Voices of Change Episode 8: Nargis Nehan

Voices of Change Episode 8: Nargis Nehan, Advocate for Women's Rights in Afghanistan, Special Episode for International Women's Day

Explore a special International Women's Day episode of Voices of Change featuring Nargis Nehan, former Afghan Minister for Mines and Petroleum and a staunch advocate for women's rights. She fled the country after the Taliban takeover in 2021. Gain profound insights into the challenges faced by Afghan women and her hopeful vision for the future.

You can listen to the episode below, or wherever you get your podcasts, or read the transcript.

This is a transcript of the Voices of Change episode with Nargis Nehan.

Celeste Iyinbo: Welcome to Voices of Change. I'm Celeste Iyinbo your host, and today we are joined by an extraordinary woman. Nargis Nehan, Nargis was given the title of iron woman of Kabul by Bloomberg in 2019. While she was acting minister for mines and petroleum under the former government in Afghanistan. Nargis is an advocate for women's rights, and also the former Afghanistan Government Minister. Join us as we explore her insights into the current conditions for women and civil society in Afghanistan. Hi, Nargis, welcome. So let's start at the beginning. What was it that made you want to dedicate your life for women's empowerment and humanitarian sector?

Nargis Nehan: Well, dedication of my life for women empowerment and humanitarian assistance has been influenced by my gender, I think. Because as a woman, we are created differently. And we are created to care for others within the family and as well as within the society, then, as well as the culture that I'm coming from. Because in our culture, we always say that you're becoming a mother, in a family in Afghanistan, before getting them getting married. What do we mean by that, that you're a small girl, but somehow, always, your mother's telling you Look, after your sister, look, after your brother, I go to the market until I come back, make sure that you look after your small sister. So they somehow give you that small responsibility, that is beginning to bring those feeling of responsibility and care for others, they like that grows within you while you're being raised within the family. So and then, thirdly, the circumstances. I was living as a refugee for 10 years in Pakistan. And I could see that my family had financial difficulties, my relatives had financial difficulties. I had many of my relatives that they were living in refugee camps in Pakistan. And they were basically struggling for, like one time, food to bring on the table for themselves and their family members. So all of them at that point of time was making me that, you know, how can I help them? How can I help my family? How can I help restock them? How can I bring a bit of more comfort to your life. And it was especially difficult for me when I was seeing that the situation was financially getting difficult. And my mother was upset, like the woman, the relatives, they were upset, but in the meantime, they were also not able to do anything about it. So that motivated me that I have to study, I have to complete my school, and I have to get to work so that I can help them. And I'm very lucky, because as soon as I graduated from school, exactly after three months, I managed to find a job, at one of the international organisations in Pakistan, and I managed to get a decent salary, which actually helped me to continue my higher education in the evening, but also help not only financially, my own family, but also many of the relatives that were living in refugee camps. So it started from there. The more that I grew, the more I took responsibility. And the more I tried to serve people. And I'm very happy that finally I also managed to create institutions that can provide them those support regardless of my engagement or not.

Celeste Iyinbo: Can you tell us about your work to achieve this goal pre the Taliban takeover?

