WUNRN
AFGHANISTAN - CHALLENGES OF BRINGING
MORE WOMEN INTO THE AFGHAN JUSTICE SECTOR
Photo: Kate Holt/IRIN - Advancing women’s rights: A community-based educator addresses a health shura for mothers.
The IDLO report, Women’s Professional Participation in Afghanistan’s Justice Sector:
Challenges and Opportunities, is the first tranche of a global study that the organization
pledged to undertake at the UN General Assembly in 2012 on the role of women in
the justice sector and “to analyze the legal barriers to women’s access to
justice”.
“The Taliban years were really disastrous for women in
Certainly there has been much progress for women over the past 10 years.
Millions of girls have gone back to school and there has been an improvement in
maternal mortality rates. According to the Afghan Women’s Network report, Women Visioning 2024, almost a third of parliamentarians are
now women. Many are running their own businesses and in the cities at least,
some are in key positions in their communities. According to the IDLO report,
there has been a dramatic increase in the number of women enrolled in law
schools.
Women still fear the justice system
Despite these gains, however, culturally-entrenched practices that are harmful
to women persist, and violence against women is on the increase. According to a
UN report, last year saw a 28 percent increase in violent
attacks on women. Although the dramatic rise may be due in part to an increase
in women reporting violence, the rise in prosecutions has been negligible.
“Prosecution of women for alleged moral crimes and of rape victims continues,”
says an IDLO press release.
In a society where prevailing cultural attitudes sanction the rape, forced
marriage and mutilation of women, legal interventions need to take place in a
“culturally sensitive” manner, said Arenas. Women who have been raped and
sexually assaulted find it hard enough in any society to disclose these crimes
to men, she adds, but in communities where they do not even talk to men, this
is all the harder.
“As a result of Afghanistan’s strict gender-segregated social code, the low
presence of women legal professionals - lawyers, prosecutors and judges - has
meant that many Afghan women continue to fear, and be intimidated by, the
formal justice system, which in turn dissuades them from reporting abuses
against them,” says IDLO.
“Gender stereotyping is one of the biggest obstacles to change
in Afghanistan ... The more women take up positions of leadership, the more
these gender stereotypes will be broken down”
There is hope that having more women in these positions will
help turn things around. In 2013 only 8 percent of judges, 6 percent of
prosecutors and less than 20 percent of lawyers were women, the study found.
Most female judges work in
The Elimination of Violence Against Women law of 2009 outlaws 22 harmful
practices against women, including rape, child marriage and denying girls the right
to school and women the right to work, but implementation on the ground has
been slow. And although it was implemented by presidential decree, it was never
ratified by parliament, many of whose members regard it as undermining Islam.
Activists fear that it will be overturned.
They note “the broader growing conservatism in the country” and the need to
make a clear distinction between religion and tradition, where the latter is
used to sanction violence against women because it is perceived to be grounded
in the former.
“Trust deficit”
Progress has been made in connecting with religious leaders “who can play an
important role in improving women’s rights if only they emphasize the essential
principles of Islam, which involve “justice” and “rights” for everyone”. But
the Women Visioning 24 report notes that big challenges lie in overcoming trust
problems related to the women’s rights movement which has historically been
driven by political elites and linked to government-led modernizing policies
that have only increased tensions between reformists and traditionalists
throughout
“Gender stereotyping is one of the biggest obstacles to change in
While many more women are studying law than they were a decade ago, there is a
big gap between those who graduate from law and Shariah faculties and those who
are employed in the sector, according to the IDLO study. Despite the fact that
women scored very highly in tests in 2012, they continue to learn from an
inferior curriculum.
Although some of the “constraints are cultural, including social pressure and
negative stereotypes about women’s role in society, others are practical
impediments, including lack of safe transportation and appropriate
accommodation facilities for women to attend law or Shari’a faculties”, reads
the report.
Certainly the security threat that the justice sector is under is a big barrier
to access. There have been increasing attacks on justice officials since
members of the Taliban “are being tried and taken through courts”, says Arenas.
Earlier this month a judge and his bodyguard were shot and killed in Herat Province. Providing women-only
transportation to law and Shariah faculties would help in this regard.