WOMEN’S RIGHTS ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 2

Women’s Rights Annotated Bibliography

I chose the topic of women’s rights in Afghanistan. While the issue of abuses of women’s
rights in Afghanistan has long been of major concern among human rights campaigners and
agencies, the impending withdrawal of American troops from the country has created a sense of
urgency around the issue. Before the American invasion of the country, women suffered extreme
violations of their rights under the brutal Taliban regime. The presence of American troops and a
largely secular and democratic government have done a lot to improve women’s rights in the
country. However, the oncoming peace deal between the Taliban and the Americans is likely to
return the Taliban to a position of power which may have serious detrimental effects to women’s
rights. To find scholarly articles on the subject, I visited UMUC library’s Research Guide for
Women’s Studies. I then searched for ‘women’s rights’ and ‘women’s rights in Afghanistan’. Upon
examining articles that have recently been published on the subject, I settled for ‘Engendering
Hope: Women’s (Dis) engagement in Change in Afghanistan’ and ‘Revolution Needed at UN’.
Both of these articles are related to the primary article that I used for my study ‘Afghan Women
Fear Peace with Taliban May Mean War on Them’ because one examines factors that make it
hard for progress on women’s rights in Afghanistan to be achieved and the other looks at the role
of the UN in strengthening the rights of women across the world. With the US preparing to leave
Afghanistan, the United Nations may become the main organization supporting and promoting
women’s rights in Afghanistan. For it to be effective in that role, it needs to have, as the article
recommends, an agency dedicated to protecting women’s rights across the globe.
Annotated Bibliography

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Sehin, O., Coryell, J., & Stewart, T. (2017). Engendering Hope: Women’s (Dis) engagement
in Change in Afghanistan. Adult Learning, 28(3), 91-98.
The paper examines some of the factors that make it hard for Afghanistan’s women to
achieve gender equality or to strongly fight for their rights. According to the author, many
Afghan women have been socialized to believe that they are unworthy of equal treatment with
men. As a result, they believe that whatever human rights abuses that they have been subjected to
is just normal. Such kind of beliefs and perceptions, according to the authors, make it hard for
Afghan women to strongly pursue their rights thus forcing national government and its foreign
allies to adopt a top-down approach.
The article does a good job at explaining in detail some of the factors that have made it
hard for Afghanistan’s women to strongly pursue and achieve gender equality. The main
weakness of the article is its loose adherence to the rules governing sampling. While the authors
attribute this to the country’s security situation which limits the number and diversity of the
interviewees, the sampling problems weaken the conclusions arrived at in the article.
Mitchell, P. (2007). Revolution Needed at the UN. Herizons
The article recommends the creation of a UN agency that deals to with women issues the
way UNICEF deals with children’s issues. In particular, the agency should be tasked with
curbing cases of violence against women. The need for the agency is due to the current
deficiencies in the UN which make it hard for it to effectively fight for the rights of women in
the world.
The article is based on strong logic and makes recommendations that will potentially
improve the situation of women across the world. However, it has many serious weaknesses.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 4
One of them is that its conclusions are not based on any research findings. It also lacks details on
how the new organization will improve rights of women or how it will perform its functions in a
better manner than agencies that fight for the rights of women.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 5

References
Mitchell, P. (2007). Revolution Needed at the UN. Herizons
Sehin, O., Coryell, J., & Stewart, T. (2017). Engendering Hope: Women’s (Dis) engagement in
Change in Afghanistan. Adult Learning, 28(3), 91-98.