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UNITED STates institute of peace

“Many working in the field of 

women’s rights avoid engaging 

with religious figures perceived 

as conservatives opposed to 

progressive change....Yet, their 

support can result in more 

people accepting the importance 

of women’s rights and in more 

enduring changes in behavior.”

June 18, 2014

Engaging Afghan Religious 

Leaders for Women’s Rights

Palwasha L. Kakar

E-mail: pkakar@usip.org

peaceBrieF175

Summary

•	 Asthe economic,security and political transitionstake place in Afghanistan, it is essential to

work with religiousleaders who have credibility and moral authority among large segments of

the Afghan public.

•	 Religiousleaders are among Afghanistan’straditional“gatekeepers”for making local decisions,

especially on questions of women’srights, and they can be effectively engaged.

•	 Despite the very negative reactions by religiousleadersto women’srights at the national

political level,some at the local level have shown continuing interest in women’srights when

they are involved within an Islamic framework and have participated in protecting such rights.

•	 Effective engagement with religiousleadersstarts with respecting their opinions and involving them directly in processes of changing strongly held social norms on women’srights and

othersensitive topics,such astolerance and peacebuilding.

Introduction

As U.S. and NATO troops withdraw from Afghanistan, the next three to five years will be critical

to prevent an erosion of gains made over the last decade in Afghans’ increased rights, roles and

freedoms. This period of transition offers a critical opportunity to strengthen and expand the

network of influential actors who can addressissuessuch as corruption, tolerance and the defense

of basic human and women’srights.

Decades of conflict have torn the traditionalsocial fabric of Afghan society, prompting some

communitiesto embrace extreme beliefs. This has exerted severe effects on marginalized sections

of Afghan communities—especially women. In this context, women’srights have become a highly

sensitive and contested issue in Afghanistan, fueling feuds, cycles of revenge and war itself. Trying to

bring change by using international frameworks of rights has not always been successful; in Afghanistan, it has often produced the opposite effect assuch ideas are rejected asWestern.

There are many examplesin Afghan history where a push for an international idealsparked a

backlash that led to more brutalities against women and a clampdown on women’srights,similar to

what took place under the Taliban regime. Asfar back asthe 1930s, King Amanullah took a top-down

approach to enforcing women’srightsin laws, and his wife,Queen Suraya, appeared publicly without
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Engaging Afghan Religious Leaders for Women’s Rights

page 2 • PB 175 • June 18, 2014

a veil, causing an outcry among religious and tribal elders. That evolved into the Saqao Revolt, which

unseated the king. The communist regime also tried a top-down approach to enforcing women’s

rights, which was manifest most violently when homes were invaded to pull out women and girlsto

attend communist-backed governmentschools. That prompted many Afghansto join the Mujahideen. More recently, in 2013, outspoken clericsin parliament denounced the Elimination ofViolence

AgainstWomen law as“un-Islamic”and a“foreign project,”and they thwarted approval of the

corresponding presidential decree of 2009. Attemptsto enforce women’srights have often alienated

the public and catalyzed reactionary attitudes among the men who retain the power to deny women

their rights.

Creating Positive, Sustainable Change

Given the weakness of Afghanistan’sformal legalsystem and the breakdown of the traditional

social fabric, it isimperative to consider the kind of engagement with the country’sinfluential

actorsthat can encourage them to foster broad-based, positive change on human and women’s

rights. That process begins with recognizing that Afghanistan remains a deeply traditionalsociety.

According to The Asia Foundation’s Annual Survey of 2013, more than 60 percent of those polled

said they have gone to traditional jirgas or shuras, which include mullahs (religiousleaders), tribal

elders and village heads(with such titles as malik, khan and arbab) to resolve their problems.

Eighty percent consider them to be fair and trusted institutions. Furthermore, 66 percent of the

people asked said they had confidence in religiousleaders, a figure that was almost equal to that

in electronic media (68 percent),such asradio, which isthe most popularsource of information

for Afghans. In otherstudiesthat relate to patterns of power and gender in Afghanistan, the

Foundation hasfound that traditional leaders play a critical role in deciding the fate of their

community’s members, especially women who have limited mobility and limited ability to seek

recourse elsewhere. Analysis of trendsin the survey data and community baseline surveys of local

NGOs, including the Afghanistan Youth and Cultural Foundation, the Shuhada Organization and

the Research and Cultural Center of Imam Shaibani, has also shown that among traditional leaders,

religious figures possessthe strongest moral authority in shaping attitudes and behaviors on

questionslike women’srights. 

