WUNRN
Large Bomb Explosion Hits Afghanistan’s Capital – June 30, 2015
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http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/afghanistans-women-future-threatened-violence-conservatism-n377631
Website Link Includes Videos.
Afghanistan
– Women’s Future Clouded by Rampant Violence, Conservatism
by Fazul Rahim and
F. Brinley Bruton
June
28, 2015 - Kabul, Afghanistan — Benafsha should be a poster child for
post-Taliban Afghanistan. Born just a year before the fundamentalist group was
toppled in 2001, she soon joined the millions of girls who flooded back into
classrooms around the country. Propelled by her own hard work plus the promises
of a U.S.-backed government and Western countries that were pouring billions of
dollars in aid into the war-torn country, she let her ambitions run free.
"I
want to become a doctor because I want to help people, and I love biology.
That
all ended in March, when her mother and brother stopped her from attending
school. They deemed the trip too dangerous and possibly shameful for a girl old
enough to marry.
The
slender 15-year-old isn't alone. Women's achievements and status still hang in
the balance throughout Afghanistan, where conservative forces are joining
unabated poverty and growing violence to undermine huge gains made since the
U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
"I
may never be able to fulfill my dreams," Benafsha told NBC News during an
interview at her home in Kabul. It wasn't supposed to be this way.
In
2001, American forces helped topple the Taliban, which had sheltered Osama bin
Laden and other al Qaeda leaders as they plotted the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.
But Western soldiers weren't only looking for bad guys. Helping to improve the
lot of female Afghans dominated the reconstruction agenda, and billions were
spent on aid programs aimed at women and girls.
In
the early days of the Western invasion, then-first lady Laura Bush put the
struggle for women's rights front and center.
"Muslims
around the world have condemned the brutal degradation of women and children by
the Taliban regime," she said in a national radio address in November
2001. "The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and
dignity of women."
Today,
an estimated 2.5 million Afghan girls are in school. Women serve in parliament,
work in government and a handful have become prominent businesswomen. There is
even a female fighter pilot.
But
Afghanistan still remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to be
female.
"Things
are very gloomy for women, and it's getting worse," activists and
campaigner Wazhma Frogh told NBC News. "There is much less space for women
[in public life]."
'A
worrisome development'
Criminality
and violence are at the heart of the problem, said the head of Afghanistan's
Women Peace and Security Research Institute.
"Women
are being killed, raped and harassed on a daily basis much more than before —
and overtly," she said. She blamed much of this on generalized lawlessness
— exacerbated by the dramatic drawdown in foreign troops — which leaves women
and girls vulnerable to attack and abuse.
The
brutal lynching of religious scholar Farkhunda in downtown Kabul earlier this
year was the latest in a series of stark reminders of the many
threats facing Afghan women.
Women's
mortality rates are much higher than men's, even when factoring in male
combatants who are fighting and dying on the battlefield, according to the
United Nations.
In
fact, the U.N. calls the rates of violence against women in Afghanistan
"exceptionally high" with up to 87.2 per cent of women having
experienced some form of violence.
The
situation is getting worse, according to activists. There has been a 31 percent
rise in the cases of violence against women so far this year compared to 2014,
according to Soraya Sobhrang, deputy chair of Afghanistan's Independent Human
Rights Commission.
"This
is a worrisome development that should be addressed — all the gains women made
could be lost," she said.
While President Ashraf Ghani is broadly
believed to be a supporter of women's rights, critics say he is hamstrung by
the presence of powerful figures who are hostile to them. A stark example of
this is how conservative forces have blocked the Elimination of Violence
Against Women (EVAW) law, which criminalized and set prison sentences for rape,
domestic violence, and underage and forced marriage, among other things.
Former
President Hamid Karzai passed the law in 2009 but it never got through the
lower house of parliament, the Wolesi Jirga, where some parliamentarians said
it ran counter to Islam and could tear apart Afghan society.
Qazi
Nazeer Ahmad Hanafi is one of the most prominent voices against the EVAW and
has been especially rankled by the provision in the law to create women's
shelters for victims of domestic violence. According to Hanafi, a
parliamentarian from western Herat province, these shelters were actually
"brothels" and could prompt a "revolution" that could kill
millions.
The
conservative forces resisting the full inclusion of women into society extend
beyond Hanafi.
Afghanistan's
Ulama Council — the highest religious authority in the country — recently
fought to block the appointment of a woman to the Supreme Court.
While
a female judge, Anisa Rassoli, has been nominated by Ghani to the chamber on
Tuesday, the council's spokesman Ataullah Ludin said the move ran against
Sharia law. This will likely strengthen the position of many conservatives in
parliament who are looking to prevent her from taking her post.
The
council has also been quiet on the need to defend women, according to Fawzia
Koofi, a prominent lawmaker and the head of the parliamentary
committee on women's affairs and rights.
"They
have been ineffective and silent about violence against women," she said.
"They didn't even condemn the brutal murder of Farkhunda."
Familiar
path to pain
Many
women and rights activists say their fear isn't only that the Taliban will
return to power in some form. They're also afraid the country is going down the
same road that led to the 1992-1996 civil war which swept the fundamentalist
fighters into power.
Now
women who dare speak out, or even step outside their homes without the burqa,
say they increasingly risk abuse — or worse.
Like
other women in public life that NBC News interviewed, such as politicians,
teachers and activists, Koofi said she felt her life was in danger.
"Life
in general is very challenging and involves a lot of risk, but it's much harder
to be a woman in the public sphere," Koofi said. "I have been the
target of assassination attempts. [Recently] a well-placed security source told
me that a suicide bomber came very close to target my vehicle in central Kabul,
but lost me in the traffic."
And
it isn't just legislators and activists who feel vulnerable.
Rangina
Hamidi, who owns Kandahar Treasure — a successful business selling traditional
Afghan pottery and textiles made by women — says she constantly worries about
the future.
Hamidi
is proud of her company, which employs around 400 women who mostly work from
home including many secretly, in the heart of Kandahar, the Taliban's
birthplace. The business has recently been hurt by the withdrawal of thousands
of foreign troops, whom the company used to sell to.
"For
a place like Kandahar, which is only known for war and destruction, it is a
success for a group of women to generate over $300,000," Hamidi said.
"The gains are certainly under threat of a civil war, should there not be
peace."
Just
15 years ago, the Taliban imposed its strict interpretation of Islam combined
with profoundly conservative tribal codes onto the Afghan people. Men and women
were strictly segregated, the vast majority of the country's girls' schools
were shuttered, women were barred from leaving their homes without an
all-enveloping burka and a male chaperon. Those who broke the rules were beaten
or executed.
The
Taliban's rule, and the chaos that preceded it, are constantly on Hamidi's
mind. As are the economic realities of Afghanistan, with foreign troops leaving
and insecurity making it even harder for women as well as businesses like hers.
"We
obviously fear that everything we have gained, not only as an entity here but
as a country as a whole [will be reversed]. As women that fear is definitely in
our minds," she said.
"My
biggest fear is to tell all these women that we will not be able to support
them any longer," Hamidi added.