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Afghan Refugee Women's Experience of Conflict and Disintegration

Afghan women and children make up the majority of refugees who have fled to Iran and Pakistan after 1979 (Collett 1998, 325; Afghan Women's Summit for Democracy 2001). This paper analyzes the experiences of Afghan women refugees in Pakistan in terms of the disintegration of their family, community, and state support structures due to the ongoing war. Privileging the voices and experiences of refugee women, the research on which this paper is based allows Afghan women to be heard as powerful advocates for their own needs, and illuminates their complex survival strategies despite enormous adversity. Over years of civil strife and life in exile, refugee women in Pakistan have watched their old support mechanisms collapse but yet they live to tell their stories of survival. Their narratives deepen our insights into the lives of Afghan refugees today and what can be expected in the years to come if they remain unable to reconstruct their homes, communities, and country. While the situation in Afghanistan is still in transition, refugee women's experiences highlight in particular the importance of specific refugee policy reforms to address the consequences of long-term conflicts on societies. Despite the change of government and the new phase of the war that began in the fall of 2001, which precipitated a fresh flight of Afghans from their homes, the majority of Afghan refugees in Pakistan today remain part of the previous caseload that arrived before September 2001 (Crisp and Stigter 2001a, 3). Refugee women's perspectives, together with those of Afghan women activists outside the camps, must be included to shape refugee and reconstruction policy today.