of election between the two major political leaders has widened among political parties and today we have two presidents the united state another state have quickly facilitated therefore towards a negotiated peace settlement since september 2018 there has been a clear absence of meaningful participation by women and other actors such as direct victims of war and peace process alarming many who know that an inclusive delegation for peace is important to ensuring the success of the process and sustainability of any settlement Afghan women must be able to meaningfully participate in decision that directly affect including the design implementation and monitoring of such a decision although you in the united status obliged to ensure women's active participation but domestic women peace and security act of 2015 and women peace and security strategy of 2019 its approach to US Taliban peace talk has instead led to the marginalization of Afghan women when women have participated as a member of high peace council in discussion for a peace agreement but this is a viable pathway to meaningful contribution since the HPC served as a consultative body to raise awareness rather than to directly contribute to peace process the new ministry established under the title of ministry of peace is working to bring a united voices but with all diversity it's a challenging task from the other side if civil society is coming under direct control of government their freedom would go under question the final list of negotiators introduced by government out of 255 or women but all these representatives are from political parties there is no representative from civil society if we do not have member of civil society how we can ensure the transparency of the negotiation the agreement between Taliban and USA is signed and that discussion is and the Afghan peace process moves away from issue of heart security and the use of violence it is now more crucial than ever to think about the quality of peace and the strategies to sustain peace this is why a more inclusive peace process an effective gender related provision in any future peace agreement are important in this context pushing from for the inclusion of women and gender issue informal peace process which is lagging and has been corrected size would be a strategy to harness not only the Taliban acceptance of women legitimate concerns but also its willingness to sustain to sustain the momentum of further entra on negotiation the absence of Afghan women in the peace talk means more than a filial of political correctness the absence of women and their voices in the process cast doubt on the type of peace that these talks would bring into the country the exclusion of women and is also a good indication of a broader lack of inclusivity in the peace process in a country where around two millions of people live with disability and where this number is increasing every day girls and women with disability or some of the forgotten victims whose voices are not heard and whose rule is disregarded they can I'm storing this after just during the you have one minute yes so I'm concluding with the call on our international allies that with all this we are calling on an international community they must stand with us at this crucial moment to ensure that our rights will not be compromised for a political deal and after the settlement it is reached in a future intra-Afghan dialogue with more inclusive participation of women thank you for your attention thank you very much miss afghani for the perfect timing and thank you very much for your insights our third speaker for today's panel discussion is miss fiona gal she is the director of akbar one of the most searched job-seeking website in the country she is more than 20 years of experience in humanitarian development programs in asia specifically afghanistan india and pakistan and more recently in africa in emergency relief and rehabilitation health disability and gender in challenging environment she'll be speaking about role of civil society organizations in the peace process in afghanistan with special focus on women over to you miss fiona yep thank you very much good morning to everyone to all those listening and to my fellow panelists and colleagues in afghanistan thank you so much am i loud and clear yes fiona thank you yes loud and clear thanks thank you so yes i've been asked to speak about the role of cso's in the peace process i think we've just had very good examples of what women have been doing as women activists from my fellow panelists miss zarka and miss jamila so i think i wanted to just give a bit of a background on what actually are the achievements of civil society if you go to my next slide so i think we have seen in the last 20 years since this government took over we have been a huge expansion of civil society we have many national civil society organizations registered under the ministry of justice and we also have many national NGOs and international NGOs registered under the ministry of economy in afghanistan so we have seen with donor support of course with international support we've seen a huge development and this is all types of associations and NGOs so we have professional associations we have teachers associations farmers associations trades unions on the association side and we have many different NGOs large and small who contribute to to projects and the development of the country so akbar itself that the organization i represent has 152 NGO members we we cover various sectors in health and education agriculture nutrition wash livelihoods gender disability and peace building so we cover both the humanitarian and the development side and i think what we see as NGOs is is we should complement the work of the government and we should fill the gaps so i i think that in the time that i've been working in afghanistan for 30 years we have seen an increasingly strong role of women in both society and government we do have as also my colleagues presented some statistics i mean we see more women now in the civil service 24 percent more women parliamentarians in many countries 28 percent are very strong and a very strong role in teaching in education and health so i think we do see the role of women has developed in the last 