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The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan

A protest of RAWA in Peshawar, Pakistan on April 28, 1998

Today marks the 35th anniversary of the assassination of Meena Keshwar Kamal, the founder of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). Meena devoted her life to social activism, giving a voice to the women who had been silenced in Afghanistan and establishing schools and hospitals for refugee women and children. She founded RAWA in 1977, mobilising public support for her cause through organised meetings and protests in both local schools and Kabul University. In 1981 Meena was invited by the French government to represent the Afghan resistance movement at a Socialist Party Congress, where her cause was met with fierce praise. However, the Soviet delegation walked out during her applause, possibly due to their involvement in the Soviet-Afghan war which had begun in 1979.

Meena launched a magazine in 1981 called Payam-e-Zan, where she was able to further project the cause of Afghan women and expose the activities of groups who were undertaking criminal war activities in Afghanistan. Meena campaigned against the Russian forces, whose activities in Afghanistan led to 2 million deaths and millions more being displaced and fleeing as refugees to Pakistan and Iran. This obviously came at an incredible risk to Meena and other members of RAWA, who were constantly in danger of being discovered and persecuted for their campaigns. 

The first issue of Payam-e-Zan contained a poem written by Meena named 'I’ll Never Return', a part of which has been translated as the following: 

"Oh compatriot, Oh brother, I’m not what I was

I’m the woman who has awoken

I’ve found my path and will never return".

Meena was assassinated in Pakistan at the age of 30 only three months later, on February 4, 1987. It is believed that she was murdered by members of KHAD, the Afghan Intelligence Service while the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan. However, others claim that her death was sanctioned by fundamentalist leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who had also led to Meena’s husband being murdered only 3 months earlier. Meena’s bravery and campaigning have left a legacy for Afghan women, who continued the fight through the activities of RAWA. Throughout the 1990s the organisation continued raising funds for secret schools, orphanages and centres to protect women. They persisted despite opposition from the United Islamic Front and the Taliban, who forbade women from earning their own money, getting an education and leaving their houses without a chaperone or wearing a burqa. Opposing Taliban rule could lead to brutal beatings and public executions, yet RAWA persisted with their campaigns in a show of true bravery. They also fiercely condemned the ‘Shia Family Code’ of 2009, which within certain communities in Afghanistan legalised spousal rape and child marriage.

In the words of RAWA, Meena was a woman who “had a strong belief that despite the darkness of illiteracy, ignorance of fundamentalism, and corruption [...] finally that half of population will be awaken and cross the path towards freedom, democracy and women's rights.”


Further Reading

Brodsky, A.E., With All Our Strength: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (Routledge, 2003)

Chavis, M.E., Meena: Heroine of Afghanistan (St. Martin’s Press, 2003)

Khalidi, Noor Ahmad, “Afghanistan: Demographic Consequences of War, 1978-1987,” Central Asian Survey 10, No. 3 (1991): pp. 101-126.

Rawa.org, “Biography of Martyred Meena, RAWA's Founding Leader,” available at <http://www.rawa.org/meena.html> [accessed 4 February 2022]

Schlaffer, E., Veiled Courage: Inside the Afghan Women's Resistance (Broadway Books, 2002)