Women in Afghanistan have had a journey in the past generation among the hardest of any group of people on earth. Corey Levine has been a witness to, and participant in, this arc of history. In this presentation, Corey will give a brief overview of her experiences over the past 22 years. She will outline the current context and then identify what went wrong and what went right over 20 years of Western intervention. She will describe the situation on the ground now for females and conclude with how Canadians can support Afghanistan in its current situation. After Corey’s presentation, webinar participants will be invited to pose questions and make comments.
Corey Levine is a human rights and peacebuilding advocate, researcher, and writer with a specialization in gender. She has spent more than 25 years working in conflict areas and has worked with both non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations, including UNHCR and Amnesty International. In March 2002, she travelled to Afghanistan at the behest of CIDA to determine Canada’s peacebuilding support in the aftermath of the fall of the Taliban. This began a 22-year engagement with the country. Corey’s last posting to Afghanistan was from Nov. 2020 to July 2021, where she worked with women parliamentarians. Corey returned briefly to Afghanistan in June 2022 and then spent a month there in November/December. 2023.