KABUL - The 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence is an international campaign that runs from 25 November, International Day of Elimination of Violence against Women, through 10 December, International Human Rights Day.

This year’s theme is “From Peace in the Home to Peace in the World” highlighting the key roles women play in the family and as peacemakers and peacekeepers in war zones. In Afghanistan, support for women’s issues is one of the five priorities of the United Nations agencies and programmes.

Today’s story is authored by UNAMA.

“From a very early age, I wanted to become a filmmaker so that I reflect the realities of my society,” said Alka Sadaat, one of seven Afghan female directors at the First Autumn Film Festival organized this September in Kabul.

“Women are always shown weak and incapable in Afghan media. I have tried to depict the strength of women by showing a powerful woman of our society in my film, Dar Dehkaday Ki Naqisul Aqalam Menaman, or Half Value Life,” she explained about Maria Bashir, the first woman provincial attorney in Afghanistan.

Another young female filmmaker, Karima Hasanzadah, had directed a short film about a pregnant kuchi or nomad woman who brings a huge pile of thorns on her back while going through intolerable pain and the moment she reaches her tent, gives birth to a baby girl. When her husband learns that new born baby is a girl and not the son he wanted, he leaves both of them for many years. The mother raises her daughter alone, and she becomes a young woman who helps her mother in return.

Both women confronted social challenges when making their films.

“I don’t have any problem in my family but the biggest problem is in our society. Many people don’t like women to work, particularly when they have camera in hand because they have a very bad imagination of filmmaking,” said Karima.

Alka said, “When I go out for shooting a film, people think I work for Americans or for a foreign organization. Few days ago I was shooting near the door of someone, he came out and insulted me and said that I was an infidel.”

The festival, organized by the Afghanistan Cinema Club and BASA Films, with international partners including Movies That Matters and the United Nations, was designed to showcase national filmmakers, and to remind a broader audience that women’s rights - and human rights overall - are an international issue that require a united international effort to support.

Educated women and healthy families are the foundation of a peaceful and progressive Afghanistan.