20 years since the Taliban regime next slide please however we do know that we face many challenges for instance if we look at the indicators the afghanistan SDGs that we have developed with the ministry of economy in the last of four years we have the first period from 2016 to 2020 where you can see that we have not very promising indicators in 2016 baselines and not very marginal increases so we're not looking at huge change and of course we have a long way to go before 2030 when we are supposed to reach many of these but i think what the SDG indicators help us to do is to focus on what is important and for women what is important it is to have more gender equality and to have more access to roles in government and society it is important as was mentioned also by my colleagues to reduce discrimination and violence against women and this is also one of the targets to reduce abuse within within our family with partners and outside also one of the big problems we face malnutrition we have a large percentage of the population which is under the poverty line and for children especially malnutrition is a very severe issue because the last two years we've had a drought and now this year we have COVID-19 so i think that's also a great challenge because women have many children afghanistan and many die in childbirth so that is again a big issue how to improve health services so that women can have healthier and safer lives and then as also was mentioned education i mean we've seen a huge increase in education generally in the country since 2001 but oh there's a huge amount of illiteracy amongst adults and especially amongst adult women so that is also one of the big targets we have to aim for so i think moving on to the next slide i think for us as CSOs civil society organizations we have a role to help development to support development to support human rights to support awareness in society that women and men and girls and boys have a right to a safe life a life free from violence a life where they can develop their potential but of course the conflict has has a very negative influence on this whole situation you know many of us who work in peace building in local communities are frustrated by the fact that the violence has continued and it's in fact spread during the last five years so it's very hard to achieve some of the objectives that many of us are working on when violence carries on so i think coming to the discussion about the peace process women you know need to be at the table as my two colleagues very clearly felt out we need to be able to put our point forward and i think this government has listened and to a certain extent we have had representatives going to meet the Taliban in Doha so i think what we would say is the Taliban are aware of the concerns that are being raised by women and they need to actually take them into account i think the modern generation in Afghanistan really knows that they have rights and they they have that they have to have more satisfaction from the government whichever government is in power so i think that women have led this and i think that's the strong point that i would i i see at the moment in afghanistan that we have strong women leaders and we have strong civil society women leaders who can raise their voice and i think on behalf of the population they have been doing this i think if you talk to women in in Taliban controlled areas however they're still more concerned about immediate things and that that is safety and security and i think this is where the leaders have to listen to this want peace in afghanistan and i think that is generously want to push today thank you so much thank you very much miss fiona gull for your time and for your wonderful insights now we would love to move on to our last speaker of the day he is miss dr. mohammad musajafari he's the current vice chancellor of khatib university for academy affairs he's also chief editor at khatib pottery journal and editorial board member at niga he muassar and pejuhan scientific quarterly journal dr. jafari will be speaking on international institutions in afghan peace process can i hand over the mic to dr. jafari please hello everyone good morning thank you very much and welcome everybody to this live stream i am muhammad musajafari vice chancellor for academy affairs at khatib university i hold phd in international relations and afghanistan security and foreign policy are my research areas i would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your having me today i hope every afghan can witness perpetual peace and live a happy life today i will be speaking about international institutions and afghanistan peace process and why it is important to us first of all i'm going to focus on international institution definition from two perspectives then we will discuss as to why and how international institutions should be involved in afghanistan peace process as you know after us taliban agreement the next important step is to start peace negotiations between afghan government and the taliban afghan government and the taliban are gradually accomplishing a series of preconditions of peace negotiations like releasing taliban prisoners and afghan are worried about the future of peace process it is because the afghan public have paid a high price during this war many of them lost their lives and most of afghans still live under the poverty line there are several important factors for reaching to mutual acceptable deal with the islamist fundamentalist group comprehensive peace process agenda inclusiveness and international community support are necessary to have a strong voice against taliban in peace negotiations for many reasons we need linkage between afghan government peace and reintegration program and international institutions legwad and dolbeco defined the international institution as behavioral regularities associated with a set of rules norms and routines which can either have a formal or informal character international institutions appear in several different forms such as international organization as well as international treaties the divergent conceptual design missions at and past according to this definition international organizations are same as international institutions there