What Does the Future Hold for Afghan Women?

by Elayne Clift, Toward Freedom

Back in the 1920s things looked hopeful for women in Afghanistan. King Amanullah Khan and his wife Queen Soraya worked diligently to improve women’s lives. The king discouraged polygamy, advocated against the veil, and pushed for greater personal freedom for females. "Tribal custom must not impose itself on the free will of the individual," he said. His sister, Kobra, created the Organization for Women's Protection while another sister established a women’s hospital. Queen Soroya even founded the first magazine for women.

By the end of this progressive decade conservative tribal leaders pushed back against the growing freedoms for women and the King’s successor acquiesced. Still, urban women entered the work force in the 1930s, mainly as teachers and nurses, and by 1959 many had unveiled. A1964 constitution gave women the right to vote and to enter politics.

All of these advances, and those that followed in the 1970s and 80s came to a crashing halt when the Taliban came to power in 1996 following Soviet [backed] rule. Their brutal oppression of women symbolized by blue burkhas and stoning deaths is familiar to most of us by now.

Post-Taliban, things seemed to improve. A woman was elected to the Loya Jirga in 2003 and the following year a new constitution codified that "the citizens of Afghanistan—whether man or woman—have equal rights and duties before the law." In 2008 the first political party dedicated to women's rights was launched and 35 percent of the more than five million children enrolled in schools were girls.

That was also the year that acid attacks on female students began.

Nigerian Villagers Lose Lawsuit Against an Oil Giant

by Yemisi Akinbobola, Africa Renewal

In a stunning and dramatic legal ruling that echoed from the serene court chambers in the Netherlands to the heart of rural Niger Delta in Nigeria, the District Court of The Hague dismissed all but one of the lawsuits brought against Royal Dutch Shell, an Anglo-Dutch oil and gas company, by a group of farmers seeking compensation for the environmental damage caused by the company.

The lawsuit was filed in 2008 by four fishermen and farmers accusing Shell of ruining their livelihoods through environmental degradation. The claims centred on oil spills that occurred between 2004 and 2007 at the Ibibio-I oil well in the village of Ikot Ada Udo in Akwa Ibom State. The villagers wanted Shell to repair the damages caused to their communities by cleaning up the oil spillage, adequately maintaining pipelines to prevent future leaks and paying compensation for loss of livelihoods.

The Battle Over Sustainable Development in Ecuador's Intag Valley

by Gerard Coffey, La Linea de Fuego

QUITO — Born in Cuba, Carlos Zorrilla left the island when he was 11 and emigrated with his family to the United States. But the promised land did not live up to his expectations. Like many of his peers he found it hard to accept the war his adopted country was waging in Vietnam, not to mention the politics of then President Richard Nixon. So he left, looking for somewhere to live in peace. In 1978 he found himself in the Intag valley in Northern Ecuador where, he tells, he found an attractive agricultural area populated by solid and supportive communities. So he stayed. "I love agriculture," he says with a smile.

Attractive is probably an understatement. Intag, located in the western foothills of the Cotacachi volcano in Imbabura Province, some 150 miles south of the Colombian border, is warm, green and unequivocally beautiful. Populated in the late nineteenth century by families that migrated from other parts of the province, the area is a subtropical and primarily agricultural district with plenty of water, high levels of biodiversity and spectacular landscapes.

But the story of Zorrilla and Intag is not one of bucolic bliss. As he found out, peace and harmony do not come so cheaply. There is copper in the hills, and twice in recent decades mining companies have come looking for minerals to exploit.