Women’s Engagement in Afghanistan: Implications for Transnational Security

Abstract:This paper aims to identify the factors that preclude or marginalize women’s participation in transnational security and identify key conditions for the inclusion of women in this realm. Women’s perspectives in conflict and reconstruction are important to bolstering stability and require women’s engagement in the decision-making and policy process. Women’s engagement in Afghanistan will be examined in this paper through four independent variables: access to education, access to political rights, access to justice, and access to social/cultural rights. This paper will outline the policies that have been created by the Afghan government to foster engagement for each of these variables and evaluate how these policies have met with varying degrees of success in implementation. Lastly, the transnational security implications and policy recommendations for women’s engagement will be addressed.