In developing programsto bolster women’srightsin Afghanistan, identifying which groupsto

engage for different activities—and how best to work with them—is paramount. Women’srights

advocates and practitionersin gender-related projects need to engage religiousleaders and their

institutionsif they hope to influence their communities and the country as a whole. Many working

in the field of women’srights avoid engaging with religious figures perceived as conservatives

opposed to progressive change. This hesitation is based on experiences with local religiousleaders

hindering effortsto support women’srights. Yet, theirsupport can result in more people accepting the importance of women’srights and in more enduring changesin behavior. That can yield

greater gainsin terms of the impact,sustainability and reach of a project.

A review of The Asia Foundation’sresearch into programsimplemented with religiousleadersin

Afghanistan between 2007 and 2013 by local Afghan NGOssuggeststhat two major factors contribute to successful engagement. First, religiousleaders need to participate as genuine partners

with a spirit of ownership in a project. Second, religiousleaders need to be better informed about

women’srightsin an authentically Islamic moral framework thatspeaksto their understanding. If

they are equipped with more knowledge and resources on women’srightsfrom sourcesthey trust,

they can serve as positive agents of change in Afghan society. The right message coming from

the right person makes all the difference. Some local NGO reports1 describe situationsin which a
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Engaging Afghan Religious Leaders for Women’s Rights

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human rights worker dressed in Western style wasineffective at training local religiousleaders on

women’srightsin Islam. By contrast, a well-known local religiousleader giving the same training

was accepted.

The practical challenge has often been to bring in credible, local religiousleaders astrainers. The

firststep isto document religiousleaders’community work and influence in particular geographical areas and social networks. Next, begin building trust with those who were identified as

already working to protect women’srights. They need to be engaged as equalsin a dialogue—an

approach that buildstheirsense of ownership and harnessestheir role as authentic, local leaders.

Relying on religiousleaders does not require bringing in radical extremists or letting them take

control of a program. Nor doesit require winning them over to a new attitude about women’s

rights. Rather, it means finding moderate religious voices and working with them to strengthen

indigenous movements of change on women’srights. In other words, it callsfor working with

voicesthat already exist in Afghan communities. It takes patience to build trust in such relationships, but it pays off. Engaging religiousleaders asthe agents of change on women’s and human

rightsreducesthe likelihood of a popular backlash to what might otherwise be perceived as

pushing Western notions and morality. 

The Asia Foundation research documentsreviewed for this paper demonstrate that when NGOs

adopt this more patient approach, traditional male leaders have often ruled in favor of women as

a party to a dispute on such matters asinheritance, choice ofspouse, child custody and divorce.

Indeed, more than 500 documented cases were resolved in favor of women’srights over two years

in nine provinces. These impactstudies of various projectsshowed that ratesfor resolving cases

in favor of women disputantsimproved three-fold. Such outcomes are remarkable in the Afghan

context, and thissuccessreflectsthe establishment of trust among religiousinstitutions,scholars

and those working on behalf of women’s and human rightsin both local and international groups.

Lessons Learned in Work with Religious Leaders 

Effective engagement with religiousleaderstakessignificant time, effort and funding to build the

essential ingredients of trust and ownership. Afghanistan has witnessed the failure of multiple

projectsin which the international community offered large sums of money to traditional leaders

as an incentive to gain theirsupport for a particular ideology, an outside government or a nationbuilding exercise rather than embark on a process of true engagement and dialogue. Similarly, a

quick but unsuccessful approach wastried in some projects and programsin which religious or

traditional leaders were given documents on human or women’srightsthat were developed by

scholars and schools of thought whom they did not know or understood. Documentslike those

were typically seen asselectively picking ideas out of an Islamic framework or worse—in their

eyes—as a“foreign”human rightsframework in a perceived attempt to coerce them into changing

their attitudes on issueslike women’srights.

Such strategiesfail with Afghan religiousleaders because they fallshort of real consultation.

They do not work when women’srights programsinvite religiousleaders and, in essence,supply

them with messagesto endorse rather than engage their opinion. The reasoning of these wellmeaning groupsisthat the messages have been crafted with an Islamic philosophy and thus

should be endorsed. But thisstrategy usually fails even when the religiousleaders broadly agree

with the message; they find waysto undermine it because they were not consulted in developing

the messages. Religiousleaders, therefore, need to be part of a processthat is meaningful—and

notsuperficial. All of that takestime to build an ongoing dialogue. Messages and programsthat

are plucked out of context will not be sustainable. Any outsider, even an urban resident of Kabul
© USIP 2014 • All rights reserved.

