A concerted effort to improve gender issues in Afghanistan

In an effort to change and improve gender issues, former Afghanistan refugees, are going through a workshop where misconceptions and prejudices about the opposite sex can be discussed.

"There are four types of women," says the elderly man, stroking his beard as though for dramatic effect: "The polite, the dog, the donkey and the cat."

The polite is straightforward, he explained, she is a woman who is obedient and respectful of her father-in-law. The other descriptions are less complimentary. They range from argumentative, to lazy, to a woman who is a gossip.

Society for Health and Education (SHE) is being funded by the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to run the gender awareness workshops. Where Islamic men and women are separated into gender groups to discuss such issues as women being used to settle conflicts between families by the daughter being given to the wronged male or families exacting high prices for their daughters'; which, creates debt for the family who pays the high price to where they too must exact a high price for any daughter that they may have.