are at least three forms of international organizations political organizations like UN economic organizations like david et al and military organizations like nato these international organizations after having witnessed two world wars have played key rules in international security and world order for example the united nation is international organizations with the intention to grant and maintain international peace and security fortunately UN and its agencies and other important international organizations have had close partnership with afghanistan in terms of state building and development programs after september 2001 but it is clear that their responsibilities and commitments should continue during the peace process as well another definition of international institution is a set of explicit or implicit principles norm norms rules and decision making procedures and on which actor expectations converge in a given area of international relations here international institutions are synonym of international regimes regarding to this definition international institutions have normative aspects and they are created by a state or organizational actor to share the plural values which are acceptable for all international actors for example human rights institutions which are internationally respected institutions are respected by every state however some of these states might not actually believe in human rights now i would like to move on the next part of my speech which looks at why and how the international institutions should be involved in the afghanistan peace process in fact four decades of violent conflict inside afghanistan has been one of the biggest challenges for facing international peace and security hence the success of peace process in afghanistan will be a great achievement for international order in my view the afghan government for two reasons cannot lead and preserve the afghan strategic interests and desires alone in the peace process referring to international institutions in peace process helps to make a strong agenda and support for reaching a deal with the toilet more importantly the weakness of afghanistan government would be dangerous in the peace negotiations one country and two presidents explains the extreme political crisis one other on the other hand widespread corruption poverty unemployment and insecurity have undermined the legion the legionary tacy of government then what are our distinguished achievements in the government for negotiations with Taliban how a failed state could preserve Taliban to accept our current democratic political system we absolutely need the support of international institutions to guarantee our pluralistic democratic values in peace negotiations international organizations like UN and its agencies should monitor closely the afghanistan peace process and use international regimes and norms to restrict Taliban on negotiations in the pluralistic perspective all of democratic values are international values and institutions it is necessary to protect and guarantee these values during afghanistan peace process international institutions can cover and support the discourse of afghan government in peace negotiations another important rule of international institutions in afghanistan peace process relates to this question what do the Taliban want the answer of this question is pretty simple for years their goals have been announced to drive out their international coalition and re-establish the islamist immorality of afghanistan with a sharia-dominated society according to these goals it is absolutely hard to bridge the gap between democratic values and the Taliban agenda without supporting and monitoring of peace process by international institutions the Taliban certainly want to ignore many of the democratic values in addition I'm really worried about knowledge understanding and sensitivity of our negotiators about the importance of democratic norms and values in peace negotiations in fact without the support of international institutions it is likely that the democratic values might be ignored and sacrificed finally after talking about the necessity of international institutions present in afghanistan peace process I think it is important to answer this question how should international institutions be involved in afghanistan peace process as we know the peace process is a long-term procedures and there are many actors who are involved in the afghan peace process therefore along with the formal procedure and direct negotiations between two sides I think international institutions should work in the back and the rule of UN in peace negotiations will be so important for us afghanistan peace relates to regional and international powers and it means we need international cooperation so to summarize peace process must be supported in the context of yes I finished to summarize peace process must be supported in the context of ensuring the political, social, economic and cultural rights for all Afghans thank you for your attention and that is all from my side if you have any question feel free to ask them so we can discuss them during the Q&A at the end thank you thank you very much Dr. Jafari for your lovely insights now we will move on towards the Q&A session we have multiple questions coming in coming in from multiple attendees participants that come from different backgrounds so there are there are concerns locally and there are concerns internally before we move on I'd like to share the result of the poll that had been launched in the beginning of this webinar the webinar attendees who responded to the poll 79 percent said that yes the aftermath of the peace process with the Taliban will undermine the status of women in Afghanistan and 21 percent said no it will not we also launched this poll two days ago on our Facebook page and the reaction these were mostly reactions from the local participants the Afghan citizens living within Afghanistan 100 percent of the reactions were that yes the aftermath of the peace process will undermine the status of women in Afghanistan so that is the major concern locally and also the poll shows that the same can be seen internationally moving on towards the questions first of all we do not have a lot of time to go