Nargis Nehan: My struggle for achieving my, not all of my goals, but at least some of my goals, and moving towards rest of my goals has not been easy. It has been full of challenges. And as they say, quite a bumpy road. In my family and as well as in the family of my relatives for the duration of kids. Now, their mothers are actually telling my stories to them and giving them the example that how you have to work hard and how actually studying an education can change your life. I mean, I'm coming from a middle class family that had nothing to do with politics. My father had a like a small business that he was running before the Civil War. And that's how he was feeding the family. And more than that he had nothing to do with the politics, about the situation of Afghanistan. And that's typically most of people from old city of Kabul is, because they prefer to focus on their own life, they are not interested in bigger politics of what is happening in the country. But I'm the only rebellious child within the family that when we migrated to Pakistan, and as I said, we faced difficulties. I prioritised my education, it was not an easy process, because my family was facing really difficult financial situations at that time. So I had to go from eight to twelve, to school, and I had to come back and have quick lunch at home, then I had to go and take English classes, because I had gone from Afghanistan. And the English course classes in the school was too advanced for me. So I had to take extra courses to be able to, to match up and learn more English language. And then in the evening, I was teaching a few students at my home, so that I could get some incentive, and I can pay my school fees from that. So I mean, imagine that was my routine life for seven days a week that I had to deal with, until I graduated from school. And as soon as I graduated from school, I had to work very, very hard. When I came to Afghanistan in 2001, I was working from 8am till at least 9:10pm in the night, six days a week, because I was back and I was so enthusiastic and excited that we should rebuild our country. So that's how I worked. But I've always prioritised to make sure that while I am working hard enough, I give time to my family, I give time to my friends, I give time to those people that they are looking up to me. And they have expectations from me, whether it's the matter of like sitting with them, helping them, guiding them. And then most importantly, I also always made sure that they give time to look after myself in terms of learning new skill and like increase, deepening my knowledge about different things, and then continuously engaging in changes that was happening in my country. So it was difficult. Not easy, but in the meantime, I was also getting rewarded for it. Imagine as someone that I was coming from a middle class family, I came and I've managed to start working with quite credible international organisations. When I was just 17 years old, and I work with a Danish organisation. I work with International Rescue Committee. I work with Norwegian Refugee Council, then I came to Afghanistan in 2001, I work with UNDP. And right after that I joined government, and I work in quite senior level positions. I was 22 years old when I became the treasurer of Afghanistan. And after that, I served as adviser to different ministers. I served as Director General to different ministries. And then later on, I left the government in 2010. And I founded the organisation equality for peace and democracy. So for us, it's important that we focus on empowerment of women, because by focusing on empowerment of women, we are empowering our next generation, because we are creating mentors, teachers, guides and role models for them.

Celeste Iyinbo: What critical role did women's rights organisations play before the Taliban takeover?

Nargis Nehan: The role that women organisations play before the Taliban take over was remarkable. In a society that is highly male dominated, that is highly traditional, that like even, like they have an image of a woman in their mind that like what a decent woman is, a decent woman should be properly covered, should have a big veil, should not make up, should not speak with a louder voice, should always be submissive. Right? So that was the image that they had of like a decent woman. But then you had we had thousands of civil society organisations, women's rights organisations, that they established, and they flourished in different parts of Afghanistan. They started arranging community dialogues, they started arranging trainings, they started raising awareness of not only woman, but actually men about women's rights, and they started advocating and raising their voice for their rights. So woman participation at the political level, and leading highly male dominated ministries such as Ministry of communication, Ministry of Mines and petroleum, The Ministry of Finance became very normalised for men to see a woman leading those ministries, because we, the woman, this organisation advocated for them. Even in terms of transitional justice, in terms of transparency, in terms of accountability, woman played a very important and very responsible role. Because constantly they were asking, even in the peace process in Afghanistan, woman were the only groups that kept on saying that we need to have accountability for the peace process. We need to have transitional justice for a sustainable and inclusive peace in Afghanistan. And then we have to make sure engagement of the people and the peace process. After 15th August, although most of the woman's right defenders, they were they were evacuated from Afghanistan. And they started migrating to different countries. But they had not taken even one day off. We have been working tirelessly to raise awareness to the world to make sure that Afghanistan stays in the agenda of the international community, we bring to the attention of the world, the plight of Afghan people, especially Afghan woman, and we constantly pressure the world for listening and responding to the needs and demand of Afghan woman.

Celeste Iyinbo: Where were you when the news broke of the Taliban takeover of the capital?

