A man has been charged with raping his 15-year-old daughter – who is now pregnant and under medical care in Jawzjan province – local news report. Police criminal offenses department director Abdul Hadi confirmed the report and said the man was in police custody. Hadi added that the man apparently threatened to kill his daughter if she spoke out about the case.
Violence and violation of rights weighs heavily on women. As long as women are deemed inferior and looked down upon, human rights will lack substance. As long as outmoded ways of thinking prevent women from making a meaningful contribution to society, progress will be slow. As long as the nation refuses to acknowledge the equal role of more than half of itself, it is doomed to failure.
Violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men. Moreover, it is the manifestation of an unequal power between men and women.
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 Nazai, 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. And the appalling story of Farkhunda, who was lynched to death on March 19 in Kabul, haunted not only Afghan nation but the whole world.
The history of Afghan women’s struggle for social recognition and equality chronicles Afghanistan’s physical and cultural devastation. Following the Soviet Invasion (1979-89), the Afghan Civil War (1994-96) and the dictatorial regime of Taliban (1996-2001) women’s access to education, security and jobs has been minimal. Today, in the post-Taliban era, the Western “liberation” and Islamic fundamentalism each impose their own values on Afghan society as political models. Westernization, with regards to gender equality, does not take into account the traditional concept of family in Islamic or Afghan culture and tends to negotiate the rights of Afghan women outside their community and family.
The violence against women can occur in both public and private spheres of life and at any time of their life span. Many women are terrified by these threats of violence and this essentially has an impact on their lives that they are impeded to exercise their human rights, for instance, the fear for contribution to the development of their communities socially, economically and politically.
The gang rape occurred in the Paghman district of Kabul was one of the worst cases of violence against our women. As it is still debated on the national media, armed men stopped a convoy of cars that was driving back to the city from a wedding in the district of Paghman in the morning of August 23, 2014. The men dragged four women to the side of the road, where they robbed them and beat them up, the screams of the victims in earshot of male relatives they were traveling with. Three of the women were raped without a tinge of humanity.
A research found many risk factors that increase the chance of Afghan women experiencing domestic violence. Some of these include being in a forced, underage, or polygamous marriage, living in rural communities or communities with greater Taliban control, and the presence of strict gender role perceptions. Factors that decrease the chance of domestic violence include employment of spouses, consensual marriage, literacy of both women and men, living in urban communities, enjoying economic stability, and perceived satisfactory gender relations.
It should be noted that human rights are commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights “to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being,” and which are inherent in all human beings regardless of their gender, belief, ethnicity, creed or any other status. They are applicable everywhere and at every time in the sense of being universal, and they are egalitarian in the sense of being the same for everyone. They require empathy and the rule of law and impose an obligation on persons to respect the human rights of others. They should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on specific circumstances, and require freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture, and execution.
It is aptly said, “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.”
Although the integral sources of the Afghanistan’s law root in Islamic Sharia which hold human and his rights, including women’s rights, in high esteem and also our country has ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and ICCPR, yet the human rights are violated to a large extent and women are bereft of their rights in some ways. Hope the government acts more seriously and protects the rights of the citizens, especially the women’s rights.