WUNRN
MEDIA-AFGHANISTAN:
Speaking Up Against Domestic Violence
Ann Ninan
KABUL, Dec 12 (IPS) -
In Afghanistan's pervasive culture of violence, women and girls are powerless to
resist being traded to settle family disputes and debts; rape and abduction; and
forced marriages. Violence is widely tolerated by the community.
Fear of conservative backlash has tempered official attempts to
change male perceptions of women, and overcome traditional and customary
practices which repress women's rights. Afghanistan's new constitution in 2004
enshrines gender equality, but there is a lack of explicit protection and
promotion of women's rights.
Still, women and youth have begun to speak
out after years of extreme repression. An unusual radio and print campaign has
week after week this year, aired views of ordinary people, experts and the
authorities on the illegality and immorality of domestic violence.
A
project of The Killid Group (TKG), an independent Afghan media company, it
targets the rich and the poor; the illiterate and the educated; rural and urban,
men and women.
"Family violence is an ugly word, a terrible disease,"
fumed Qalandar Ahadi from Shebergan district in northern Jawzgan province. "Our
country is suffering from this disease," rued the young man, who said he has
never missed a programme.
"We have to start changing the customs and
behaviour of our own family first. Slowly, others will join in," appealed Sahra
Ahadi who wants to help women living in rural Afghanistan. "They don't have
support," she pleaded in a survey on listeners' reactions to the programmes - a
mixture of dramas, interviews, round table discussions and reportage.
Killid's overall objective is to highlight the twin facts that domestic
violence rates are out of control in Afghanistan, and that something needs to be
done because there is simply no room for domestic brutality in a nation that is
seeking peace.
"The reality is that the long years of war, displacement,
and poverty combined with some cultural beliefs which sanction corporal
punishment within the home, seem to have produced the notion that domestic
violence is somehow OK," said project coordinator Guilda Chahverdi. "But it
isn't because people want to air their grievances!" she added.
Killid
reporters have interviewed dozens of brutalised people who throng the Ministry
of Women Affairs' durbar (public court) every Monday and Thursday seeking
justice. "People are ready to talk; they may want to be anonymous but they are
very keen that their stories are publicised," said Chahverdi.
The
broadcasts in Dari and Pashto, the two most widely spoken Afghan languages, are
repeated several times for maximum impact over Killid Radio in Kabul and Herat,
and 14 community radio networks in the provinces that are partners in TKG's
European Commission funded ‘Media campaign against domestic violence' project.
>From January to June, the programmes focused on identifying the
different forms of domestic violence, while from July to year-end the theme that
is being explored is the legal aspects of dealing with the problem -- like the
position of Shariah or Islamic law on abuse in marriage which was the subject of
discussion in September, and where to seek assistance and how in November.
There is warm praise from listeners. "Your programmes have several forms
and shades, which make them interesting," observed Zia Rehman from Faizabad
district in northern Badakshan province who is a regular listener of Radio Aamu,
a TKG partner. "They are beneficial. Please keep on broadcasting," he said.
In August, the special focus of the daily radio spots, weekly dramas and
monthly round-table discussion was law and family violence. How to enforce laws
against forced and child marriages; and rights to education and freedom of
expression, for instance. And, how cultural practices that sanction patriarchy
and family violence have to be challenged.
One radio report was a
heartbreaking interview with a woman who left home with her teenage daughter who
had been raped by her husband's family. "Both were in Kabul's infamous
Phul-i-Charki jail, locked away on fabricated charges, because the criminal
justice system will not stand up for the right of a woman in Afghanistan," said
Chahverdi.
The same month, a host of top bureaucrats and legal experts
were invited to discuss aspects of the legal framework: Shakila Afzalyar,
assistant director in the Ministry of Women's Affairs; Qassim Akhgar from the
Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission; and Fazel Wahab, director of the
Supreme Court Council, among others.
Killid's capacity to effectively
address issues of post-war transition has ensured ready civil society and
government participation. Conversely, the Killid Radio and magazines, Mursal and
Killid Weekly, provide them with the largest possible audience at the local,
regional and national levels for anti-domestic violence messages.
An
evaluation conducted in April voted Killid's in-house, 7-minute drama
productions as the most popular. Chahverdi who is a French theatre actor of
Iranian origin, has put together a very talented team of seven actors including
separate Dari and Pashto scriptwriters. In addition, there are daily wage actors
on the roster, including a 16-year-old schoolboy, Wahid Ousman Khel, who landed
up at her office after hearing the plays.
"Thank you for your
broadcasts. We like the dramas best," wrote two young women, Breshna and
Shapiray from Sayadabad district in eastern Mardan-e-Wardak province. "We listen
to your domestic violence programmes, especially the dramas. The situations and
cases presented are close to our lives," confessed Mir Wais and his friends in a
letter to Killid.
A nascent effort to address domestic violence in
Afghanistan has shown some results.
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