Back Our Global Reach
Our Global Reach
9 April 2024
Bridging Positions, Building Trust:  Women Peacebuilders & Security Actors

ICAN, in partnership with the Permanent Missions of Norway, Sweden, and Canada, the United Kingdom Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office (UKFCDO), the Ministry of Gender, Child and Welfare of South Sudan, the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), and the National Transformational Leadership Institute (NTLI), convened a 1.5-day workshop to discuss how to strengthen community security as a localized, transformative approach for sustainable peace.

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Back Resource Library
Resource Library
25 March 2024
Operational Guidance to Establish and Enhance the Protection of Women Peacebuilders (Arabic)

Stemming from the report, “Protecting Women Peacebuilders: The Front Lines of Sustainable Peace,” this document provides operational guidance for states and multilateral institutions to protect women peacebuilders. This document is also available in English, Farsi, and Turkish.

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5 March 2024
Protecting Women Peacebuilders: The Front Lines of Sustainable Peace (Arabic)

This report distills the range of threats to women peacebuilders, analyzes existing protection mechanisms, and provides guidance to protect women peacebuilders. This report is also available in English, Farsi, French, Spanish, and Turkish. See related operational guidance on how to establish and enhance the protection of women peacebuilders here.

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Back News & Media
News & Media
9 April 2024
Bridging Positions, Building Trust:  Women Peacebuilders & Security Actors

ICAN, in partnership with the Permanent Missions of Norway, Sweden, and Canada, the United Kingdom Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office (UKFCDO), the Ministry of Gender, Child and Welfare of South Sudan, the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), and the National Transformational Leadership Institute (NTLI), convened a 1.5-day workshop to discuss how to strengthen community security as a localized, transformative approach for sustainable peace.

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Afghanistan

Sign-On: Action Points to Guarantee the Rights, Safety and Health of Women and Girls in Afghanistan

Posted on by Lauren Mellows

The international community needs to take urgent action to ensure Afghan women and girls across all ethnic and religious communities, in urban and rural areas, feel safe and have equal rights and opportunities to a life of dignity, peace, safety and justice.

To achieve this overarching goal, and to ensure that there is no regression in the context of the impending humanitarian crisis, we have stated four key outcomes and offered specific actions by international actors and specific actions by the Taliban.

Humanitarian Response to Afghanistan Must Not Do Harm

Posted on by Lauren Mellows

Given the gendered segregation of society that the Taliban has already instigated, the delivery of aid to women and girls will be even more highly dependent on female Afghan aid workers and local women-led civil society organizations (CSOs). Such organizations have traditionally been the key conduits to reaching the most needy and marginalized sectors of society. They are more essential now.

We have offered 10 practical steps that the UN and other international humanitarian actors can take in designing and implementing their humanitarian response.

Help At-Risk Afghans With Your Donation

Posted on by Lauren Mellows

We are a coalition of NGOs, academics, activists, women’s rights defenders, journalists, artists, filmmakers and peacebuilders. We are working to get our Afghan colleagues and families, who are under direct threat from the Taliban, to safety. They have worked to bring peace to Afghanistan over the last 20 years, have fought for the rights of all Afghans, and especially women, girls and minority groups in direct opposition to the Taliban. They now come to us for help because nobody came for them.

Why Don’t Afghan Lives Matter? | Opinion – Sanam Naraghi Anderlini (Newsweek)

Posted on by Lauren Mellows

Afghanistan’s country code is +93. My phone lights up—day and night. I cannot bear to answer, knowing I have no answers. I cannot bear to ignore them. “I hope you are not tired,” they say. “Sorry to bother you,” “Thank you for thinking of us,” and “If they find me, they’ll rip me apart, please take my children.” Their graciousness, dignity, apologies for disturbing our lives, to help save theirs, are humbling and haunting.

The Taliban have seized control of Afghanistan. What does that mean for women and girls? (CNN)

Posted on by Lauren Mellows

A female journalist receives a call warning that they “will come soon.” A woman lawmaker sits and waits for her killers. A little girl wonders how much longer her school gates will remain open.

For Afghanistan’s women and girls, this is the terrifying uncertainty they now find themselves in.

As Taliban leaders tell international media they “don’t want women to be victimized,” a more sinister reality is unfolding on the ground.

Talking to Sheena McKenzie at CNN about what the Taliban takeover could mean for women and girls in Afghanistan, ICAN’s founder and CEO, Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, warns: “Once the diplomats leave, the journalists leave, the international NGOs leave, they are going to basically lock the doors… God knows what we’ll see then.”

International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) Statement on Afghanistan

Posted on by Lauren Mellows

We called for the international community to listen to Afghan women peacebuilders.

Our partners risked their own lives to speak at the United Nations, the European Union, the International Criminal Court, in the United States, and elsewhere. They warned of the reality in the Afghan forces, informed the world of needs on the ground, and offered recommendations and practical actions. They repeatedly asked for the chance to negotiate their own fate at the peace tables in Doha and elsewhere. They were never granted such an opportunity. Rather, they were willfully ignored and excluded.

An Open Letter to Friends of Afghanistan and Champions of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda

Posted on by Lauren Mellows

As the future of the Afghan peace process remains uncertain, we must ensure that power sharing based on violence does not become the basis for a political settlement. The inclusion of women must inform the substance of all future talks, as it will give negotiations legitimacy, and increase the chance of peace.

This open letter calls on Friends of Afghanistan and Champions of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda to take concrete action to ensure the systematic presence of the Afghan women peacebuilders in the peace process.

As intra-Afghan peace talks kick off, ICAN launches Better Peace Tool in Farsi

Posted on by Lauren Mellows

With the intra-Afghan talks just kicking off, there is still an opportunity to rectify past oversights. The onus is on the international community to ensure that more peace builders than the few remarkable women on the government delegation are at the peace table. We owe this to the women of Afghanistan who in a recent “Letter to Allies” clearly stated: “We seek accountability in the process: accountability from Afghan leaders but also from leaders like you, who can use your influence to shape a better outcome and help ensure its implementation.” We owe this, as the parties that take little or no responsibility for protecting populations will continue to resist the participation of those who represent the real concerns and experiences of communities enduring violence.

ICAN’s Better Peace Tool is now available in Farsi.

Afghan Women Six Point Agenda for Moscow Peace Talks

Posted on by Lauren Mellows

“We, the women of Afghanistan, believe that our Afghan male allies on the peace negotiation table can work with us to make sure that the peace that we so desperately need can be achieved and sustained.” Read Afghan Women Six Point Agenda for Moscow Peace Talks