Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to talk this morning about International Women’s Day, which was held on 8 March. Particularly, I want to talk about a wonderful opportunity that I was able to share in on the morning of 9 March. UNIFEM, a well-recognised organisation which is very involved in the celebration of International Women’s Day, had invited to Australia for this year’s International Women’s Day a young woman—I believe she is 28 years old—from Afghanistan, Malalai Joya, who is a member of the Afghan parliament. She was invited by UNIFEM to come to Australia this year to assist in celebrating and recognising International Women’s Day. I had the enormous privilege of organising and hosting a meeting here in the House with Malalai Joya on the morning of 9 March. This was an extraordinary opportunity both for me and for a number of women within the ACT community who were able to come along, meet with her and listen to the remarkable story that is represented by Malalai Joya. In fact, the BBC has described her as ‘the most famous woman in Afghanistan’. She is now an MP for the Farah province and the director of a non-governmental group called the Organisation of Promoting Afghan Women’s Capabilities in the western Afghanistan provinces of Herat and Farah.

Despite continuing death threats, Malalai Joya continues her efforts in Afghanistan, speaking at rallies and on radio and encouraging large numbers of women within her province to attend public gatherings such as International Women’s Day. Amongst many of her concerns—and there are many—is the fact that, since the fall of the Taliban, Iraq has displaced Afghanistan on front page news. I will quote from an article in the Canberra Times of 9 March 2007, which comments very accurately on her views, the sorts of views she discussed with us here that morning. She is very concerned that the complacency reflected by the displacement of Afghanistan in the news ignores the continuing suffering of Afghans, particularly women, at the hands of powerful warlords. She spoke to us very passionately about the role that she has. Despite the death threats, she travels around Afghanistan under the protection of a burqa, with bodyguards where necessary, because she has had so many attempts made on her life that that is the only way she can in fact continue her life and the work that she undertakes representing women in particular within Afghanistan.

I have to say that I was a bit overwhelmed by the commitment of this young woman. We in politics in this country know what we have to do to engage and have an active role in politics. It pales into insignificance when we consider a young woman like Malalai Joya, who has on more than one occasion put her life on the line to try and influence an open and democratic process in Afghanistan and to try and make sure that the road to recovery from her point of view and the point of view of her community in Afghanistan has some hope of actual success. The article says:

She is also impatient with talk of Afghan women having thrown off the burqa. She describes rapes, beatings, and murders of women and young girls.

Sadly, these continue in her country and represent to an incredibly high level the sort of representation those women really require. I call on all the members of our House, male and female, to make themselves, if they have not already done so, aware of the work of a young woman called Malalai Joya. We are all to learn from her and to understand better the sorts of situations that women and children are facing in Afghanistan even today.

I want to thank Ros Strong, the president of the national board of UNIFEM Australia, and Libby Lloyd more locally for the work they did in getting Malalai Joya here and for managing to allow me and other women in this region to have this valuable hour with this incredible young woman. I look forward to continuing to hear of her success and her work. I wish her every success for her future in her work in Afghanistan.