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Since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan,
violence against women has emerged as the single most important
issue for Afghan gender politics.
The Pitfalls of
Protection, based on research conducted in Afghanistan between
2009 and 2015, locates the struggles over gender violence in local
and global power configurations. The author finds that aid flows
and geopolitics have served as both opportunities and obstacles to
feminist politics in Afghanistan. Showing why Afghan activists
often chose to use the leverage of Western powers instead of
entering into either protracted negotiations with powerful national
actors or broad political mobilization, the book examines both the
achievements and the limits of this strategy.