* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
In December of last year, a council of tribal elders and religious leaders in Nadir Shah Kot, a district of Afghanistan’s conservative Khost province, banned the traditional practice of giving away a young girl as retribution for a family member’s crime, called baad. Though the local-level political developments of a single district may seem unremarkable, this action actually represents an important step forward for all efforts to combat Afghanistan’s entrenched patterns of violence against women, for two key reasons. Firstly, this is a policy response developed, championed and adopted locally, a crucial detail that makes its implementation and credibility all the more likely. Second, the measure was developed, advocated and successfully adopted through the leadership of male community leaders, rather than the exclusive work of women advocating from the margins of the political debate. The Khost province effort to prevent and respond to violence against women locally will be a critical test case for how national-level efforts to curb violence can be successfully implemented on the ground.
Although significant pressure from American and international leadership, as well as from Afghan women in-country, has produced a proliferation of national-level policies aimed at preventing and responding to violence against women throughout Afghanistan, the justice sector has neither the capacity nor, it often seems, the will, to mediate the thousands of family disputes that arise in its nearly 400 districts each year. Therefore, most conflicts in Afghanistan’s districts are settled by the local jirga, community councils governed by local elders and religious leaders. The jirga ordinarily deliver verdicts based on traditional or religious interpretations rather than law, often with limited to no proper legal expertise. This often results in verdicts that are discriminatory to—and often exploitative of—women.
The practice of baad is a product of jirga tradition. According to a report by the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), this informal method of dispute resolution was established as a punishment for serious crimes, like murder and rape, which many tribal leaders argued could not be justifiably settled through a simple exchange of money. UNAMA reports that baad, which it calls “one of the most egregious types of violence against women in Afghanistan”, is used regularly throughout the country. Under international humanitarian law, the practice amounts to forced slavery and exploitation. According to one woman interviewed for the UNAMA report, “Instead of the murderer being punished, an innocent girl is punished and she has to spend all her life in slavery and subject to cruel violence.”
It is important to note, particularly within Western policy-making circles (which can be squeamish in the face of allegations of so-called “Western imposition” in practices excused as “cultural” or “traditional”), that there is neither legal nor religious basis for baad, nor is there overwhelming popular support for the practice among Afghan people. A UNAMA study found that despite the prevalence of this practice throughout rural Afghanistan, most Afghans opposed the use of baad to settle disputes. In several southern Afghan provinces, both male and female participants told UNAMA that baad puts the woman in a vulnerable position, because her “own relative is responsible for murdering a member of the family into which she has married” and, rather than settling the dispute, revenge is taken out on the girl.
Furthermore, the use of baad to settle disputes is explicitly outlawed in Afghan federal law. Article 25 of the Elimination of Violence Against Women in Afghanistan (EVAW) Law, enacted in 2009, states that,“If a person gives or takes a women for marriage in retribution for a baad, the perpetrator shall...be sentenced to long-term imprisonment”. The practice is also deemed punishable by the Article 517 of the Afghan Penal Code, which dictates that “A person who gives in marriage a widow or girl... for the purpose of ‘Baad dadan’.. shall be sentenced”.
The exchange of girls to settle a family or tribal dispute is also contrary to Sharia law and Islamic tradition. The Koran eliminated the pre-Islamic traditional practice of exchanging brides as property by determining that any marriage without bridal consent is invalid. A principle of Sharia law also determines that it is unlawful to “forcibly inherit a woman”, through baad or any other means.
Westerners will hence take heart in the measure coming out of the Khost province, which is considered to be conservative (as opposed to Kabul’s cosmopolitan oasis of educated women and considerably more relaxed gender relations when compared to its rural cousins). The mountainous province in eastern Afghanistan, which shares a border and many aspects of tribal identity with the Taliban-controlled Waziristan province in western Pakistan, has been a bleak example of the widespread gender inequality that the international community has sought to eliminate since entering Afghanistan in 2001. In a June 2011 report, the World Bank found that the female literacy rate in the Khost province is just 1.2%, a fraction of the already-low national average of 11.4%, and only 2-3 girls are enrolled in school for every 10 boys. Women in the Khost province continue to live in fear of violence, which is promoted by the Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents still present in the region.
So last December’s move by Nadir Shah Kot elders to ban the practice of baad was not an inconsequential one. The tribal elders and religious leaders who supported the ban argued that baad had led to an increase in domestic abuse and female suicide in the district, and hence put forward the local-level measure banning the practice. Community members praised the decision, arguing that baad had been an ineffective and unjust payment for a crime because it punished an innocent woman, rather than her guilty relative. “Every day, we heard that the groom and other family members were beating up my sister” recalled Zenikhil, the brother of a girl given away through a baad exchange, “We have always said amongst ourselves that we turned the life of my sister into hell and buried her alive.”
Violators of the rule will now face heavy fines of 80,000 Pakistani rupees (equivalent to nearly 1,000 dollars), a high price that Khost leaders hope will prevent future abuses. The policy also takes an important step farther by limiting the amount of money a groom can demand for a dowry to the equivalent of $2,350. In the years before the ruling, the average dowry in the Khost province rose to the equivalent of 10,000 to 25,000 dollars, a price that few families in the rural province could afford. According to UNIFEM, high bridal prices often lead to “dowry murder”, the practice of a wife being killed by her husband or in-laws, because her family cannot afford to meet the demands of the requested dowry. The practice also leads to a higher incidence of young men being unable to afford to marry, and wealthier, older men exploiting their wealth by taking younger - and more - brides.
Clearly the local ownership of this issue is an important factor in the successful adoption of the new anti-violence measures in Khost. In addition to this, the fact that the policy’s champions were respected, male leaders is also hugely important. Much of the advocacy surrounding women’s rights - within Afghanistan and throughout the world - has been insulated within the women’s community. However, men can be powerful allies in the movement to protect women’s rights. Afghanistan is no exception - it is men who overwhelmingly constitute political, religious and community leadership, and important efforts to curb violence against women cannot happen without them. In my own work with Women for Women International, we have found that the trainings we have offered male religious, political, military and other community leaders on the importance of women’s rights, the detriments of violence, and the value of women’s contributions to society have been crucial tools in our work to advance women’s rights and participation. By targeting male leaders—not unlike those in Khost—we are able to enjoin them to use their positions of influence to spread the word throughout the community. In Afghanistan, we have worked with 400 Afghan mullahs, who have in turn incorporated these messages into their Friday speeches to their congregations.
Perhaps the most inspiring thing about the Nadir Shah Kot elders’ efforts is that it has already been seen to have a ripple effect throughout other districts across the Khost province. Following the encouragement of Abdul Jabar Naeemi, the Governor of Khost, tribal elders in seven other districts in the province, such as Spayrah and Tanayoo, also issued edicts banning the practice. This trend marks an important step in the effort to combat violence and discrimination against women in Afghanistan. The next step will be ensuring that these important policies are put into practice, and that the lives of the women they aim to protect will be ultimately free of violence and exploitation.
