WUNRN
AFGHANISTAN - NEW LAW MAY SILENCE
VICTIMS & WITNESSES OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
A small change to criminal code has huge consequences in
country where 'honour' killings and forced marriage are rife.
Most violence against women in
Emma Graham-Harrison - 4 February 2014
A new Afghan law will allow men
to attack their wives, children and sisters without fear of judicial
punishment, undoing years of slow progress in tackling violence in a country
blighted by so-called "honour" killings, forced marriage and vicious
domestic abuse.
The small but significant change to Afghanistan's
criminal prosecution code bans relatives of an accused person from testifying
against them. Most violence against women in
"It is a travesty this is
happening," said Manizha Naderi, director of the charity and campaign
group Women for Afghan Women. "It will make it impossible to prosecute
cases of violence against women … The most vulnerable people won't get justice
now."
Under the new law, prosecutors could never come to
court with cases like that of Sahar Gul, a child bride
whose in-laws chained her in a basement and starved, burned and whipped her
when she refused to work as a prostitute for them. Women like 31-year-old Sitara,
whose nose and lips were sliced off by her husband at the end of last year,
could never take the stand against their attackers.
"Honour" killings by
fathers and brothers who disapprove of a woman's behaviour would be almost
impossible to punish. Forced marriage and the sale or trading of daughters to
end feuds or settle debt would also be largely beyond the control of the law in
a country where the prosecution of abuse is already rare.
Sahar Gul's in-laws chained her in a basement and starved, burned and
whipped her when she refused to work as a prostitute for them. Photograph: Kuni
Takahashi/New York Times/ Redux/eyevine
It is common in western legal
systems to excuse people from testimony that might incriminate their spouse.
But it is a very narrow exception, with little resemblance to the blanket ban
planned in
Human Rights Watch said it would
"let batterers of women and girls off the hook".
The change is in a section of the
criminal code titled "Prohibition of Questioning an Individual as a
Witness". Others covered by the ban are children, doctors and defence
lawyers for the accused.
Senators originally wanted a
milder version of the law that would prevent relatives from being legally
obliged to take the stand in a case in which they did not want to testify.
But both houses of parliament
eventually passed a draft banning all testimony.
As most Afghans live in walled
compounds, shared only with their extended families, this covers most witnesses
to violence in the home.
The bill has been sent to Karzai,
who must decide whether to sign it into force. After failing to block the
change in parliament, campaigners plan to throw their weight behind shaming the
president into suspending the new law.
"We will ask the president not to sign until
the article is changed, we will put a lot of pressure on him," said Selay
Ghaffar, director of the shelter and advocacy group Humanitarian Assistance for
the Women and Children of Afghanistan. She said activists hoped to repeat the
success of a campaign in 2009 that forced Karzai to soften a family law enshrining marital rape
as a husband's right.
But that was five years ago, and since then Karzai
has presided over a strengthening of conservative forces. In the last year
alone parliament has blocked a law to curb violence against women and cut the
quota for women on provincial councils, while the justice ministry floated a
proposal to bring back stoning as a punishment for adultery.
"In the beginning they were
a little scared with the new government and media," Ghaffar said,
referring to the period soon after the Taliban's fall when women's rights were
a focus of international attention. "Now they do whatever they want as
they have seen the government is not very democratic or strongly in favour of
women's rights."
Foreign troops are heading home
in large numbers and will all be gone by the end of the year. A long-term deal
to keep US forces on in small numbers to train Afghan soldiers and chase
international militants along the Pakistani border is failing as a result of
opposition from Karzai.
Ties with
Countries that spent billions
trying to improve justice and human rights are now focused largely on security,
and are retreating from Afghan politics.
Heather Barr,