WUNRN
AFGHANISTAN – WEAK LEGAL SYSTEM HAS LED TO ROUTINE
RELIANCE ON INFORMAL “JUSTICE” AS TRIBAL COUNCILS,
& MEDIATION, WHICH REINFORCE VULNERABILITY & INEQUALITY
OF WOMEN & GIRLS, AS WITH CHILD BRIDES
A preference for traditional forms
of mediation over the formal justice system has reinforced the commodification
of women in Afghanistan, where child brides are commonplace. Photo: Suraya
Pakzad
By Sune Engel Rasmussen in
Herat - 11 May 2015
Benefsheh sits on a couch, shy and dressed in school uniform, as
she recounts her divorce. At the age of seven, her parents married her off to a
16-year-old boy in exchange for a wife for her brother.
Benefsheh was abused by her husband and mother-in-law, who would
beat her and force her to do hard manual labour in the mountains.
When her brother eventually decided to rescue her from her
in-laws, her husband claimed compensation: her younger sister, Shogofa. After
fleeing their village close to the Iranian border, Benefsheh and Shogofa, now
13 and 11, settled in a women’s shelter in Herat city.
Young girls are routinely used as barter to settle disputes or
arrange marriages between families in Afghanistan.
Despite attempts from the international community to strengthen the country’s
formal justice system, where the legal age of marriage for women is 16 (18 for
men), Afghans still largely favour traditional forms of mediation over the
country’s legal courts.
Particularly outside cities, most Afghans continue to view the
formal legal system as corrupt, unprofessional, inefficient and slow. Instead,
village councils and tribal elders mete out justice based on religious
tradition and mutual agreements.
Suraya Pakzad, founder of the Voice of Women Organisation, which
runs the shelter in Herat, said a formal court case can take several years and
be costly in bribes and transportation to the city. In comparison, traditional
mediation is faster and less corrupt.
“At least in the informal system, you come up with some
solution,” Pakzad said. “It’s easy, it’s cheap and it’s on your doorstep.”
For women, however, the informal system does not necessarily
provide justice. Economic dependence and cultural pressure prevent many women
from seeking divorce or criminal retribution, effectively granting male
perpetrators of domestic violence impunity.
A recent UN report detailed how theAfghan court system fails to provide access for women,
with the result that only 5% of domestic violence cases observed in the report
ended in criminal prosecution.
According to Human Rights Watch, 95% of girls and 50% of women
in Afghanistan’s prisons are jailed for “moral crimes”, such as running away from home
to escape a violent husband.
That did not deter Fereshteh from fleeing her violent marriage
in Nimruz province two years ago, at the age of 12. When her brother eloped
with a cousin to marry for love, community elders decided that Fereshteh should
be given as reimbursement to alleviate his family’s shame. She married her 27-year-old
cousin, who already had a wife and children.
She was treated as “a gift to the enemy”, she said, and beaten
for two months until her brother, who had escaped to Herat, convinced the
police to step in and remove her. Seven months after her divorce was finalised,
her former husband continues to threaten her family.
“I just want to go to school,” said Fereshteh. “My advice to
parents is not to marry off their children. They should ask their children what
they want.”
International donors have pushed for legal reform in
Afghanistan, and are supporting a bill to eliminate violence against women. The law,
which would ban underage marriage and protects women’s shelters, has been
challenged by some conservative politicians who view the bill as un-Islamic.
Afghanistan has also ratified the UN convention on the
elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.
In its 2014 national action plan on women, peace and security,
the UK government pledged to help raise awareness of women’s rights in
Afghanistan, “across provinces through workshops and media, and to support
human rights defenders working on women’s issues”.
Western countries have succeeded to some extent in creating
awareness of women’s rights, said Pakzad, who in 2009 was named as one of the
world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine.
However, she added, donors and Afghan organisations alike had
missed a “golden opportunity” to strengthen women’s rights by neglecting
isolated women in rural areas, who might suffer more, in favour of
well-educated, urban women’s activists.
“If you are healthy, if you are good, we have a workshop for
you,” said Pakzad. “There is nothing for the sick people.”
Equally problematic, she said, is that men have largely been
ignored, although they ultimately are the ones who have to change behaviour and
drive societal change. “If you don’t work with [men] and change their
perspective, it is not going to go well.”
Pakzad said: “We need training in how to deal with traumatised
husbands, with traumatised fathers. If you were not traumatised, you would
never cut your wife’s nose off or slice her face.”
Benefsheh’s brother now recognises that it was wrong of his
father to trade his sister so that he could marry. Now divorced, he is working
as a labourer in the hope that he will able to support his two sisters outside
the shelter.
“The girl should be old enough to marry, and should be happy
with it,” Benefsheh said.
Some people’s names have been changed to protect their
identities.