inside. it was -- imagine, it was such a tense situation for all of us. our life was at risk, but what women did, we decided that we are going to continue to stay in the jerga because it was for three three days. we took the risk and we didn't know what was going to happen next, the second day, the third day and we had to actually face the challenge of actually fighting with our families. >> i was going say -- >> because my mother was telling me, don't go, you are going to kill yourself. don't go, but i think peace is so important for all of us, but we are contributing in afghanistan. we are already working very hard and, yes, we are risking our lives and we are proud of what we are doing. thank you very much. >> and you've also been able to get women into these major conferences, too. >> right. >> is it hard for them when they go back home from these

conferences? are families proud or is there some retribution? do they get criticized when they go back? >> at first from family to family in afghanistan because culturally i always use the word diverse -- we are so much diverse. the way i live in kabul, a woman do not live in the parwa province, which is an hour. it differs from family to family. >> so have any of you -- >> just also imagining her age and the environment and being so confident and ready to face the danger, and i'm just looking at that and it comes from her soul, so forceful and very strong. >> they get used to you. like, for example, when we were arrested i told my mother in the morning that what owe're going o

do we're going to the court, she saw it in al jazeera that two women were arrested. she said i knew you were going to be one of them. >> you were a freedom fighter, right? >> yes, i was. i was. it was not easy. >> tell us about that. >> i don't know if the audience think i look like a freedom fighter? >> do i look like a general? >> that's right. do you look like a general? right. >> yes, i think it's good for flashback, but i would like to -- the partisan just moving from war to peace and looking at dangers and security and protection, and you are aware,

of course, and you're reading that it is in 1983 and i got married in 1986, and i'm sure if i ask a couple here you will talk about your honeymoon in paris or any of these parts of the world, but rebecca's story is to have her honeymoon in the bush. >> you don't have to pay. >> so it was not easy. it was not easy. the life of bush is not an easy one. it's not the nearby bush that you would talk about. it's real forest where there are animals and you have to look for a place where you can be secure to carry on with your work. so here it is, in the bush, it's real bush. it's real forest. it's difficult. you know, you have nowhere to sleep, but to find yourself a

place to sleep. >> where did you sleep? >> you know, you have to use your mind and it's good when you're out of a town or a city you can even use your brain better. twigs and plants and sometimes you can cut the trees and it would be what you imagine to be a bed and if you can get some grass around and stuff it and make a very good bed. it's your choice what you like. what makes you comfortable providing that it will be pinching you throughout the night if you have to sleep. also, was there a time that there were air drops for food to reach some of the people that were displaced and that's where you would be able to use the boxes that are used for air dropping food. you take these boxes and you make a makeshift a bed. you would imagine it psychologically and you would make a bed. it was not easy. it was tough. there was a lot of danger. it was a war situation.

also, don't forget how we were relying on the communities because you don't have any supply of food. you have to look for food to eat apart from picking what is there, what type of animals you can get to eat and we have tried and you know how it's good to try it, any type of animal, any type of tree, any type of leaves. if it doesn't kill you, then it is food. also, you know, but you also relied on the communities and the communities around where you are in villages and they have their eggs, they have their chicken and these are the things we were relying on. more painful the situation of war, danger, fear and if you're a freedom fighter, you can also get killed and that is not easy. the most important thing is how you translate from a war situation from difficulties into moving and that's why i'm talking about the comparison.

it was time for us, the women, to walk for peace and to advocate for peace and you can have awareness and the women, and i think the beautiful part that i wanted to compare with the war background is how we created awareness with the women, and with the communities for men to vote, to go into a referendum and vote for peace, for a peaceful south sudan. that is, again, it's giving back. it's giving hope. it's moving from fear into opportunity of stability and of peace and it's these women that we manage to create awareness with, to move into the process of refer eendum so that they vo for their destiny, and we work on slogans and messages that were very, very effective.

some of them, like, you know, your destiny is in your hand. your vote counts. you know? i had a t-shirt, and i wish i could bring it to show you these kind of slogans we used and it was very, very effective, encouraging women to vote for their destiny. the most important again, which is my last point is to give back. the same women, the same communities that were helping us and feeding us during the war are the same communities we ran back to in these villages. these huts which mud made, plastered with mud, grass hutch and a difficult situation, but the most important bit in the advent of peace and stability, so you know, what we say is the same eggs we were eating from, it's time now to give them

peace. the chicken we're eating from them, it was time to give them stability. the same goats we were eating from them, it was time to give them independence and give them recognition and give them that hope that they wanted to see. i'm happy to share this with you. >> wow. w wow. that's fabulous. that's fabulous. >> i'm a freedom fighter now. it reminds me the scenes that i saw pictures of. we worked together for a couple of years and you've shown me at times pictures of you in the villages as well, and i think about you as the professor and researcher and in the village. do you have a scene from that?

