Human right groups set talk on Afghan women

WATERVILLE – Three leaders from several women’s human rights organizations will discuss the responses to war by Afghan women and international women’s organizations at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26.

Part of Colby’s Women’s Studies Colloquia, the symposium will be held in Room 1 of the F.W. Olin Science Center. It is free of charge and open to the public.

Among the guest speakers is Masuda Sultan. Sultan is a member of Women for Afghan Women, a New York group committed to Afghan women’s rights. A native of Afghanistan, she has made several trips to document the effects of war on the country. Sultan is also co-founder of Young Afghan-World Alliance, which seeks to promote an understanding of the Afghan cultural experience and currently is raising funds for a school in Kandahar.

Zeiba Shorish-Shamley is the founder of the Women’s Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan, an advocacy and research project with a focus on the rights of women and children. She holds a doctoral degree in cultural anthropology from the University of Wisconsin and is writing a book titled “Afghan Identities in Diaspora.” Her poems describing the struggles of Afghan women and children have been published in various magazines and newspapers around the world.

Vivian Stromberg is the executive director of MADRE, an international women’s human rights organization. Since 1983, MADRE has worked in partnership with community-based women’s organizations in conflict areas worldwide to address issues of health, education, economic development and other human rights.