VZCZCXYZ0054
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHBUL #0424/01 0390423
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 080423Z FEB 07
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5986
INFO RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS KABUL 000424 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR SA/FO, SA/A, SCA/PAB, G/IWI SLOPEZ 
STATE PASS TO USAID FOR AID/ANE 
NSC FOR HARRIMAN 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM KWMN KPAO AF
SUBJECT: NOMINATIONS FOR WOMEN OF COURAGE 
 
REF: SECSTATE 12871 
 
¶1.  In response to reftel, Embassy Kabul submits the 
following two candidates for the Women of Courage Award.  Per 
email instructions from G/IWI, both women speak English. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Mary Akrami is Director of a non-governmental 
organization called the Afghan Women Skills Development 
Center.  Under the rubric of this NGO, she runs one of 
Kabul's two women's shelters.  Most women have come to 
the shelter to escape domestic violence or forced marriages. 
The shelter never turns anyone away, so it often exceeds its 
capacity for 25 people at the shelter.  The women are allowed 
to stay at the shelter as long as they need to while they 
recover from the violence they have suffered, often at the 
hands of a male relative.  There are several women at the 
shelter with high-profile legal cases pending in the Afghan 
court system; several women at the shelter have made the bold 
and virtually unprecedented move of stepping forward and 
denouncing their abusers publicly and filing court cases 
against them.  Thanks to legal intervention provided by the 
shelter, one woman was recently awarded a divorce from her 
abusive husband.  Akrami has previously moved the shelter's 
location to avoid detection by angry family members who are 
actively looking for women housed there.   The Ministry of 
Women's Affairs has referred women to her shelter, and Mary 
takes them all in.  Many women have brought their children to 
the shelter, and the rooms are filled with children's 
laughter.  Several women have arrived at the shelter 
pregnant, and they have had their children while living at 
the shelter.  Many women arrive with nothing but the clothes 
on their back, and Akrami undertakes to provide them with the 
basics such as clothes, toiletries, medicine, bedding, and 
food.  Akrami has a dedicated staff who are provide legal 
advice, literacy classes, psychological counseling,  and 
basic skills training.  Akrami and her staff often receive 
phone calls in the middle of the night from women in crisis, 
and they always respond to the calls.  Mary Akrami is 
dedicated to her work, and is on call for women who need her 
assistance 24 hours a day.  She and her staff have received 
threats against them for the work they are doing to help 
women, and harassing phone calls are a regular occurrence. 
Akrami refuses to be intimidated by such threats.  The 
women's shelter is often the last hope for women desperate to 
escape their life-threatening circumstances and regain 
control over their lives.  There are only two shelters in all 
of Kabul, and only Akrami's shelter provides comprehensive 
assistance (legal, psychological, and educational) and 
permits women to stay longer than a few nights. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Non-governmental organization Action Aid Women's 
Rights Coordinator Aziza Siddiqui is an women's rights 
activist in the field who travels frequently into the far 
reaches of the countryside in Afghanistan to conduct 
first-hand research on the situation of women living there. 
Siddiqui previously worked as a gender researcher for think 
tank "Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit."  There she 
focused on reporting on women's access to land and livestock, 
the quality of girls' education in public schools, and labor 
migration.  Siddiqui also previously worked for the Ministry 
of Research and Rural Development as the special advisor to 
the Deputy Minister for Programs.  Her responsibilities 
included monitoring the progress of the National Solidarity 
Program, which focused on empowering rural communities to 
make decisions on local governance issues.  Her current work 
at Action Aid includes educating rural women living in the 
Northern Provinces on their rights.  To do this, she 
organizes meetings with women in which she facilitates 
training on how women can make decisions for themselves. She 
has conducted these meetings in 50 villages, with 20-22 women 
participants in each meeting, and an additional 30 meetings 
are scheduled.  The program was so successful in the North 
that it has been expanded to central Ghazni Province. 
Siddiqui is also conducting research on violence against 
girls in public high schools and how that may impede their 
access to education, and she is slated to begin research on 
violence against women in prison in the near future.  Despite 
personal threats against her for her groundbreaking research 
on gender, Siddiqui continues to forge ahead with her 
investigation into the lives of women around the country and 
uses that information as a platform to draw attention to the 
needs that women have. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Post would also like to nominate the deceased 
Director of Women's Affairs for Kandahar Province Safia 
Amajan for an honorary posthumous award.   Mrs. Amajan was 
murdered on September 25, 2006 for her efforts to help women. 
 Mrs. Amajan was shot down by a gunman who opened fire on her 
as she was leaving her home for work in a public taxi.  Mrs. 
Amajan, a well-known activist for women's rights, secretly 
teaching classes for women and girls in her home, even during 
the Taliban period, served as the Director of the Women's 
Affairs Department in Kandahar once the Taliban were toppled 
in 2001.  She was a fierce critic of the Taliban's oppression 
of women.  Following specific threats made against their 
lives, Mrs. Amajan's son and disabled husband approached the 
Embassy for assistance.   They were referred to UNHCR and are 
now in Islamabad, where they are registered as refugees. 
Post believes honoring Safia Amajan with this posthumous 
aware would send a strong message that her murder does not 
erase her influence. 
NEUMANN