This commentary is by Patricia Whalen of Westminster, a former international judge in the War Crimes Chamber in Sarajevo. From 2004 to 2014, she was project director of the Vermont Afghan Women Judges Judicial Education Project. She’s now an adviser to the War Crimes Research Office in Washington, D.C., and to The Center for Peacebuilding in Sanski Most, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is a member of the International Association of Women Judges and the Vermont Bar Association.Â
I have seen my husband cry three times. The first when his mother died, the second when he was told he was cancer-free and the third when I found him one May morning looking out our kitchen window.
He was watching Hamida, a judge from Kabul, Afghanistan. She had arrived at our Vermont home the night before in the dark, after her first-ever plane ride. Now, in the early light, she was outside in our garden, dancing. Her face was turned to the sky, her headscarf wrapped around her arms, flowing like a banner.
I realized she, too, was crying — tears of joy, I assumed from the exhilaration of personal freedom. Later, through the interpreter, I found out she was crying at the sheer beauty of the color green.
In 2004, along with three other women (and hundreds of volunteers throughout the state), I hosted a judicial education program for women judges in Afghanistan. At that time, they numbered fewer than 100. By the time the project ended in 2014, we had brought almost half of them to our state.
The aim of the project was to further develop their leadership and judicial skills. Already natural leaders, forced to stay home when the Taliban took over in 1996, they organized illegal schools for girls behind walls that offered no protection. The price for being caught was death. Brave beyond words, they inspired us to live more courageously.
Each group spent two weeks in Vermont before a week in Washington, D.C. This last week was hosted by our sister organization, the International Association of Women Judges, which sponsored both programs.
In Vermont, the women observed our judiciary and witnessed fair trials. We held nightly dinners with teachers, politicians, doctors, dentists, artists, poets, religious leaders, gardeners — the vast array of Vermont women living lives of interest and purpose. They watched male partners cook, care for children, and treat women with respect. They met same-sex couples with children who patiently answered their many questions. We learned to appreciate everything we had.
I learned what a privilege it was to work within a rule of law that I respected and respected me.
We discussed how both of our systems needed reform, better access to justice for citizens, comprehensive laws to protect human rights and stronger laws to prevent violence. But there was a difference: I could work in a system that was secure. I have never been afraid to go to work or feared for my life once I was there. For them, every daily act is one of courage.
When the Biden administration announced the troop withdrawal, I, like many, met the news with an array of mixed emotions. I am a product of the Vietnam era and understand the futility of war and conflict where roots of the conflict and goals are muddied. I work internationally and am all too familiar with both the gifts and failures of American foreign policy.
Progress had been made in Afghanistan. I was able to visit there in 2007. I spoke at a number of girls’ high schools and listened to their dreams about access to education and their hopes to live lives free from violence. At the time I felt their dreams could come true — but no more.
Last week I spoke with two judges who visited Vermont. They are terrified that the withdrawal of American forces is a death sentence for them. They have experienced the vast waste of international money and resources that poured through corrupt hands and did little for ordinary Afghans. They mourn the death of soldiers who bravely gave their lives for them.
Nonetheless, they are not asking that we stay. What they want are enforceable provisions in any negotiated peace agreement to include their right to work, assemble, and to be secure in their homes and communities. We talked about their increasing need for security for women and girls. They asked that we do not forget them.
Hours after we talked, the high school in Kabul was bombed. Over 83 high school girls were killed and hundreds more injured. Each day the death toll increases.
A father was quoted as saying the flow of education cannot be stopped — like the phoenix, it will rise from the blood and ashes. I can only hope that is true, but it will be true only if we continue to press for security measures for the women and girls in Afghanistan. We know if women are not a respected and integral part of government and its institutions, there is no hope for peace. We also know, as do they, that the Taliban has not changed.
One judge told me her car was damaged by a roadside bomb. In January, two of her sister judges were assassinated outside their courthouse. One of those killed was Judge Zakia, who came here in 2009. Yet each morning, women judges rise and find their way to their courtrooms out of profound love for the rule of law and the future of their country. We must not abandon them.