Nargis Nehan: I was actually sitting in office having a meeting with my colleagues. And I received the call. So I just went to my office to respond to the call. So the call was from my brother, and he was asking, Where are you? I see them sitting in the office and we were working. And he said, just pack and go home. He said, because Taliban have entered the city. So I said, Okay, perhaps like I can wait for a few hours, then go, maybe they will not enter the whole city. He said, No, it's better if you just go and if you want to continue work, you can do it from home. I said, Okay, let me discuss and see if we can wrap up the meeting. And we can go. By the time that I talked to my brother, which took like 10 minutes, and I came back to the hall, I could see that all my colleagues were out because they had received calls from their family members. Everybody was panicking, running around as if something emergency had happened in the office. So then I could see that everybody's already packing and leaving, there is no decision to that we should go or not. So I told everybody I said, Okay, let's pack and leave. So I quickly packed within 15 minutes, and I sat in the car and I we were driving on our way to home. And on our way to home. I saw a totally different city than the city that actually I saw when I came to office. The streets were already empty. People were panicking around and there was that like anxiety that you would see on the face of everybody. When I went home. So I was just rushing and running. And and as soon as I got home, my mother was kind of surprised at why she's so early, middle of the day. So she said what happened is everything. Okay? I said Taliban has entered Kabul. And I was standing with my brother with my mother. All of us were discussing, what do we do? So should we go should we stay? And my brother was like, we don't have to worry because there are people in our neighbourhood that they have guards and like they are armed. So we are secured because my mother was saying that we have to go somewhere, we are not secure. So my mother was like, No, we have to go. And it's mainly because of Nargis because what if people come after her. Me and my mother, we were having this discussion. So my brother quickly went up on the floor to just see what is happening in the city. He came back, his face was totally pale. And then he was like, there is no one in our neighbourhood. Everybody's gone. All those people, armed guards, everything is gone. There is no one. And then we had to immediately pack and leave the house. And that was a difficult process, because it took I stayed for 11 days still in Kabul. And we were just moving from one house to another house, and then I was evacuated.

Celeste Iyinbo: What were you thinking? And what was your feeling when that happened?

Nargis Nehan: When the Taliban took Kabul it was such a hard feeling. You know, like on one hand, absolutely shock. On the other hand, that feeling of helplessness. And then, on top of that, that feeling of being responsible for so many people that they are looking up at you, and to find a solution. So while To be honest, you I was very scared, I was very disappointed as if you like your whole life is destroyed in front of you, I also had to still put up a very brave face, and just tell my family that you like we are discussing, we are there are going to be in like some solutions. Because I could see how lost they were, especially that my driver was, was attacked by some armed people on that day in the morning. And he was shot, three bullets, and he lost one of his kidneys that day. In that attack. So it was quite scary. And my family was quite frightened. So I had to put very brave face to just show them that, like I'm talking and I was already in contact with several embassies. I tried to get an update what is happening. And we were talking with different groups of woman discussing what should we do about it? And all of us, of course, we were scared, disappointed, sad about the collapse of everything. But in the meantime, we also did not have any other choice but to focus on okay, what can we do in this situation?

Celeste Iyinbo: What is the current situation facing women and girls today in Afghanistan? What are the biggest threats to their well being?

Nargis Nehan: The situation of women and girls in Afghanistan today is nothing short of gender apartheid. Girls are not allowed to go to school. Girls and women's are not allowed to work for non governmental organisations. They are not allowed to work for UN agencies. They are not allowed to travel without male guardian. They are not allowed to go to amusement places. They are not allowed to attend public baths. And they are not, even the beauty parlours that was run by 60,000. women across the country, all of them are closed down. So right now, the only right that women are having in Afghanistan is the right to breed. And the right to drink and eat if they have food. So imagine the situation that as a woman, you were living and you were generating income, you're bringing food on the table for your family, you're part of all discussions and decisions about your country, suddenly, you're degraded to nothing. I talk to women across Afghanistan, and they tell me that today, these ethics issued by the Taliban have not only damaged our position in the society, it has also damaged our position within the families, we can see that we are not taken seriously in the families anymore. Nobody's consulting with us. Nobody's talking to us, because they don't see any value in us anymore. So all the achievement that we have had for a woman, unfortunately, we lost all of them. Today, once again, women are living just as slaves, that they have no right for anything in their country.