of course, we work in the areas that are hard hit by extremism and they're conflict affected. we work from the community level and we addressed it at that level and working with the community, we came across some others who just thought that they should join the -- they should join us. those were the mothers of extremists and when talking to these mothers we just told them that you have to -- your child is in the hideout or your child is with extremists and first of all, they did not trust us. can they trust us or not? and i think we willed that trust with those mothers and they

started coming to us and they said yes, we definitely would like our boy to survive. we want them alive. one of the mothers that is courageous enough to take the initiative of calling me and seeing that my son has come back from the hide out and i don't know when he will leave the house. it was 9:00 at night. i live in islamabad and the mother was calling me from suwa which is four hours' drive from islamabad and i said it's really dangerous right now because at that time the military operation had just rose over and i said definitely, i'll be there with you and i'll be having my breakfast with you around 8:30 in the morning. and she had to keep her son

until 8:30. this is really -- so when i reached there i entered her house and i sat with the four sisters, the boy and the mother on the floor of the kitchen. it was like a muddy house, and i sat with them on the floor. a cup of tea along with the bed that was in front of us, and i was just talking to this boy. the boy was, like, shocked the mother did not enter that there was this modern lady from islamabad and whenever we go to the villages and whenever i'm meeting these boys for the first time we hide our face like this and this is the way that we feel we are secure. so i was, like, you know, in this situation and i sat with

him on the floor and started talking and he was very shy. one thing that i could notice in his eyes that was very strange. there was so much sadness and there was, the eyes were really blank and you could just see through them, and then i started discussing with him why did you join these people? he was just looking at me like this, initially it was very blank and then i said where are you asking me this question. when were you when they were going to hell and where were you when we had no food to eat and you know the food that i can offer you now i could not even provide this to my family. he said oh, you've got the money for this. of course, we get the money for it, but that's not the only

reasons that these boys join these forces. the story is very long, but definitely i convinced the boy, and i just discussed it with the mother, and i feel unless and until the mothers are supported the boys and of course, the boy especially those with extremests for they're not going to any to a woman like me. so the mother had a trust in me and she transmitted that trust, of course. we tried to transmit the trust through the mother to the boy and the boy, he said that he agreed that he definitely wanted to go back to the normal life. this was the beginning of the deradicalization process that we wanted to initiate in those areas that that was the first boy. we tried to help him.

we tried to bring him out from that situation, tried to transform his attitude towards life as well as the way they were being convinced and the forces had been misinterpreted to transform them into jihadists and society attackers because nowhere in the koran does it is a you can go for suicide attack. it is forbidden in islam. it can take place in insurgent situations, but when you ask these boys, what is jihad? killing of the infidel. and who is the infidel? pakistan, security forces are n infidels. but why? because they are siding with those who want to harm us. it takes time to convince these

people that this is not the real islam. islam means peace, and it takes months and sometimes like, you know, sometimes weeks and sometimes months to convince and to transform the mindset and particularly those who are going through a lot. so we were able to transform not only this boy, but this was just the beginning and of course, we now have placed them very well in the society. the most difficult and challenging part for us even today is to the acceptance of the community. the re-integration of these boys back in their own communities and we had to build a better trust with the communities to be accepted and thank god, we have been able to bring back 79 boys

and we've placed them and they're working in different places earning a decent lively hood for themselves and are really productivity is zen, and have become very productivity is zens. >> that is powerful. >> it is amazing because it gives hope that there is a possibility to make the process reversible. >> yea. >> it is inspiring because you know, from the other side you always deal with the radicalization and extremism and how to cope. maybe part of coping is preventing and doing things like you have done and others. this is really acting like an angel, doing -- because it is -- it gives us hope that there is

w ways to change things, not only by force which is very important. >> and i think prevention is better than fear. >> so i think before everything, i think we need to prevent it from happening again. >> well, i know that the huge efforts among the women that are here because you represent only half the women who are here for this week-long meeting that we have, and several are working on the schools and the peace, education, et cetera. so there are so many ways that women are working. i want to open this up to questions, but first i want to introduce to us all john yama of the christian science monitor. the monitor is so well known, i don't have to tell you much about it in terms of the stand not just in international news and human rights and i

appreciate particularly, john, after the nobel prize, the fact that you were willing to give that coverage that was so explosive and so powerful to that, and i think through the years. you may have been the first person, the first reporter who interviewed us when we started or maybe when i came here to the public policy program. do you -- would you leak to go to the mike and do the first question and others who would like to join, but, please, i would love to actually hear -- you've been sitting there like a reporter with your pad and your pen. do you have any reflections on what you just heard? >> i can't think without a pen. thank you very much, ambassador. i just wanted to recognize tina war who won the u.n. correspondents association gold medal for a wonderful article she did for the monitor, an in-depth article she did on peace building. so i know you knew elizabeth and

