"Afghan Women Leaders Speak": An Academic Activist Conference, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, Ohio State Universtiy, November 17-19, 2005

Afghan women activists emphasize that the first and continuing need in Afghanistan is physical security, which will enable developments in education, health care, and women's fuller social and political participation. Recent legal and electoral reform from above does not yet substantially affect grassroots gender inequality, severe poverty, and lack of infrastructural development. Real reform will require long-term, culturally sensitive collaboration among Afghan women activists, other progressive Afghans, and would-be external supporters. The conference participants see such progress as possible for Afghanistan only in a progressive Islamic ideological environment, which does not yet exist.