Engaging Afghan Religious Leaders for Women’s Rights

page 4 • PB 175 • June 18, 2014

visiting an Afghan village, will not be seen as having the credibility to argue for modifying old

notions of class and gender.

Discussions2 with development workersin Afghanistan indicate that it is more effective to first

approach local leaders who are known to share a broad goal of women’s empowerment and then

work to expand that circle through trust-building. Before engaging with traditional or religious

leaders, though, localstakeholders need to be interviewed carefully in order to find leaders with

such common goals—a mapping exercise ofsorts. The religiousleaders who might be open to

such collaboration are likely to be those who have already instigated research on their own about

women’srights within an Islamic context, and those who have been champions of change for their

own local initiatives. More broadly, for thissort of engagement to succeed, it must be made clear

thatsupport is being given for processes of change that local Afghan leadersthemselves believe

are needed. An externally-driven agenda will not generate much real change. Responding to

needsthat are identified by local traditional leaders—and by implication the local population—

will naturally foster a greatersense of local ownership.

This approach is best pursued by working with trusted intermediary organizations, particularly

Afghan faith-based organizations or individual religiousleaders who are already trusted within

their communities. Such organizations and individuals can become the face of projects and

programs. Public trust can then grow over time by supporting an Afghan-led process.

Another lesson learned from years of working in this area isthat women’srights and accessto

justice are not exclusively mattersfor any one sector. For instance, community gatekeepers on

these issues do not generally represent the formal justice sector. For that matter, championsfor

women and justice have emerged across allsectors, including government, law, civilsociety and

media. Participantsfrom The Asia Foundation’s pilot programs have suggested that incorporating

the police and local courtsystemsinto informal or traditional justice mechanisms would increase

women’s overall accessto justice, as well as produce more positive outcomesfor women. Still,

legal cases can be referred to the traditional or the state justice systems, depending upon which

hasthe reach and ability to hold partiesto an agreement. It is critical to foster opportunitiesfor

dialogue, learning and collaboration between local traditional leaders and state actors on these

justice issues. Such an approach isthe way to promote sustainable, positive change and long-term

peacebuilding efforts.

Recommendations Going Forward

•	 Start by “mapping”the religious sector: Gather information about the roles of different religious institutions and individuals who could either support or hinder work on

women’s rights, tolerance and peacebuilding.

•	 Engage, though cautiously, with those religious leaders and institutions who have a

track record of supporting women’s rights over a lengthy period of time in order to build

trust; then work through them to expand a like-minded network.

•	 Use dialogue and respect to work with traditional leaders to develop the intervention. 

•	 Support processes of change that are identified locally and, if possible, that have been

implemented by trusted local traditional or religious leaders. 

•	 Establish local partners as having the leading role in the delivery of support and to serve

as the public face of the program as much as possible. Do not seek recognition of the

external support, because such publicity will disrupt the local sense of ownership of the

process, along with its credibility.
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•	 Expect changes in attitude and behavior to evolve slowly. And support incremental change

by listening to local partners and supporting what they are ready to take on instead of

pushing them to risk their reputation, credibility and, possibly, their lives.

•	 Facilitate cooperation between religious leaders and state leaders on common issues or

practical activities, including resolving cases related to women’s rights, to increase trust and

understanding.

Notes

1.	 Forinstance,see ShuhadaOrganization,“Quarterly Report:Women’s Accessto Justice,”July 2010, p. 4.

2.	 Author’s discussions with program staff ofOxfam, SwissPeace, ActionAID, UnitedNationsDevelopment Program andThe Asia Foundation between 2010 and 2013.

About This Brief

The author is a senior program 

officer for religion and peacebuilding at the U.S. Institute of Peace 

(USIP) and was formerly the 

Afghanistan director of The Asia 

Foundation’s Women’s Empowerment and Development program. 

The information here draws from 

research conducted by The Asia 

Foundation in Afghanistan, as 

well as discussions at USIP’s series 

of Expert Dialogues on Lessons 

Learned and Best Practices for 

Women in Transition Countries 

and the ongoing Lessons Learned 

Gender Working Group. The 

opinions expressed in this article 

are solely the author’s.