Article Source: InterPress Service

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 1 (IPS/TerraViva) While the last several years have seen slight progress for gender equality in Afghanistan, such as wider access to education and political participation, women continue to face significant challenges in achieving social justice and equal rights.

Women now represent one quarter of Afghanistan’s parliament, thanks to constitutional guarantees calling for women’s active political participation. More than two million girls are in school in the country today, though only four percent of girls reach grade 10.

“There are good intentions, but there is still a long way to go,” Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, and formerly the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, told IPS on the first day of the two-week meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women here.

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