It’s been a long journey for Suraya Pakzan. In the past ten years she has gone from risking her own life educating women and girls in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, to receiving the Woman of Courage award 2008 from the US secretary of state Condoleeza Rice.
Underground schools
Girls’ education was illegal under the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan. In 1998, concerned at the prospect of a generation of women growing up without an education, Suraya formed the Voice of Women Organisation and began teaching girls to read and write in the secrecy of her home.
In the beginning she had just ten students. Two years later, Suraya and her friends were educating more than 300 girls in small, secret groups in their houses – risking death for breaking the law if discovered.
‘It was dangerous, but I always believed educating the girls was not a crime in God’s eyes,’ says Suraya.
‘We built an oven in every house, and hung a drum on every wall, then, if the police came, the teacher would throw all the books and pencils into the fire while the girls would get down the drum and sing, pretending to be at a birthday party.
‘On the two occasions this happened, it took several months to find new text books.’
Despite the risk to her own life, Suraya felt the hardest part of running the underground schools was teaching the children to lie for their own safety. ‘It made me very sad to teach the young girls on the one hand to be truthful and, on the other hand, to lie if anyone asked them what they were doing with us. I think it is very difficult for a young girl to understand this.’
It wasn’t only the young women who need help. Their mothers were desperately poor and had little opportunity for work. So Suraya began small projects aimed at helping these women earn a living.
In 2001, when the Taliban government was deposed, the ‘Voice of Women Organisation’ became the first woman-run non-governmental organisation to register under the new government.
Today the organisation, which is now a Christian Aid partner, promotes women’s rights across Afghanistan through awareness raising programmes and continues to help poor women earn a living. It also offers a free counselling service and safe house for any woman who feels at risk of violence or is threatened in any way.
Suraya feels the organisation’s positive work is reflected in increasing numbers of women using their services, and falling numbers of women driven to take their own lives due to the desperation of their situation.
In 2003, 384 women committed suicide in the Afghan city of Herat , where the Voice of Women is now based. This figure dropped to 96 in 2006 and to 75 in 2007.
‘This figure is still too high,’ says Suraya ‘it is because these women feel they do not have access to justice, that there is no one listening to their voices.’
Change is possible
This week, Suraya will be one of eight women from all over the world to receive the Woman of Courage award in recognition of their bravery in speaking out against injustice in their countries.
‘This is not only an award for me, but for Afghan women’ says Suraya. ‘I’m proud because for many years my country has been an example of violation against women.
‘Afghan women are talked about as poor women, unable to defend their rights, always facing violence. I’m glad that this is a positive story for women in Afghanistan.’
‘I hope that this award will provide encouragement for all women in Afghanistan – if we continue to work together I am sure that change is possible.’