WUNRN
Human Rights Watch
AFGHANISTAN - PROTECT, DON'T PUNISH
WOMEN & GIRLS WHO FLEE FORCED MARRIAGES, VIOLENCE
A prisoner covers her face while sitting outside a room that she shares
with 15 other women prisoners in
September 18, 2012 - The public pledges by top Afghan government officials to end wrongful imprisonment of women and girls fleeing abuse sends an important message of equal rights for women. Now the onus is on President Karzai and his government to promptly free the women and girls who have lost months or years of their lives on these bogus charges.
Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch
(
Human Rights Watch urged the Afghan government to take immediate steps to end
the unlawful imprisonment of women and girls accused of “running away.” Up to
70 percent of the approximately 700 female prisoners in Afghanistan
have been imprisoned for running away, nearly always for fleeing forced
marriage or domestic violence, a March 2012 Human Rights Watch report found.
“The public pledges by top Afghan government officials to end wrongful
imprisonment of women and girls fleeing abuse sends an important message of
equal rights for women,” said Brad Adams,
At a September 16, 2012 meeting, Justice Minister Habibullah Ghalib, Women’s
Affairs Minister Hassan Banoo Ghazanfar, and Deputy Interior Minister Baz
Mohammad Yarmand each strongly condemned wrongful imprisonment of women and
girls on charges of “running away.” Ghalib said that police and prosecutors
should never send cases of “running away” to the courts. Yarmand pledged his
commitment to ending abuses by the police, saying that all police had been
instructed that running away is not a crime. Ghazanfar said that women and
girls accused of running away are not criminals, but generally crime victims
who flee to escape violence committed against them.
Fawzia Koofi, director of the lower house parliamentary committee on
women’s affairs, and her counterpart, Siddiqa Balkhi, the director of the upper
house parliamentary committee on women's affairs, had joined together in calling
for the government to immediately free women and girls charged with running
away under Afghanistan’s ambiguous and arbitrary “moral crimes” law.
Human Rights Watch research in six prisons and juvenile detention centers has
found that some 50 percent of women in prison and some 95 percent of girls in
juvenile detention are accused of so-called “moral crimes.”
President Hamid Karzai has in recent years issued a number of presidential
decrees releasing significant numbers of imprisoned women and girls, including
some accused of “running away.” He has not, however, taken steps to free all
women and girls imprisoned on these charges or to prevent future arrests and
convictions for “running away.”
“Pardoning victims of unlawful imprisonment for running away does nothing
to end this abuse,”
Imprisonment is not the only danger faced by women and girls who flee abuse at
home, Human Rights Watch said. “Honor killings” are common in
An important development since 2001 has been the creation of shelters in
“