Women in Afghanistan: Three Years Later

Women in Afghanistan: Three Years Later

Wednesday, October 2, 2024

1:00 pm Eastern Time

The Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan in 2021 marked a pivotal and troubling turn for women’s rights. In this webinar, two experts on women in Afghanistan assess women’s status in the country since the Taliban’s resurgence. Panelists include Dr. Mona Tajali, Visiting Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University and Tahmina Sobat, a women's human rights lawyer and Ph.D. student in the Department of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Dr. Farida Jalalzai, Professor of Political Science and Associate Dean of Global Initiatives and Engagement at the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech will moderate. Open to the public. Zoom registration is required.  Sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. Contact Farida Jalalzai with questions.

Dr. Mona Tajali

Visiting Scholar, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law

Stanford University.

Mona Tajali is a scholar of gender and politics, specializing in women's political participation and representation in Muslim countries, with a comparative focus on Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey. Her research includes analysis of feminist mobilization against patriarchal structures as well as the experiences of institutionalization of women's rights in semi-democratic and non-democratic contexts. She is the author of Women’s Political Representation in Iran and Turkey: Demanding a Seat at the Table (2022) and co-author of Electoral Politics: Making Quotas Work for Women (2011), both published as open access. She is also the co-editor of Women and Constitutions in Muslim Contexts (2024), the first compilation analyzing several national constitutions of the Muslim world through a gender lens. A firm believer in engaging across the academic-practitioner divide, Tajali has been a long-term collaborator with transnational solidarity network and Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), and, since 2019, has served as a member of its executive board. She is published in both academic and popular outlets, among them the Middle East Journal, Politics & Gender, The Conversation, and The Washington Post. Tajali is currently a visiting Scholar, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.  Previously, she was an associate professor of international relations and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta.

Tahmina Sobat

Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies Department

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

Tahmina Sobat is a women's human rights lawyer from Afghanistan. She earned her law degree from Herat University in 2015 and later pursued an LLM in International Human Rights Law at the University of Notre Dame, graduating in 2020. She continued her academic journey with a second master’s degree in Gender and Women Studies through a Fulbright Scholarship at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Sobat’s professional career includes diverse roles such as Monitoring and Evaluation Deputy for the Women Empowerment Program at Zardozi Organization and Ombudsperson at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) since 2017. Her extensive research focuses on women's rights and peace-building in Afghanistan. Her interdisciplinary approach merges international human rights law with transnational feminist theory, offering fresh perspectives on U.S. counterterrorism strategies and Afghan women’s epistemic resistance.Recent publications include “Afghan Women and the Struggle for Transnational Feminist Solidarity,” and “What Did the US War and Exit Do for Afghan Women’s Rights?” published in the Gender and Policy Report of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Currently, as a Ph.D. student in the Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies Department, Sobat is conducting research on "The Role of Grassroots Feminism in Demilitarization and Peace-Building in Afghanistan."