Afghan law to protect women weakly enforced: UN

Canadian activist furious

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The United Nations says authorities in Afghanistan have registered more reports of violence against women in the past year, but prosecutions and convictions under the law remained low. The Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women was enacted in 2009 and criminalizes violence against women as well as harmful practices like child marriage, forced marriage, forced self-immolation, and giving away of a woman or girl to settle a dispute. But police still prefer to use mediation rather than apply the law and the UN says that fails to protect them from further violence.

“How dare you speak in the name of God”

“The barriers (to enforcing the law) are the minds of the men who see women as second class,” says Sally Armstrong, a Canadian journalist, author and long-time campaigner for the rights of women in Afghanistan. “What I would like to know from people like (Afghan President Hamid) Karzai is ‘How dare you speak in the name of God when you condemn a woman to violence in her own home?  How dare you claim that the men of Afghanistan feel it is appropriate for a nine year old child to be married off to a 50 year old man, who are forced to have sex to, heaven forbid, at the age of ten or 11, become a mother and perhaps die in child birth.’

“Who are these men who are speaking on behalf of the Afghan people with such misogynist, totally uncivilized rules that the rest of the world is against?”

Law’s mplementation “slow and uneven”

Describing the law as a “landmark” and a “huge achievement for all Afghans, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said implementation was slow and uneven and that police are still reluctant to enforce the prohibition against violence and harmful practices. She added that the courts are slow to enforce the legal protections enshrined in the law. Some of this is a result of existing social norms and cultural practices as well as a fear of reprisals and threat to life.

“Since when …(do we) look the other way?”

This infuriates Sally Armstrong. “What is happening to the women of Afghanistan today, yesterday, and heaven forbid according to Mr. Karzai, tomorrow is not cultural it’s criminal. And since when do we turn our eyes and look the other way in the face of such criminal behaviour?”

The women of Afghanistan, particularly young women and the men who support them give Armstrong hope and optimism that the situation will improve. She is “dazzled” by female legislators who have done tremendous research to prove that tribal laws are, in fact, illegal and by those who march to protest violence against women. But she says the international community needs to help too.

“Violence is everybody’s business”

“I think the international community has to stop being so polite when somebody in Afghanistan says it’s none of your business. It is our business. Violence is everybody’s business. To say it’s none of your business is an oxymoron. You (Afghanistan) want the help, you want the donations, you want the humanitarian aid, then get with the program.

80 per cent of women “beaten brutally”

“You don’t see 80 per cent of the men in Afghanistan being beaten by their wives. How come it seems to be okay with President Karzai that 80 per cent of the women in that country are beaten brutally by their husbands. How can that be? And we look the other way? I think it’s time we start talking and making some accusations.”