Wazhma Frogh is a Woman in Peacebuilding practitioner from Afghanistan with over 20 years of community engagement and local peacebuilding interventions. Based in Canada, Wazhma continues to provide strategic leadership to Women & Peace Studies Organization (WPSO -Afghanistan) working with over 200 women activists in the country as part of the organization she founded to integrate women into national and local peace processes since 2012. WPSO implements local community-based peacebuilding and other community development initiatives in Afghanistan led by women working with the Local Women Peacebuilders Network across the country.
Since 2012, Wazhma worked with country’s High Peace Council to mediate the peace negotiations with the Taleban, and the President appointed her on the Council in 2017. She along with other key mediators initiated the first National Dialogue in Afghanistan that contributed towards the historical three-day ceasefire by the Taleban. disputes around water, land and other resources between communities.
The 2017 Women Peacebuilding Fellow at the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice, Wazhma collaborated on a localization initiative to institutionalize women’s perspectives around UNSCR 1325 & WPS agenda with local women groups and international partners, at the University of San Diego in California. She has been extensively trained in dialogue and mediation at the Uppsala Department of Peace and Conflict in Sweden, Folke Bennoditte Academy of Women Peacebuilders & Mediators, practiced along with the peacebuilders and mediators from Philippines and Cambodia in Seam Reap, Cambodia and later in Nepal. Her focus has been on women’s engagement in mediation and peace making at the Women & Public Policy at the School of government at Harvard University. As a member of the Women Waging Peace Network and Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership, she engages with global mediation practices along with other women peace builders.
Wazhma has worked extensively with women organizations and networks on legislative advocacy including the Elimination of Violence against Women Law, prevention of sexual harassment at workplace in security agencies and led several national and international campaigns supporting women’s voices from Afghanistan. She has focused some of her field work on Traditional Dispute Resolution Mechanisms along with Human Rights Watch and documentation of the local conflicts in Afghanistan that provided the context & foundation for the government’s first Traditional Dispute Resolution Mechanisms Law. Wazhma has written extensively on Afghanistan peace and negotiations challenges and dynamics. From 2016-2018, She was elected co-chair of the Women, Peace and Security Working Group for the implementation of the National Action Plan on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325, a joint platform of UNWOMEN, international community & Afghan government for 2 consecutive terms. She participated in Afghanistan-Pakistan track 1 and 2 dialogues as part of the Afghanistan Peace process.
Wazhma is a postgraduate of International Law from the University of Warwick in England and the American University of Afghanistan.
RELATED LINKS:
→ Opinion: Locked out of classrooms, Afghan girls are taking drastic measures
→ Women and the Afghan Peace Process: A Conversation with Wazhma Frogh
→ Millions of Lives Will Depend on How Afghanistan’s New Interim Government Chooses to Govern, Special Representative Tells Security Council
→ Canada needs to step up for the women and girls of Afghanistan
→ Security Council, Seventy-sixth year, 8853rd meeting, Thursday, 9 September 2021