The plea has been signed by a number of other prominent female leaders, many of them Members of Club de Madrid, including Joyce Banda, former President of Malawi, Micheline Calmy-Rey, former President of the Swiss Confederation, Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister of Canada, Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Marie-Lousie Coleiro Preca, former President of Malta, Dalia Grybauskaitė, former President of Lithuania, Hilda Heine, former President of the Marshall Islands, Doris Leuthard, former President of the Swiss Confederation, Jenny Shipley, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, and Vaira Vike-Freiberga, former President of Latvia.
Read the full plea here.
They join the recent Call by Women Leaders to uphold and advance equal rights and opportunities for girls and women in Afghanistan.
“Securing girls’ access to education and ensuring women’s equal participation in the society is the only way forward for Afghanistan,” stresses Tarja Halonen, who served as the first female President of Finland in 2000-2012.
The plea urges the Afghan government to respect the human rights of Afghan women as well as ensure their full participation in all fields of society. The letter, which clearly demonstrates an anxiety for the security and position of Afghan women and girls, asks the newly appointed Afghan government to adhere to the legal obligations under the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The letter stresses that a nation can only prosper by embracing all her citizens, and that Afghan women must take part in the peace-building process in order for it to succeed. One can only wait to hear what the answer of the Afghan government will be.