gina is very much in elizabeth's shoes, and that kind of a reporter. >> thank you. thank you. gina, welcome, welcome. john, would you turn the mike toward your -- yes. towards you? there you go. >> i just wanted to pick up on the point about, as rebecca said you've got to make peace and you've got to build peace and it doesn't take that much to have that cycle of violence returned, right? something can break it very quickly and you've identified radicalization and the attempt to deradicalize young people, but i wonder if the general can tell us about that, too, is there anything you've ever hit upon that help s s to de-glamoue war in the minds of young men because we know that that's

something that we were attracted to and have you had any thoughts about that? >> anyone who would like to address that. >> i need some clarification for what you have been asking. >> it just seems to me that the whole idea of peace building is complex, it's slow. you've described a kind of a knitting together of societies, but there is an attraction, it does seem, especially among young men to violence and war, and it doesn't take much attraction to simply ruin all of the work that is being done very slowly. in watching people come through

a penal system, is there anything that happens in which you can see their thought changing so they can support the building society rather than doing the glamorous or romantic thing in their lives? >> i think it begins and ends in education. and if we have failed in that point and in that situation, that when they are in facilities or in community treatment and there is a need to try and find alternatives. even, you know, in prison or the juvenile prisons and only one. >> you give them alternatives like even playing soccer or doing a lot of activities that will enable them first to help

get aggression and frustration and to give them new skills and abilities and how to deal with tension. how to work to channel iize a different way of art, theater and anything that will be a replacement for the need to come. sometimes they just want to be shown, to be influential and sometimes it goes and it succeeds, sometimes not, but never -- and i think violence is culture and as well as -- for

example, and they are very much concerned about -- and this culture and included in the curricul curriculum. and it's the be objective and environment in every country. where people suffer from injustices and therefore they will tell, and we wanted her independence and we were subjected to oppressive regimes in islamiyah and islamic laws and all of this, and there was no way for people to pick up and if it doesn't walk with a dial-up, we're going to tell you, it is also strong and that's why i'm saying it was with the cost, but again, it is

not good. tell them i want to move into -- entrepreneur indiscernible ] . i think when it comes to the young steshgs i think that's where it is. people need democracies, if i can use that word in the general term, you need to be given your space. you need your rights, you open as them and i have an opportunity. and she mentioned the issue of education and if i go back a little bit if you allow me on the culture in south sudan, for example. i mean, you have a cultural way of peace making and peacekeep g peacekeeping, but because we were subjected to defending ourselves and then you find the youngster youngsters and the culture of

violence and being angry at reacting and now what we are doing with the building is to ensure that the peace culture is there and it is consolidated in such a way that their mind thinks of peace and the stability and of development more than resorting for war, and it works now in the ministry of general education and we want to include that in the curriculum so that this education is part of the curriculum so that you move out of the thinking of joining and they're working for peace. and i agree with my colleagues and you keep walking it with it and let them sing it and let them think about it ask let them follow a non-violent approach. we need that for the generation to come. >> i'm struck by this

conversation down the road and here we have a spectacular woman leader from susan and then from south sudan and you all were at war -- i mean, your countries were at war for so many decades and so many deaths and it came back with the peace agreement with the referendum many years later and a succession and the struggle between these two peoples and here you are, you're like sisters. i want to personally applaud you and say that the strength of your coalition is an example for the whole world. [ applause ] >> yes. we have a question here and a question there. please identify yourself. >> my name is arya and i'm a student at the mpa two-year program here at harvard kennedy

school. i just wanted to thank everybody for sharing a glimpse of your amazing experiences. it's inspirational. my question is for miss amir hamidi from afghanistan. you told us about the experience of being at the jerga and the rockets hitting, and i was wondering how as an afghan woman i'm concerned about how the peace process is going to affect my fate and the fate of my daughter if i have any in the future because something that i'm seeing is that the peace process may involve a couple of compromises, one of which might be with regard to women's issues and women's rights in afghanistan and we hear again and again, that yes, the constitution would be followed and with so much insensitivity with regard to the peace deal and the afghan government is not even in the picture and how you as a woman who has been in the middle of all of this with leading a network of women with

women organizations and 5,000 personnel which i use across the country, what is your understanding and analysis of this peace deal and how hopeful i should be as a woman. >> very interesting question. at the same time, very difficult, very technical, very challenging, yes. thank you. i was looking for the word. the peace process hasn't stopped. the peace process is something that has come and we recommended that they wanted to come for the peace process and in november 2011, again, we say how the peace process should go. y yes, there is a change in the

policy of our government. every day something is happening, but i don't think afghan women rights should be sacrificed because weir not the women of 2001. this is what i have been saying and it comes from. we just took place on december 2011. >> and you have -- >> we have our green scarves and we were actually meeting a number of policymakers, foreign ministers, delegations and telling them that we want to be part of the development of our country. we want to see a transition in afghanistan where we will be making mistakes for sure, but we will learn from our mistakes. so