"The Afghan people are happy with women's participation in the country's political life and strongly supports their presence in the executive and legislative branches. The Government will do their utmost to ensure women's rights. Women are working as governors and ambassadors."

President Karzai, Kabul, 17 December 2006

The situation regarding women's rights has greatly improved since the fall of the Taleban, although there is still much to be done.

Women in Afghanistan make up 48.8% of the population. Enforcing constitutional laws guaranteeing equal rights for women benefits both the women and children of Afghanistan. Together they make up the majority of Afghan citizens.  We actively supports women's rights in Afghanistan in three main ways: through policy engagement with the Afghan government; through support for national programmes and services, which benefit women; and through bilateral programmes. This support has yielded some major achievements.

• 27% of Afghan MPs are women compared to 19.5% of MPs in the UK
• women represented 43% of the voters in Afghanistan's Parliamentary elections that were held in September 2005, the first in 36 years
• 75% of women in Afghanistan feel they are better off today than in 2002 (under the Taleban), a view that is equally widespread among the women across the country
• over 100,000 women benefitted from micro-finance loans to set up their own business
• making sure that women have proper access to education is critical for empowering women. It is excellent to see that over a third of the 5.4 million children in school are now girls
• in an opinion poll carried out for the BBC in October and November 2007 in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan, 86% of those surveyed strongly supported women voting, only 12% opposed women holding jobs outside the home and 89% supported girls education
• the FCO has also provided financial support for the advancement of women in Afghanistan. This has included a donation of US$1 million to support the Afghanistan Independent Human Right's Commission to support its Three Year Action Plan for 2006-2008. A large part of the Commission's vital work focusses on promoting women's rights
• the FCO has committed over £35 million to support the Afghan government's micro-finance programme, giving women in particular better access to finance
• we are also giving £500,000 to support a five year Women's Empowerment programme (2005-2010) implemented by the NGO Womankind
• in addition we have funded the NGO Global Rights to produce a detailed report on domestic abuse in Afghanistan, due to be published shortly.

May 2008