Rina Amiri returned to her native Afghanistan in February 2002 to take part in peace-building and reconstruction efforts following three decades of instability and war. Currently a political affairs officer in the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General at the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, she serves as a member of the political unit implementing the Bonn Peace Accords. In preparation for the 2003 Constitutional Loya Jirga, Ms. Amiri oversaw and managed elections for women, nomads, refugees, and minorities at risk in the 32 provinces of Afghanistan and in the refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan. During the 2002 Emergency Loya Jirga, she served as a member of the organizing team and monitored the presidential election process. She has also taken a leading role in supporting women’s right to political participation. Her efforts have ranged from advising the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to training women leaders from various parts of the country on political participation. Ms. Amiri is now working on the 2004 presidential election process. (Last updated 02.2004)

After years of repression under the Taliban, Afghanistan’s women are once again entering public life. Masuda Sultan is program director of Women for Afghan Women, providing assistance and a platform for Afghan women’s rights activists. In September 2003, she organized an historic conference in Kandahar, the city of her birth, where women met to discuss their country’s future constitution and draft the Afghan Women’s Bill of Rights. The document, drafted and unanimously agreed upon by 45 grassroots women leaders from across the country, was endorsed in principle by President Karzai and the Afghan Constitutional Commission. The New York Times described the Afghan Women’s Bill of Rights as an “extraordinary document” that should inform the constitution-drafting process. Having lost 19 members of her extended family during the US bombing campaign, Ms. Sultan has also collaborated with September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows to lobby Congress for targeted aid to innocent victims of the war against terror in Afghanistan. (Last updated 02.2004)

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