WUNRN
The
legal assistance project run by Medica Afghanistan offers general legal
advice to women and provides female prisoners with criminal defence in court.
The project’s female Afghan lawyers are committed to ensuring a fair trial for
the women. Additionally, they also provide legal advice in civil affairs such
as divorce and custody cases. Medica Afghanistan’s lawyers and social
workers also help to mediate between women and their relatives to mitigate
family conflicts. Many women are imprisoned as a result of such conflicts
escalating, so this mediation work helps to prevent court cases in advance.
A majority of the women in Afghan prisons are being
held because of so-called “moral crimes” or “Zina”: they are generally accused
of adultery but are in most cases themselves victims of defamation, rape or
forced prostitution. A simple conversation or eye contact with another man is
often enough to prompt suspicions of “Zina”. Another common reason for being
arrested and turned into a criminal is running away from home. Although the girls
involved are often fleeing violence and forced marriage, the traditional
attitude forbids women and girls to leave their house without permission, so
being caught away from home is enough to be accused of adultery or
prostitution.
Arrest and imprisonment generally occurs simply on the basis of an allegation.
The accused then has to prove their innocence. Medica Afghanistan’s support
is immensely important to these women and girls because a motivated defence
team can influence the progress of the court case very significantly.
A
total of ten female lawyers and four social workers work for Medica
Afghanistan. Legal consultation rooms have been set up in Kabul, Herat and
Mazar. A similar office in Kandahar unfortunately had to be closed at the end
of 2008 because it became too dangerous to stand up for women’s rights there.
In these drop-in centres, the Afghan lawyers advise women and girls on issues
of civil law such as divorce and custody cases, and they also prepare the
representation in court. Together with social workers, they also mediate in
order to try and settle the matters out of court.
Working
conditions for the lawyers are extremely difficult. Corruption is thriving:
people with money can generally buy their way out of sentences or imprisonment.
However, families generally only buy male relatives free. Female members of the
family imprisoned after allegations of “moral crimes” are usually left in
prison unless the family sees a need and chance to protect its reputation –
this is more important than protecting the woman. So women have a double
disadvantage: they are treated as having no rights and they receive no support
from their families.
Legal
assistance brings success: Since the project began, some 8,000 women have benefitted
from mediation, legal advice or criminal defence in court provided by the lawyers
and social workers from Medica Afghanistan. About 2,000 women facing a
court case were acquitted or received a lower sentence than the state
prosecutor demanded thanks to Medica Afghanistan’s intervention in
court, with the judges or at the justice authorities or the dialogue between
the organisation’s workers and the families involved. This is an enormous
success for the women affected and for the organisation and its workers.
Success
for Medica Afghanistan: perpetrator taken to court
In spite of
the cover-up attempts, threats and sidestepping: in 2006 a man was taken to
court in Kabul for the rape of a five-year-old girl. The lawyers from Medica
Afghanistan had worked closely together with the State Prosecutor to gather
sufficient evidence for a prosecution. The man claimed to be innocent, claiming
he was impotent and using this in his defence, but the wealth of evidence
proved conclusive and the perpetrator was sentenced to 20 years in jail. This
was a groundbreaking judgement for Afghanistan, a country characterised by
general impunity for rapists.
In Afghanistan it is often very difficult for former
prisoners to return to their families. Many experience rejection or threats,
becoming an outcast because their family see them as casting shame upon the
family. However, living alone is far from being an easy option for women in
Afghanistan, where it is almost unthinkable to live outside the field of family
relations. So the legal advisers from Medica Afghanistan continue to
assist women and girls after they are released from prison. Mediation between
the affected women and their relatives can help to ease the difficult process
of reintegration into the family. This path usually succeeds in ensuring the
safety of women within the family or their village community and avoiding any
further violence.
Furthermore, Medica Afghanistan offers its mediation services for other
women and their relatives when conflicts arise within the family, aiming to
achieve a settlement out of court or before the dispute is taken to court in
the first place. In 2010, mediation was carried out in 67 families to
prevent violence or assist the reintegration of women into their families.
Families frequently refuse to be visited by female lawyers or social
workers because they are afraid of the disgrace this might bring upon the
family if the neighbours see. So Medica Afghanistan found a solution in
May 2007 by setting up its own mediation centre on the site of Kabul’s
pre-trial detention centre. This offers a place for families and prisoners to
receive counselling and look for ways to resolve their conflicts. Easily
accessible consultation rooms have also been set up in Herat and Mazar-e
Sharif.
Violence
inflicted upon women by police or security staff is seldom taken to court as a
crime. Security staff are often ignorant of the new modern laws in place
regarding violence and on top of this, there is a general traditional attitude
that women and girls simply don’t have many rights. In order to change this, Medica
Afghanistan carries out trainings for police staff on the topics of human
rights and violence against women. The first results are becoming visible with
police referring more cases of domestic violence to the legal advice team at Medica
Afghanistan, who then take over the provision of support for the women. The
organisation’s female lawyers also conduct training sessions for prison staff.
They inform them about regulations governing the treatment of prisoners under
binding international law and raise their awareness of the special situation
regarding imprisoned women. More than 500 police and 80 prison staff have
attended training sessions on women’s rights so far.