Celeste Iyinbo: Has a Taliban takeover changed your goals? And also, could you tell us what has been the result in impact of the takeover on women's rights organisations and their work?

Nargis Nehan: The Taliban takeover has not changed my goal that I have for women empowerment. But it has made my mission more dedicated, more resilient, to make sure that I continue towards achieving my goal, even if the situation is difficult, and even if there are more barriers, so I will continue my mission. And I'm very happy that I'm doing that by staying connected with women inside Afghanistan, amplifying their voice and using different avenues to make sure that I provide them with the support that they need to be able to continue their activism and to be able to build the resilience inside Afghanistan. After Taliban took over unfortunately, this space has totally changed for civil society organisations, but mainly for woman focused organisations. First of all, there is no independent civil society and media with civic voice in Afghanistan anymore, because there is no space for that. On top of that, there are woman organisations are facing two level of difficulties, I will say three level of difficulties. The first level is all those restrictions which are enforced on Woman themselves. So imagine how would you run an organisation, when you're not allowed to go to office, when you're not allowed to travel, when you're not allowed to attend meeting with men, when you're not allowed to sign documents or anything. So, that is the personal restrictions of the woman. And then in terms of woman organisations, the current regime is not processing any documents which are signed by a woman, they do not accept any organisation having a female as director, they do not accept any organisation having female as members of the board, in a board of directors of the organisations. So as a result, every organisation had to come with different mechanism. For example, every organisation's are now having a formal male directors who will dealing with the Taliban, but they're also having shadow female director who's still managing the organisation, but they have to be shadow because their named documents and signatures are not acceptable anymore. We have a board of directors who are all male who are dealing with the authority, but then we have a shadow female board of members, that they're still looking out and making sure that the organisation's are staying true to the mission, that for which they are established for which they are working. So that is the level of the challenge at the organisation level that they are facing. Because then, and then there is also the difficulty that woman organisations are mostly focusing on woman activities, the Taliban are not in favour of any of those activities. So there are organisations that they get the funding for a six months project, but then take them four months. And still they are not able to get approval on their project from the Taliban so that they can start their activities. That is the another level of difficulty that they are facing. The third level of difficulty as the difficulty of the funding and resourcing. There are organisations such as UN agencies that they go with a competitive process. For a woman organisations with all the restrictions that you're have they're facing at the organisation as well as at the leadership level, it's impossible to compete with those men organisation. And then men are also having they can easily travel, they can go and visit donor agencies in their offices, whether inside Afghanistan or outside Afghanistan, they can go and meet the Taliban representative, and discuss and get approval of their projects, and different initiatives and support for them. And they can also get resources for them. In case of woman, they cannot go and visit in person to build that network and relation that's required. With donor agencies, they cannot interact with the representative for the Taliban because they're not talking to woman. So they have to rely on their male colleagues to do that. And they also cannot travel outside of Afghanistan to be able to travel for the organisations. So that's why there is so much restriction in terms of funding in terms of support for woman organisations. And then the difficult part is that the responsibility of raising and amplifying woman's voice at this difficult time, or online on the shoulder of women's rights organisations, who are literally having no support. So that is making the role of individuals and groups such as myself who are living in exile, really important and relevant, because we have to stay our engagement with those groups and organisations inside of Afghanistan and make sure that we amplify their voice and we find different avenues to be able to channel support for them.

Celeste Iyinbo: What is it like living in exile?

