human rights

Please stand up in defense of the right of Afghan women and girls to be protected from violence.

As you may know by now, the Government of Afghanistan has recently introduced a bill that seeks to seize control of women’s shelters in Afghanistan from the independent organizations that founded them, and place them under the control of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA). To date, the Afghan Government has not had any involvement in operating or supporting women’s shelters, and this move comes on the heels of an unwarranted attack by a conservative Afghan media personality, Nasto Naderi, who accused shelters of serving as brothels. More recently, Naderi disclosed the address of one of the shelters on Afghan television, as well as details of specific cases of women living under the protection of the shelters. The Minister of Women’s Affairs has further stoked the hostility towards shelters by making claims to the Afghan media that shelters are corrupt. She also provided false details of the budgets of independent shelters as well as the number of women who currently reside in Afghanistan’s shelters.

The significant progress made in strengthening women’s rights in Afghanistan is severely jeopardized by this move by the Afghan government, and we cannot let it be undermined. We are asking the Afghan Government to immediately cease its efforts to seize control of independently established shelters for women fleeing violence and human rights abuses.

Sign the petition created by our colleagues at Women for Afghan Women, one of the organizations operating much-needed shelters in Afghanistan:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/savetheshelters/

The reconciliation process led by the Karzai regime to re-integrate violent Taliban members, or "angry brothers", into the political process, is already causing fear, distrust and injustice for the most vulnerable members of the population: women.

The process has delivered nothing positive in return for what seems like a large-scale surrender of Afghans' hard-won civil rights. Atrocious leadership by the government and a cowardly unwillingness by the international community to hold them to account is the cause of this debacle.

More on this from Wazhma Frogh, an Afghan women’s rights activist, and a Chevening Scholar.

As reported by Human Rights Watch this month, the “night letters” (threatening letters left at night by the Taliban), death threats, and assassinations of female politicians and activists are all squarely the doings of the militants. If anyone at all in the West remembers the oppressive regime of the Taliban’s that was in power until 2001, how can we ignore the current barbaric treatment of women and girls in the militant controlled areas? How many women and girls are able to go to school in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand anymore?

Not only there, but in provinces like Wardak and Logar, which are are only an hour away from the capital, the doors of education and work have closed for women. How could anyone believe that the same militants who controlled the country from 1996-2001, if back in political power in the not so distant future, would respect the Afghan Constitution, which the Taliban have made clear they vehemently despise?

While the Peace and Reintegration Plan has already started releasing militant prisoners without any proper legal scrutiny, 476 women languish in one of Kabul's jails, most of whom should never have been imprisoned in the first place. According to a recent BBC report, half the women are jailed for so called ‘moral crimes,' like adultery or running away from home.

Meanwhile the militants kill, behead and torture Afghans and these are not considered ‘moral crimes'. President Hamid Karzai calls them merely ‘angry brothers', as he did in a recent speech. This is the political dilemma of Afghanistan, and the ethical responsibility of the international community.

Amnesty International calls on all 38 presidential candidates to commit themselves publicly to fulfilling Afghanistan's international human rights obligations and national benchmarks on governance, the rule of law and human rights. Specifically:

We call on Canadians and others around the world to condemn the killing of Sitara Achakzai by the Taliban. This horrific tragedy is another demonstration the Taliban's fight against the liberation of women in Afghanistan. 

(The following is a press release from the Pashtun Peace Forum - Canada)