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NPR - National Public Radio - http://www.npr.org/2012/08/27/158522519/afghan-women-fear-backsliding-on-key-gains
AFGHANISTAN - WOMEN FEAR BACKSLIDING
ON GAINS - MANY SERIOUS WOMEN'S & GIRLS' RIGHTS ISSUES CONTINUE
Sean Carberry/NPR - Soraya Paksat of Voice of Afghan Women holds a knife that was confiscated from a woman who came to visit a young relative in one of the group's shelters. The woman intended to kill the girl for fleeing an abusive father.
August 27, 2012 - The gains by Afghan women are seen as one of the country's most important achievements over the past decade. But as the international community draws down its military and aid presence, those hard-won gains are at risk of being lost, according to activists.
Women are still being beaten, raped and forced into early
marriage at alarming rates. And women's advocacy groups say they are already
seeing signs of backsliding by the government when it comes to protecting women,
and fear this could accelerate in the coming years.
A 16-Year-Old's Struggle
Women for Afghan Women, which runs shelters and advocacy
programs, has helped thousands of victims of violence and abuse over the past
decade. One of its current cases involves a 16-year-old girl they call Peri.
Peri looks short for her age. She has a pretty face with
sad, brown eyes.
Speaking in a detached manner, Peri says when she was 3,
her father was accused of killing a member of another family in her village. In
a traditional compensation, Peri was given to the family of the victim. It's a
process called baad.
It's illegal but very common.
Her story gets worse. She says that when she was 10, she
was raped by a man in that family, and afterward she was forced to marry a boy
in the same family who was also around 10. One day when she was 14, she says,
she was drugged and when she came to, she was told she had been divorced. She
never saw her husband again.
A year later, Peri was forced to become the second wife
of another man who regularly abused her. The other wife threatened Peri and
ultimately forced her to leave the house. Peri then tried to kill herself in
the street. A man stopped her and brought her to the police, who took her to a
shelter.
Fighting Abuse With Lawyers
With the help of Women for Afghan Women, a case has been
filed against Peri's husband and brother-in-law. They are being charged with
rape, forced marriage and abuse.
But the prospects for justice in this case are not good,
says Huma Safi, the program manager for Women for Afghan Women, which is based
in
"The most corrupt system in our country is the
system of justice,"
In another case, a woman was raped by an Afghan
policeman,
"It's very difficult for a woman who is uneducated,
staying in a very remote area of the country, to have proof,"
Sean
Carberry/NPR - A woman crosses the street in
Many of these cases are
handled through tribal or informal justice systems that are often heavily
slanted against women. But through persistence,
Advocates Living Under Threat
She says there are a few sympathetic judges, lawyers and
advocates. However, they can face constant threats, like Soraya Paksat, who
works for a women's rights organization in the western city of
The Voice of Afghan Women was founded secretly during the
years that the Taliban ruled, from 1996 to 2001. Recently, the women's group
intervened in a case where an Afghan local policeman and two others kidnapped
and raped a 17-year-old girl. The group pushed for prosecution, and as a
result, the men received long prison sentences. Now, the judges and advocates
like Paksat are receiving death threats.
"What I received from that threat was three bullets
in one envelope [sent] to my home — just a message," says Maria Bashir.
Bashir, the prosecutor general in
"My children can't go outside the house, and I
always have to be escorted by security personnel," Bashir says.
Bashir tries to focus on positives. She says that more
and more women are becoming aware of their rights and seeking justice. However,
she's also seeing men become more angry and abusive toward women who try to
assert their rights.
Keeping
Women's Rights On The Table
Bashir is concerned that when foreign forces leave, women
will lose protection. Plus, she and others fear that the government is already
starting to chip away at women's rights.
"If there is a political solution between Taliban
and government and Hizb-i-Islami, there is no doubt that they will not accept
the article on women's rights in the constitution," Bashir says.
But Salahuddin Rabbani, who heads the High Peace Council,
a group seeking reconciliation in
"This
is something that is nonnegotiable," he says.
However, women's advocates say the current government is
still backsliding and not enforcing the laws as it was a couple of years ago.
Paksat says women's rights have been treated as a cause,
rather than as a pillar of Afghan government and society. That makes women more
vulnerable as the international community pulls back.
'Abuses' From Within
In a recent speech,
"For me, there is no difference between that Talib
who is fighting and a minister who is saying such a thing," she says.
This raises another issue. While there is a constant
threat of violence against women from the Taliban or other insurgents, women
like
"Day by day, we see the local commanders are very
powerful, and most of the abuses come from those people who are working with
the government — they're not Taliban,"