Women in Afghanistan today: hopes, achievements and challenges

Thursday 27 April 2006

Jointly presented by The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre and the Support Association for the Women of Afghanistan

Mariam Rawi, member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)

Speech by Mariam Rawi delivered on Thursday 27 April 2006 at the University of South Australia

E-Update from SAWA distributed 11 September 2006

Founded in 1977, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) is the oldest independent women's organisation active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, providing humanitarian care and a political voice for women and children in the face of great adversity. Today, a lack of security reinforces misogynist traditions and threatens Afghan women's lives. RAWA works tirelessly for these women. The organisation is not funded by official government sources, and work is done for little pay but with great dedication and unrelenting effort.

Hear more about RAWA as Miriam Rawi discusses RAWA schools, orphanages and hospital services in her presentation.

Mariam Rawi has presented RAWA internationally on several occasions. She is a member of RAWA's foreign relations committee and works in RAWA's publication section that produces the magazine "Payam-e Zan" (Women's Voice). She has addressed audiences in Italy, Japan, Brazil and Korea and in 2004 participated in the conference "Community Development, Human Rights and the Grassroots" at Deakin University, Melbourne.

She will be in Australia in April/May as guest of Deakin University, to present a keynote address at Deakin's Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights conference 'Community Development in a Global Risk Society'.  Coming directly from the refugee camps in Pakistan, Mariam can speak with authenticity and from personal insight.

While the views presented by speakers within the Hawke Centre public program are their own and are not necessarily those of either the University of South Australia or The Hawke Centre, they are presented in the interest of open debate and discussion in the community and reflect our themes of: strengthening our democracy – valuing our cultural diversity – and building our future.