Nargis Nehan: Living in exile is really difficult. First of all, you are living in a country that you haven't chosen, you're forced to leave your country. And that feeling of forced expulsion, from your community, from your home from your homeland. As someone that you were leading and you are making decisions, you will engage in all affairs of your country is a huge change to digest and accept that. Then there is the difference of the timezone that you have to deal with. In terms of like engagement back with the country, there is a difference or the difficulties of the connectivity that you have to deal with. And then there's also the difficulty of your expectation. People think that oh, you're outside of Afghanistan, you have good life, you have good income, you have peace. You need to help us in like 24 hours and respond to all our demands. They do not understand that. We are also newcomers in these countries where we have to come and start our life from scratch. And there's so much that we have to do here. Because we don't have the kind of support network and system that we had inside the country, we have to do the cleaning ourselves shopping, grocery, our paperwork, everything ourselves. And on top of that, we also have to continue our activism, we also have to work to be able to bring more food on the table for ourselves, besides those groups that you're working with. So it is becoming it has become, I would say more complicated, more challenging, I see more pressure. And, and I'm more demand and expectation that that you have from the family and as well as from those groups that you're working with. And then on top of that, that feeling of the guilt, that I left my people at the very difficult time. This is the most difficult part.

Celeste Iyinbo: How do you continue to maintain connections with women inside Afghanistan from your current home in Canada? How do you find ways to support them? And do you hope to return to Afghanistan one day?

Nargis Nehan: I'm staying connected with woman from Canada, is challenging. But thanks to technology and connectivity, I always say I say thanks to zoom, thanks to social media, thanks to Internet. And thanks to WhatsApp, if these applications and digital connectivity would not have been there, I think most of us that were evacuated from Afghanistan would have been in a totally different mental situation right now. As I say, we might have been any like support centres seeking psycho like social support. Because you're like, sorry, you were someone that you're leading, and you're making decision, you're engaged in everything about your country, sudden you come and you're becoming a refugee are no one, you're just a number in the system. Yeah. And then you also see that your people are struggling so much, and then you can't do anything from afar from them. But then thanks to these applications, and, and connectivity, they helped us to stay connected with woman. So for example, I am part of several Whatsapp group that we have woman from inside of Afghanistan, outside Afghanistan. And we continue to interact with each other, share information with each other, tell each other what is happening, I'm also able to individually, like talk to many of them and like find out what is happening. They're also approaching me and asking me about different issues support that they need to like, and advice that they need. I also arrange regular zoom calls with them. I also managed to create several platforms, through those platforms I arrange their interaction with policymakers, and with internal representatives of international community, I also conduct consultation with them, and make sure that we amplify their voice. So very recently, we managed to have community conversations with 500 Woman in Afghanistan. And we have developed the rapport and the rapport is amplifying the advice and recommendations that they asked us to share with international community. So those are the ways that I'm connected with them. And of course, I'm designing different projects and programmes to be able to provide support for community based groups and organisations so that they can continue their activities, and then also different initiatives that we're taking together with them.

Celeste Iyinbo: What would you like to see change in Afghanistan before you return?

Nargis Nehan: Girls should go back to school, regardless of who is in power. Woman should be allowed to go back to work regardless of who's in power. And woman should be able to move freely, without like having a male guardian as a police moving around with them. I really would like this to see this change from today. Before I return to Afghanistan, and then in terms of my return, I really hope that we have that level of protection and tolerance on the part of Taliban, that they would really allow that people like us go back and be able to continue serving our communities like regardless of our engagement with the government or not, but unfortunately right now, we don't have that protection and safety to be able to go back and work for our people and for our country. So I hope that we see those in Afghanistan before I go.

Celeste Iyinbo: How would you describe your relationship with CAFOD?

