Does the threat to the women of Afghanistan only come from the Taliban's insurgency? Not, exactly.

* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.

 

 

By Wazhmah Frogh

Afghan women’s rights activist, executive board member of Afghan Women’s Network and member of Inclusive Security Women Waging Peace Network

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the past two years, the Afghan government has been making repeated statements that no reconciliation or negotiations aimed at bringing peace through talks with the Taliban will impact women’s rights and other civil rights guaranteed in the Afghan Constitution. But, does the threat to the women of Afghanistan only come from the Taliban’s insurgency? Not, exactly.

The failure of governance—with the accompanying impunity perpetuated through a corrupt and incompetent system--is the first predator of women’s rights in Afghanistan, especially in the rural villages. Moreover, interventions aimed at bringing security and defense, like arming militias, result in the oppression of Afghans ,particularly women, in different parts of the country.

While the national and international attention on Afghanistan is shrouded in stories of the withdrawal and transition of international forces, many realities on the ground go unnoticed. For many of us in Afghanistan, it is now routine to hear about incidents that involve severe beating or murder of women, at least once or twice a week, in various parts of the country.

Last week was no exception.. While many women’s groups are struggling to verify the brutal murder of a female NGO worker in Zurmat, Paktya, we also were shocked to hear about a woman in Nimroz whose husband tried to take out her eyes  with a knife..She is in the hospital and her doctors say they don’t have the adequate technology to treat her brain damage..

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting recently released a report from Ghor province in which the Afghan Local Police and the local militias created and armed during the experiments with ‘Counterinsurgency’ are accused of kidnapping, raping and murdering women in many villages and districts. In the same report, Anjila Shafi, secretary of the Provincial Council of Ghor, said that in the past year 50 cases of violence against women by militia commanders had been recorded, including assault and coerced marriages.

Mohammad Sharif, a tribal elder in the Dawlatyar district of Ghor, recalled a case where a man was killed last spring and his wife was abducted by a local commander and murdered a month later. No action had been taken on either killing, he said.

Many of the women’s groups and civil society organizations engaged in human rights work in Afghanistan believe that the continued silence of the Afghan government and its international supporters on women’s rights violations and oppression has a lot to do with appeasing the militants and conservatives in the country so that they will join the government’s peace and reintegration processes. These women’s organizations and civil society groups are mobilizing themselves around the question of why  initiatives aimed at peace and security are resulting in injury and loss of life, especially among Afghan women.

A male journalist covering the southeastern region of the country said, “We don’t see the peace process making much of a difference in Kabul and other urban centers, but the impact is so visible in the rural areas. The local warlords, power brokers, militias , militants, and criminals all turn into Taliban and, claiming they want to be part of the peace process, they either get arms through local policing initiatives, or get tribal powers and then they are the ones who oppress locals, kidnap, rape and kill women when they want. They are even sent to more remote areas to fight militants and then they do whatever they want with no responsibility”.

Daily Afghanistan Outlook, a leading independent newspaper writes in a recent editorial that President Karzai has been selling Afghans’ rights to appease militants. The editorial analyzes the context around which Abdul Satar Mirzakwal, deputy governor of Helmand province, was sacked because he arranged a concert by a female singer that attracted 30,000 residents of Lashkargah, with children cheering the music. The editor writes, “But this event and a “female” singer’s performance was not something to be “acceptable” for the radical Mullahs and Ulemas of the province. They all complained to Karzai about Mirzakwal…”

Karzai bowed in front the religious radicals and took action quickly on their demand, sacking Mirzakwal without even consulting the Independent Directorate for Local Governance (IDLG), the body responsible for appointing and dismissal of governors, district chiefs and other officials.

 It is very obvious that the 30,000 people celebrating at the concert did not object to the performance, but some religious clerics did and only they are the ones that matter to the government, not the masses of citizens.

However, when it comes to condemning, investigating and prosecuting those responsible for murder, kidnap and rape of women and girls, we witness a poisonous silence from the Afghan government and its international supporters. Do they understand that what this silent impunity means for the stability of Afghanistan?

 

About Wazhman Frogh:

 

For a decade Wazhma Frogh has championed the full and equal participation of women in all aspects of Afghan society. She advocates for women’s participation in politics and peace movements and campaigns for legislative reforms, including the Elimination of Violence against Women Law and the Shia Personal Status Law in Afghanistan. Ms. Frogh, who quotes “religious gatekeepers” in Afghanistan as saying that women should be at home or in the grave, first became aware of gender inequality at the age of 12. She began by changing expectations for women within her own conservative family, including her ex-army officer father. At 17, she started a career as a writer, reporter, and social activist, contributing weekly updates to The Frontier Post newspaper about women and children living in refugee camps in Peshawar, Pakistan. While living in Peshawar from 1992 to 2001, Ms. Frogh organized community-based empowerment programs for women. She travelled frequently into Afghanistan’s most insecure provinces to support these efforts. In 2001, she returned permanently to Afghanistan to continue her work. She completed the first gender assessment of women's conditions in Nuristan, Afghanistan in 2002, just after the formal fall of the Taliban government. She supported the establishment of Women Development Centers in four provinces of the country, including Kandahar, Ghazni, Herat and Parwan provinces, mobilizing women and creating leadership and livelihood opportunities. In 2006-2007 her efforts reached more than 215 local organizations in different parts of the country to create gender sensitive development interventions under the Initiative for the Promotion of Afghan Civil Society with Counterpart International. Ms. Frogh was a 2008 participant in Inclusive Security’s annual Colloquium. She also has assisted the Institute organize and implement a number of trainings on women’s leadership in Kabul. A 2009 recipient of the US Department of State’s International Women of Courage award, Ms. Frogh has a LLM in International Development Law and Human Rights and is a Gender and Development Specialist in Afghanistan, an Executive Board Member of the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN), and a Inclusive Security Women Waging Peace Network Member