Afghan Women to Unite for Peace on International Women's Day
While women across the world unite to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, women in Afghanistan’s most insecure will bravely gather for peace at a number of public events. With the main gathering in the volatile Kandahar province, women will be wearing white scarves as a symbol of peace.
Bpeace (The Business Council for Peace) is mobilizing international support for the Afghan women by circulating a petition of solidarity: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/afghanpeace
The petition will be presented as a display of international support to the brave women of Kandahar and to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and the United Nations.
Women in Kabul and every other province of Afghanistan will express their solidarity with the Kandahar women by reading a message of peace at their local International Women's Day gatherings. The Afghan women have taken their cue from two ordinary women in Ireland who were awarded the Noble Peace prize for creating a women’s peace movement to protest violence in Ireland in the 1970’s.
"Today we drove by the site of the third suicide bomber in three days,” says Rangina Hamidi, one of the organizers of the Kandahar gathering. “We are ready to follow in the footsteps of our Irish sisters. For the past seven years Afghans have celebrated March 8th with cheap gifts given to women to honor them. This year, the women in Kandahar loudly say the best gift for us is peace in our country."
Rangina Hamidi will be in New York City March 2 to 6, 2008. For more information contact: Marla Gitterman,[email protected] , 212-696-9696 or Laurie Chock, [email protected] , (914) 591-4052. (Release attached.)
Also on March 8th in Annandale, Virginia, the women of the DC Metro Afghan Community, supported by the Embassy of Afghanistan, are gathering to express their support of the Afghan women. Contact: Zarmina Hamidi, [email protected] , 703-729-3528 / 571-236-0388 or Stoorai Ayazi, [email protected], 703-430-0906 / 571-277-0218.
