Afghanistan: “Eliminating violence against women” week or the week of supporting violence against women?
3 March 2008. A World to Win News Service. Following are edited excerpts from Nabarde Zan (issue number 5), published by the 8 March group of Afghan women in February 2008.
The puppet regime of Hamid Karzai declared the last week in November the “week of eliminating violence against women” in Afghanistan. From the outset of the occupation, both the occupiers and their puppet regime have broken so many promises made to the masses, especially women. This is merely one more. But let’s see how the government seeks to eliminate violence against women.
As part of a television programme devoted to this issue, the TV station Tolooe interviewed Karima Salak from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. When asked how violence against women could be eliminated, she answered, “The best way to solve this problem is to increase the awareness of men through advertising on the radio, TV and press, holding workshops and seminars, and communicating to them through the mullahs in the mosques, so that men can be informed about their rights and the rights of women and avoid violence against them.”
One of the problems in Afghanistan has been that some women in the government themselves are supporting women’s oppression. They always encourage the people to go along with the feudal concept of the family. For them, the solution lies in correcting the personal behaviour of men while accepting the present values, and not changing behaviour under a just social system.
While Mrs Salak talks about workshops and adverts, the regime’s armed criminals shamelessly rape inmates at the Pole Charkhi prison. And despite the show of the “week of eliminating violence against women”, this scandal could not be hidden or ignored by the regime-dependent press. But the situation is no better and perhaps worse when it comes to shelters, the so-called safe houses for women and girls who have left their husbands or their parents. These shelters have been turned into brothels for government officials. Every government criminal powerful enough to have a car can go to these shelters, choose the woman they want, take her away and then return her after raping her. This is an example of how this puppet regime works for “eliminating violence against women”.
In another television programme in the series related to the “week of eliminating…”, a young woman who had run away from her husband’s family told her story: “ I was seven when I was married to a 90 year-old man. Now I am 17 years old but I cannot live in that house anymore, so I sought help from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs ministry.”
If the Ministry does not send her back to her husband’s family, it will send her to one of its shelters. But does the young woman know what is waiting for her there? Maybe in that case, she would have preferred the hell she had back home!
Today women in Afghanistan are being traded under the name of marriage. They don’t have the right to divorce, and are deprived of the most basic health and hygiene measures. According to figures from the Human Rights Commission, one in nine women, 16 percent in all, die during pregnancy or childbirth, not only because of the lack of doctors and means of transport, but also because many husbands are not prepared to let their wives give birth in hospital.
When a woman is killed by the decision of a local jirga (clan or tribal council), the authorities seldom even question the murderers, and never punish them.
This is how women who seek partnerships based on love rather than arranged or forced marriages are killed by their family or clan. In fact, women are oppressed, raped and even killed in the name of honour. They are killed because of their sexuality, because they are women.
According to a report on 2 November, Hadji Abdulahn, the brother of a famous jihadi in Herat called Nour Ahmad Khar Nowal, shot his wife. Nothing was revealed about this murder case. Not even a clan or local jirga was convened. The puppet regime authorities did not even question anyone about the murder, let alone arrest anyone.
In the same way, when a woman or girl is condemned to death by her family or clan in the name of honour, it is supported by the puppet regime. For example, the killing of young poet Nadia Anjoman, the murder of Razia in the mountains of Shinden, the kidnapping of a young girl by a general from Baghlan province called Azim Hashemi (who forced her to marry him), the rape of a woman by a colonel in the province of Takhar and many, many other cases – the government authorities took no action and the criminals are still walking freely.
The government and pro-occupation organizations are trying to paint a better picture of Afghanistan under occupation and cover up the reality of life for women. Speaking about violence against women, Sima Samar, the head of the “Independent Human Rights Commission” said, “So far this year, more than 550 cases of violence against women have occurred.” But this figure seems far lower than the reality. Radio Kelid reported on 29 April 2007 that in the first month of this year alone, 200 cases of family violence against women were registered in Herat province alone. Even the accuracy of this figure cannot be trusted, because it includes only cases that have been registered by governmental institutions, whereas most cases of violence and even honour killings in the villages are never reported to anyone. If in just one province during just one month 200 cases of violence against women have been registered, it can be reasonably estimated that there have been approximately 1,800 cases in that province during the first nine months of the year. So how could Sima Samar be right?
The reality is that the “Human Rights Commission”, like the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, supports and encourages the values that a backward and traditional society applies to women. The slogan of the Commission in celebrating 8 March, International Women’s Day, last year was “The proper position of women in the family is an illustration of a healthy family and a healthy family ensures a healthy society.” That means women should accept that the men are the heads of the family and “protectors of their honour”. A “healthy family” is a family that follows these commitments and values and does not cross these boundaries. Can a “commission” that defends such reactionary views at the same time also defend women’s rights?
These moves by the puppet government’s so-called Independent Human Rights Commission and Ministry of Women’s Affairs are meant to create a thin curtain of deception to cover up the occupation, the regime’s national betrayal, and the ongoing denial of women’s rights. Karzai talks about the freedom of women and the defence of their rights, but in deeds he steps in the direction of their subjugation and defends backward and reactionary feudalist values. Since its creation, the puppet regime has consistently approved the decisions taken by the local jirgas. More than that, Karzai’s regime repeatedly encourages people to form a local jirga and solve their problems and differences through the jirga. But the truth is that the more these local jirgas grow, the more feudal traditions dominate society and require women to follow these old and backward feudal traditions and customs.
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