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"Small Person, Big Principles"
By judithfetterley on 2008-12-04 18:08:10
Last month I had the privilege of meeting an extraordinary human being, a lifelong fighter for justice for women, a woman
who describes herself as "a small person but with big principles," and I would add a big heart. Fahima Vorgetts grew up in
Afghanistan, and from an early age became involved in the struggle to include women in the political process of her
country. She remembers when, in the early 60's, the first women ran for election to the Afghan equivalent of our congress
and how she carried the posters announcing their candidacy. Later she became deeply involved in promoting educational
programs for women. Fahima left Afghanistan in 1979. Since then, she has become an American citizen. But she has never
wavered in her commitment to improving the lives of women in Afghanistan. "Afghanistan haunts me," she says. "It is my
country and my heart breaks for my sisters who undergo daily oppression and hardship there. My passion and my life's
work is to reclaim and rebuild the country so that women can be free and equal and can live a life of dignity, literacy and
financial stability." She is a supporter of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Aghanistan (RAWA); she directs
the Afghan Women's Fund and is on the board of Women for Afghan Women (www.womenforafghanwomen.org); and she is
the co founder of the Humanitarian Organization for Orphans and Widows of Afghanistan. Fahima now travels frequently to
Afghanistan. She has built schools for girls and opened literacy classes for women; she has created income-generating
projects for widows to help them become self sufficient; she has arranged for the shipment of medical supplies to hospitals
and distributed warm clothing, blankets and school supplies to those who need them; she has supported a range of
community development projects from wells to health clinics. She has raised over one million dollars, and equally
important, has established a network of women and men in Afghanistan who can be counted on to actually use the money
she raises for the projects the money was raised for. Fahima's courage, commitment, and compassion truly inspired me.
While the Bush administration claimed that liberating women was part of its mission in invading Afghanistan, it is clear that
our presence there has not changed the structure of power very much. Among the most moving accounts Fahima gave were
those of the women who seek to commit suicide by burning themselves with cooking oil, one of the few "weapons"
available to them. Many of them seek to kill their daughters as well. Those who survive this desperate attempt at escape are
considered to have dishonored their families and are cast out. One of this "small person's" many big-hearted acts is raising
money to pay for doctors to attend to these women and to buy medical supplies for them. Fahima says that nowhere in the
world is the situation of women more dire than in Afghanistan, and while we know that there are many areas of the world
where women's lives are not valued, her first hand accounts of what is happening in Afghanistan give her claim the ring of
truth. One commitment I made to Fahima, in return for her commitment to Afghan women, was to do everything in my
power to get the U.S. government to ensure that a political settlement to the situation in Afghanistan is based on a
commitment to grant fundamental human rights to women. NO PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE FOR WOMEN!
