Has FiLiA successfully pressured Amnesty International into denying that trans people are persecuted in Afghanistan? It’s complicated. Are Amnesty offensively opposed to women’s rights, as FiLiA argue? Of course not.
Here’s FiLiA’s account of the reasons why it condemns Amnesty. It is a full-on attack: its headline claims Amnesty denies women “justice, freedom, truth and dignity” though Amnesty has a proud record of supporting women’s rights.
It starts by describing FiLiA’s 2021 conference and the protests against it, in a self-righteous manner. The writer agrees with Amnesty about seeking the release of political prisoners; but does not accept Amnesty’s right to disagree with her about other matters. Where Amnesty differs, she says they are captured by postmodernism and ultra-liberal ideas.
She introduces the issue of sex work in the most angry, aggrieved way. Some people, including FiLiA organisers, consider those who use sex workers should be criminalised. Amnesty takes a different view: that the oppression of sex workers can be reduced if sex work is decriminalised, but criminalisation of users would make matters worse.
The writer refers to allegations of “Caligula-style sex parties” in Haiti involving Oxfam workers. Her description is designed to create “abject horror” in her readers, and revulsion for the opposing point of view. There is no suggestion that Amnesty workers use sex workers, but if a reader was caught up in that abject horror, they might miss that nuance. The writer’s later quotation of Amnesty’s condemnation of charity workers using sex workers might make such confusion more likely. Then she gives the pro-sex work argument in a tweet, which appears chosen to continue that abject horror at pro-sex work arguments.
Then she refers to Amnesty’s position on sex work, which she assails in dramatic terms. Someone using a sex worker “may as well be holding a gun to her head”. Amnesty is not simply an organisation with different views on how the oppression and exploitation of women and girls might be mitigated, but (in the view of the writer) making the oppression worse.
Here is Amnesty’s policy to protect sex workers. It is not in favour of “Caligula-style sex parties”.
Then the writer moves on to the case of Tickle v Giggle. Amnesty, and trans women, are delighted with that case. It says that when there is no good reason for excluding trans women from women’s services, we should not be excluded. The writer will not use the simple phrase “trans woman” which we choose for ourselves: she calls Tickle a “trans-identified male”, demeaning Trans. She quotes Amnesty’s celebration, then calls this a “dereliction of duty” which “drown[s] out women’s voices entirely with mindless mantras”. Like the rest of the article, this is extremely emotive language, continuing the “abject horror”. Amnesty is not an organisation with a different view, but “denying women justice, freedom, truth and dignity”. I note Amnesty’s view was only expressed in a tweet: that tweet is the basis of two hundred words of condemnation from FiLiA’s writer.
Then she turns to this article by Amnesty. It is a history of women’s rights in Afghanistan. Amnesty has demanded that the UK Government take action to safeguard women’s rights, and give them safe routes to seek asylum in the UK. I would have hoped that FiLiA would have supported these aims.
Instead, the writer takes issue with one phrase in the article, and uses that phrase to attack Amnesty. That phrase was last visible on 27 August on the Amnesty website, recorded in the Wayback Machine. Previously, the Amnesty article said that from 1996-2001 women and girls were “discriminated against in many ways, for the ‘crime’ of identifying as a girl.” That would include trans girls: trans girls were persecuted too, forced into male roles. Now, Amnesty’s article says Afghans were discriminated against “just for being women and girls”. I don’t find that objectionable. Trans girls are girls. But the Amnesty article no longer explicitly mentions trans.
The writer says that there was “a tsunami of distress and fury”, a “cry” of “thousands of women” that being female is not just a matter of identity. That’s arguable. Most women just accept that they are women. In the same way, right-handed people only have to notice they are right-handed when they come across someone left-handed.
The writer says that including trans people was “offensive”, and that a “clear analysis” of women’s oppression depends on the idea that the class of “women” is clear, and does not include trans women. Perversely, FiLiA shares that idea with the Taliban, which also does not recognise the reality of trans. For both groups, they get to classify who is a woman, and they include trans men but not trans women.
She concludes her article with the words “Women’s rights are human rights”. Amnesty agrees, and so do I, but she implies they do not, because they support trans people and have a different idea about how to mitigate the harms of sex work.
I am a little disappointed that Amnesty removed the reference to trans. Trans people are also persecuted under the Taliban. But it does not mean that they have ceased to support trans people, because they still celebrate Tickle v Giggle.
Amnesty is still an organisation fighting for human rights- to mitigate the oppression of sex workers, to liberate women in Afghanistan, to support trans people, and to free political prisoners. That is not the impression you would get from FiLiA: Amnesty’s disagreement on certain points means they are “in opposition to women”, and utterly condemned.