Nargis Nehan: The relationship that I have with CAFO is not the relationship of recipient of grant and a donor. It is the relationship of the two organisations and two groups that are striving for the same vision, perhaps from different contexts. And that trustful relation that listening to each other, and trying to help each other and trying to like, collaborate for pursuing the common goal that we have. I remember that. As soon as the collapse happened. After a month, I was approached by CAFOD colleagues myself, that they asked me how you're doing, how the groups that you're working with are doing, how the organisations that you're working with are doing and what kind of support you think we can provide for them. There was very few number of organisations, that they had that approach and that kind of relation with us, where they asked what difficulties you they were facing, and how they can support us. So I've I cherish that relation. And I really admire and appreciate that. Because I think that is the relationship of like a long term, like durable partnership, especially when you're working for in like quite valuable and principle goals and in that you're pursuing. So that's how I see my relation with CAFOD.

Celeste Iyinbo: What is important about CAFOD working in collaboration with local organisations. And I was wondering what can organisations like CAFOD do best to support women's rights in Afghanistan?

Nargis Nehan: In terms of support for women's rights for organisations, such as CAFOD, we would like you to be our advocate in your countries, we would like you to collaborate with us so that we can raise the awareness of the policymakers, the politicians, the media, the feminist group in your countries, so that they can understand the situation and the complexity that Afghanistan is facing. This time, the threat from Afghanistan is not going to be terrorism, it's going to be extremism, that we have to find ways to be able to counter that. And I think in that regard, organisations such as CAFOD can help us out to build resilience of democratic forces, women's rights and human rights forces in Afghanistan, whether we are talking about organisations, groups and activities, amplify our voices, and provide more support so that we can, we can advocate and make the case for Afghanistan, and make sure that we do not forget Afghanistan, because what is happening today to Afghanistan, if it is normalised and if it's ignored by the world, it is going to get expanded to the rest of the world. And it's going to have its implications. And most importantly, it is going to be a huge embarrassment for any individual, organisation, policymakers, that you're working for women's rights, to see that with this level of connectivity, we see one country that the women are living under gender apartheid, and the rest of the world is not doing anything about it.

Celeste Iyinbo: What are your hopes for the future in Afghanistan?

Nargis Nehan: My main source of hope for future of honesty is the woman of Afghanistan and the young generation of Afghanistan. The resilience of woman, the activism of the woman and the resistance of woman, I believe in them more than anyone more than myself. And I keep on saying that nobody could beat Taliban, the superpowers could not beat Taliban, but it is going to be this time the women of Afghanistan that they are going to beat the Taliban because they are fighting the armed men with the pendant they have in their hand, with the time that they have with the Civic voice that they are carrying, and and we destroyed the Civic structure that they have adopted. So they they are going to prevail. And that is my hope. And that is what is keeping me going each and every day.

Celeste Iyinbo: Do you have a message for UK supporters?

Nargis Nehan: My message for UK support that is that you always think that Afghanistan is a lost cause you think that Afghanistan is a failed project. Afghanistan was not a failed cause, Afghanistan is not a failed project. Look at people such as myself, that we are standing, and we are talking in front of you. You're having millions of women like myself, we're living inside of Afghanistan, just imagine that the Taliban are putting a gun in their forehead, and asking them to stop and not protest for their rights. But still, they continue and they protest for their rights. That is the type of group that you have. This was not possible without your support. The reason that these women are so vocal, so outspoken, so resilient, and so courageous is because of the level of awareness that they have. That level of awareness came from those education that they learned in school, with the support that you provided. They learned in universities with the support that you provided. They learn in different civic activities and awareness programmes that we have, which was, again, was supported by your programme. If you look at our politicians, especially male ones, of course, Afghanistan was a lost cause, and is a lost cause. But if you look at women of Afghanistan, if you look at the young generation, if you look at the courage, the standard they take for human rights and those values that all of us are cherishing. Afghanistan is a success story. Afghanistan is a role model.

Celeste Iyinbo: Thank you for tuning into Voices of Change by CAFOD. We are so grateful to Nargis Nehan. She shared her invaluable perspectives with us today. Let's continue to amplify voices advocating for women's rights and support positive change worldwide. Thank you for listening.