Supporting women’s rights and the 16-day campaign to end violence against women, ten female motorcyclists recently held the first all-women’s motorcycle rally in central Daikundi province.
In keeping with this year’s campaign theme “Orange the World: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect!” the women all wore orange scarves around their necks as they showed their support for the cause.
The rally took place in the provincial capital of Nili, and was organized jointly by the provincial government and Oxfam.
According to local officials the aim was for the women to take a stand against customs of suppressing women and to show they are capable of riding motorcycles and in doing so breaking down social taboos attached to it.
The female bikers meanwhile welcomed the initiative and called on families to allow their daughters to join motorcycle groups.
Last month the Afghan Ministry of Women’s Affairs said that violence against women in Afghanistan has increased in the past year.
Speaking at the launch of International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and the launch of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign, the ministry said that 2,582 cases of violence against women have been reported to them in the past year.
They also said that in the past four months, 34 cases, including murders, have been reported to the ministry.
This comes after repeated calls by the Afghan government and the foreign community for women’s rights to be preserved and to be worked on.
Calls to preserve women’s rights in Afghanistan have been growing amid ongoing peace talks between the Afghan Republic and the Taliban in Doha. In line with this, research by UN Women and the Council on Foreign Relations said recently that when women participate in peace talks in a meaningful capacity, the resulting agreement is 64 percent less likely to fail and 35 percent more likely to last at least 15 years.
However, the research found that between 1990 and 2017, women made up only two percent of mediators, eight percent of negotiators, and five percent of witnesses and signatories in all major peace processes around the world.