through all the questions so I request the panelists to keep your responses to a minimum of 30 seconds to one minute in order for us to be able to cover as many questions as possible so the first question is this has been asked that what is what do you think are the major elements preventing participation of women in the peace process what solutions can be offered to reduce these obstacles in order to maximize the women participation in the peace process any of the panelists can go ahead and answer this question please unmute your mic before you want to response respond to this question yeah this is very good question that how we can meet the challenge and what can be the solution first of all I think the Taliban and Afghan government both sides are under and there's direct supervision of international community and they are helping both sides and the solution for the political deal they have to ensure that women should be should be considered as an important element for the peace talks in trauma peace talks and women issues should be on the agenda it shouldn't be sidelined as a compromise to political deal and I can see as a women activist that we on the ground we are raising our voice by multiple of activities advocacy on national and regional international level but the solution is only I can see with all these political diversity that international community can enforce Afghan government Taliban to take women's agenda and their consideration as an important priority topic of their the political settlement thank you miss Jamila our next question is what will be the position of women in a society after the peace agreement under different scenarios what do you think would be the status of women in the best scenario and what would it be in the worst-case scenario and this is also related to another question asked by another participant who asks what are the plans you are aware of in place to defend the rights of women during the peace negotiations with the Taliban and after peace negotiations with the Taliban so probably if something goes wrong what is the plan again I should answer um yeah if you want to answer this question yeah actually as I said I was also one of the attendee of Doha in Trafkantiyalo first of all in Trafkantiyalo I think in that gathering there were 11 women very strong women delegates where Taliban met the strong women and even a few of them they were calling that we knew that a group of dangerous women are coming to this gathering and Taliban has come to this conclusion that Afghan women are not the Afghan women of 20 or 30 years back we will not be silenced with any any type of setback we will not go back and we will move forward we know it will be doubled our challenges it will be doubled our work and our effort but of course for a better life for our future children for future generation we will continue our struggle and I'm sure that international community will not leave us alone they will accompany us with these these voices and we will not let them to leave us alone we will raise our voices again and again and we we will form many many forms of advocacy on international level that this was their promise and this is their promise and it should be their promise to stand beside Afghan women thank you Ms. Jamila Ms. Fiona Gull do you have a response for that yeah um I agree with everything Jamila says but and I think also we should remember I mean status of women in any country under any government should have you know they have they should have rights and they should have a voice so whichever government comes along you know this is 50% of the community of the population so women need you know everything they need education they need health they need better livelihoods so you know I think whatever government comes along this government this country Afghanistan has signed all these conventions so it has to live up to the promises it's made on the international level as well thanks thank you Ms. Fiona we'll move on to our last question last two questions probably one is from the organizers and one is from an international audience why was the government represented their representative not invited to the webinar I don't know if we need to response respond to this question or not the next question is what about reproductive health to empower women further this has obviously been asked by an international audience who believes there are other preferences that needs to be focused on in Afghanistan Ms. Yafthadi can you do you have a response for the question about the reproductive health of women hi everyone this is Dorothea from the SDSN secretariat I believe we have a bit of an audio issue Mr. Yafthadi would you like to respond to the question the question was if birth control is not permitted in Afghanistan and if so why and what the government is doing to empower women's rights and reproductive health yeah reproductive health is one of one of main agenda or one of main topic that meets lots of legally and and abortion is also not allowed in Afghanistan it has lots of complication legal complication it will effect life of women psyche of women normal routine of women because every mother has around four to eight children and they are looking after the children and household all these activities then there is no time for mother to look after have herself and for her food even for health and for her development and I think when there will be government in a way or other way Taliban is also bringing lots of issue women issue regarding the Sharia and from that perspective they are giving like a religious understanding that childbirth of controlling childbirth and religious issue which needs lots of issues currently we are working and in the future it can be further challenging issue thank you very much and unfortunately that is all the time we have for questions I want to thank all the who has submitted questions for our speakers and remind everybody to if you found that your question did not get answered throughout the Q&A session to please feel free to engage with our colleagues at SDS and Afghanistan over Twitter and their Facebook site I want to give a big thanks also to the whole team of panels we had from SDS and Afghanistan this morning afternoon for these interesting insights