A refugee since 1979, Fatana Gailani heads the Afghan Women's Council (AWC) in Peshawar, Pakistan. In 1999, when she received death threats from the Taleban, Amnesty International issued an Urgent Action urging the Pakistani government to provide protection.
Fatana Gailani was born in Kabul and grew up under the rule of King Zahir Shah, who lifted the purdah law while she was young. After studying management, she married Ishaq Gailani, a prominent politician and peace activist.

In 1979, they fled to Pakistan with their one-year-old daughter.
In Peshawar, Fatana Gailani found women came to her for advice on economic and health matters. She soon wanted to do more for her fellow Afghan refugees and told her husband she was going to work 'outside the home'. In 1986, she founded the Mother and Child Health Clinic, with 22 female doctors and nurses, working unpaid from 8am to 3pm each day.
A few months later, Fatana Gailani set up a school near Munda, one of the Peshawar refugee camps then accommodating 10,000 people. Boys were the first to come to the school: initially, only five to 10 girls attended. About 400 children in the camp had been left without fathers and at first few came to classes because their mothers depended on their earnings. Gailani raised money from supporters in Germany to enable the children to go to school.
Attendance grew so much that the facilities at Munda were no longer enough. In 1993 the school transferred to Hayatabad. The increase was due to a flood of refugees fleeing fighting between rival mujahedeen groups. Among the issues that divided them was whether women should be allowed to work. It was around this time that Gailani became active on women's rights.
The more extreme mujahedeen groups were also a physical threat to women. Early one morning in 1989, armed men entered the home of one of Gailani's colleagues and abducted her. Gailani, who felt that her own life was in danger, fled Pakistan for a year.
In 1993, Fatana Gailani and other Afghan women living in Pakistan set up the AWC to inform refugee women about their rights, within the framework of Afghanistan's cultural and religious traditions, and to develop health and education for children and women. They established a research centre in Peshawar where they hold conferences and educational workshops for refugee women. Up to 200 women still come to the centre each day. They also set up a newspaper, Zani-I-Afghan (The Afghan Woman).
The AWC also founded a 20-bed hospital for women and children in Kabul and in January 2000 set up an office there. The organisation has been able to provide food for 1,000 women and their families.
Gailani does not aim to challenge religious tradition: 'Islam says that women should cover themselves... I am not a fanatic. I hate the burqa. I am a Muslim woman and I care for Afghan culture. I don't want the fanatics' culture. I don't want Islam to be political.'
Given Afghan leaders' poor record on human rights, Gailani is sceptical about the transitional government's commitment to women: 'They put on nice suits and talk about democracy... They don't talk about the security of the Afghan people because they have no power. Men are fighting with each other. They don't care about women.' She believes little has been done to include more women in the coalition government. 'We don't trust the people who say that women should wait. Why wait?'
Asked what the international community should do to help, Gailani smiled, tiredly: 'Before 11 September, I went eight times to the US. No one ever listened to me or tried to help me in any way. Now we need money. We need medicine, we need food, we want to send our children to school.'


Source: www.Afghanan.net

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The End. August 10, 2007