{"id":453,"date":"2016-12-16T02:17:36","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T02:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/?p=453"},"modified":"2016-12-16T02:17:36","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T02:17:36","slug":"afghanistans-efforts-to-welcome-women-in-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/2016\/12\/16\/afghanistans-efforts-to-welcome-women-in-military\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan’s efforts to welcome women in military"},"content":{"rendered":"

KABUL: Captain Safia Ferozi, who was a refugee since childhood, is now flying a transport aircraft for\u00a0Afghanistan<\/a>\u00a0air force. She is country’s second female pilot.This is a sign of the efforts being made by Afghanistan government to bring more women into the armed forces.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old Ferozi is married to another pilot, who works in the same unit supporting army ground forces. They are part of a small Afghan air force that is trying to take a greater role in fighting against the\u00a0Taliban<\/a>\u00a0insurgency.<\/p>\n

“When I wear military uniform, I really, really feel proud of myself as a woman,” Ferozi said while preparing for a flight at the air force base in the capital, Kabul. She flies a C-208, a turboprop plane which is used for transport of the armed forces.<\/p>\n

Nearly 16 years since the collapse of the militant Taliban regime after the US-led invasion in 2001, Afghan women have been taking steps to increase their presence in the society, parliament, government and the military. Although they continue to face resistance in a deeply conservative society where women are largely expected to stay at home and where the violence against women remains a widespread problem.<\/p>\n

Farozi’s family fled from their home in Kabul in the 1990s, during the civil war among Afghanistan’s warlords. They took refuge in Pakistan, returned after the fall of the Taliban.<\/p>\n

In high school, post-Taliban Afghanistan, Farozi saw a TV commercial urging women to join the military. So after graduation she enrolled in the military academy to become a communication officer. In the academy, it was announced that the air force was looking for women to become pilots.<\/p>\n

Farozi and 12 other women applied, and she was the only one who passed the tests for the training. Finally she graduated in 2015.<\/p>\n

While she was training at an airfield in the western province of Herat, when she first time met Captain Mohammad Jawad Najafi, the pilot who is now also her husband. They married nearly two years ago, and he has since backed her ambitions.<\/p>\n

She has a daughter of nearly 8 months old and her name is Nergis.<\/p>\n

Ferozi is one of only two female pilots in the Afghan air force, but there are five other women who are currently undergoing training.<\/p>\n

In 2013, Captain Niloofar Rahmani became afghan’s first woman pilot in more than 30 years and also the first to pilot fixed-wing aircraft. Earlier in 1980s, during Soviet-backed rule there were a few female helicopter pilots. Captain Niloofer is now in the\u00a0United States<\/a>\u00a0training on the C-130 military transport craft.<\/p>\n

Ferozi says she hopes to inspire other women.”As a woman you face many challenges, but you have to deal somehow with all those problems,” she said.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

There are around 1,800 women serving in Afghanistan 195,000-member military, said General Mohammad Radmanish, deputy Defense Ministry spokesman. The military, which is heavily backed by the U.S. and\u00a0NATO<\/a>, is working to bring the number up to 10 percent of its ranks over the next seven years, he said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It is only Saudi driven Wahabism which is the root cause of all ills in the Islamic society.<\/span>R K Sharma,<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Afghanistan’s small air force which has over 100 aircraft received little attention for years, but in 2015 NATO and the U.S. began to focus on building it up with increased training and equipment. The force has attack helicopters and light attack planes that have been flying combat missions this year, though it is NATO militaries that carry out the majority of strikes in the fight against insurgents.<\/p>\n

The other major role for the air force is in emergency humanitarian missions, helping those hit by flood, avalanches, landslides or other calamities.<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KABUL: Captain Safia Ferozi, who was a refugee since childhood, is now flying a transport aircraft for\u00a0Afghanistan\u00a0air force. She is country’s second female pilot.This is a sign of the efforts being made by Afghanistan government to bring more women into the armed forces. The 26-year-old Ferozi is married to another pilot, who works in the same unit supporting army ground… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":454,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions\/454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}