Afghanistan committee  I think about thirteen or fifteen people. They are mostly women. There are representatives from the Supreme Court, Kabul University, the Ministry of Women's Affairs and the Ministry of Justice. There are also representatives from civil society and from the Faculty of Sharia and I

Afghanistan committee  I have no problem with that.

Afghanistan committee  No, we work closely with them, but we go through government channels. Two of the Afghan government channels we work with are the Ministry of Women's Affairs and the Ministry of Justice. I had the opportunity to meet the religious affairs expert who has been on the job for three m

Afghanistan committee  No, because the legislation is drafted in Dari. I have seen English translations of their work. I don't think it is legislative drafting, even though, if I think back to my experience in government, a bill is drafted by a legislative drafter. That is probably how it is done over

Afghanistan committee  In our experience last year with the marriage contracts, we were led to believe that the process would be exactly the same as the one implemented at that time. It is on that assumption that we based our work. Last year, over the course of about eight months, we provided opinions

Afghanistan committee  No.

Afghanistan committee  Yes. I asked for a retraction with regard to the piece in Le Devoir.

Afghanistan committee  We did not work directly on Ms. Joya's case. We work with female Afghan parliamentarians and help them prepare for debates on issues of interest to them, but we did not work directly on that case.

Afghanistan committee  What we know is that several ministers were not aware that the President had signed the law, the Minister of Foreign Affairs being one of them. As well, the Minister of Women's Affairs did not know the law had been signed. When I met with her, she told me that this came as a com

Afghanistan committee  Yes, I was here.

Afghanistan committee  We work on the ground directly with the people involved in the process. Of course, we cannot control the political aspect of things. We work with civil society groups, and with people from the Ministry of Women's Affairs, the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Court. The draftin

Afghanistan committee  In CIDA's progress report of last October, we indicated that we supported the drafting committee that was working on this bill, but we left it at that, that is, we did not talk about the work being done. We were working on this. It was part of our work plan. That is indeed what h

Afghanistan committee  Good morning to you all. I would like to begin by thanking the chair, Mr. Casson, as well as the other members of this important committee for your attention to the issue of women's rights in Afghanistan and for inviting Rights & Democracy to today's hearing. I would also li