What a mother suffers from, a daughter tends to repeat while upbringing her children, leaving the girls from one generation after the next, deprived of their rights – particularly the rights to getting education. Such circumstances are mainly a consequence of parental dysfunction and inequality and social restrictions. A number of hapless girls take their dreams to the grave with them – the same as their mothers did. In a home, where the father and mother reap off the struggles and sacrifices of their children who are barely adults, girls are entangled in the fear of letting their families down. The female children are not only deprived of their rights, circumstances also force them to mature very early. An entire childhood is lost.
Afghanistan is turning its back on female activists and leaving them vulnerable to threats, assassinations and sexual assault. Female rights campaigners have been suffering a growing number of targeted car bombings, grenade attacks and killings of family members Amnesty International said Tuesday April 07, 2015, urging the international community to preserve hard-won gains for women.
“Laws meant to support them are poorly implemented, if at all, while the international community is doing far too little to ease their plight,” it said.
According to the report, most of the threats come from the Taliban and armed opposition groups, but government officials and local warlords also commit abuses against female activists.
“Women human rights defenders from all walks of life have fought bravely for some significant gains over the past 14 years – many have even paid with their lives. It is outrageous that Afghan authorities are leaving them to fend for themselves, with their situation more dangerous than ever” Amnesty International chief Salil Shetty told reporters in Kabul.
Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Afghan women have made significant advances in rights, with millions of girls attending schools and women holding government posts. But with the steady withdrawal of foreign forces and the Taliban insurgency still resilient, there are growing fears the gains will be lost. “Afghanistan is facing an uncertain future, and is at arguably the most critical moment in its recent history. Now is not the time for international governments to walk away,” Shetty said.
A radio report said that a woman was decapitated, last week, and her daughter-in-law sustained mortal wounds when unknown men attacked her home in Logar province – where the graph of violence against women is high.
Last month a mob in downtown Kabul lynched a 27-year old woman, Farkhunda, for allegedly burning the Holy Koran. The mob then set her body ablaze and dumped it in Kabul river while several police officers looked on. This act was in direct conflict with the Constitution of Afghanistan. As article 27 declares, “No deed shall be considered a crime unless ruled by a law promulgated prior to commitment of the offense. No one shall be pursued, arrested, or detained without due process of law. No one shall be punished without the decision of an authoritative court taken in accordance with the provisions of the law, promulgated prior to commitment of the offense.”
In February popular female politician Angiza Shinwari died following a bomb attack on her vehicle in the volatile eastern province of Nangarhar.
And last year Shukria Barakzai, a prominent female MP and women’s rights campaigner, survived a suicide attack in Kabul.
Perhaps, the images of abused and helpless Afghan women incessantly flood our minds, undermining the significant role of women as agents of change in Afghanistan. During the 1920s and 70s, a period of economic and political stability, a large number of Afghan women asserted their rights and continued their education and professional pursuits. These women belonged to a privileged economic background; all the same their role and aspirations offer the world an alternative narrative. Acknowledging the agency, contributions, and strong voice of Afghan women does not undermine the stories of women like Nazia, an 18-year-old Afghan woman whose nose and ears were sliced off by her husband and appeared on the cover of Time magazine in August 2010, or Sitara, a 30-year-old women whose nose and lips were lopped off by her addict husband in Herat province in 2013 and their audacious spirit, whose story of sufferings is one too many for our world.
I remember vividly the miserable story of a rape victim in Daikundi Province a year and half ago. Shakila, a teenage school girl who was living in Korga village, always had to pass by her neighbors’ houses on her way to school. One morning, on her way to school, she was waylaid and raped by an eighty-year-old man of her neighborhood. He did this to avenge his wife‘s rape many years ago by the father of the same girl, Shakila. Hence, Afghan girls and women fall prey to violence for the acts of their brothers or fathers – which is forbidden from religious and constitutional prospective. The Constitution of Afghanistan states in article 26 as, “Crime is a personal act. Investigation, arrest and detention of an accused as well as penalty execution shall not incriminate another person.”
“For every woman and girl violently attacked, we reduce our humanity. For every woman forced into unprotected sex because men demand this, we destroy dignity and pride. Every woman who has to sell her life for sex we condemn to a lifetime in prison. For every moment we remain silent, we conspire against our women. For every woman infected by HIV, we destroy a generation.”