Every day, we learn a heart wrecking story where a woman is found the object of rampant harassment, physical abuses, mental torture and societal discrimination. We turn deaf ears to the hapless cries, blind our eyes and remain negligent to see the magnitude of mental sufferings she endures while getting out to earn a livelihood, numb to realize the numerous pain of gender based victimization she bears frequently, because of fallacious socio-religious structure based on irrational biases. It reflects women are coerced to repression after being found ill-fated and voiceless.
Undoubtedly, a marriage at an early age is considered women’s gravest issue that mercilessly subjects an innocent being into eternal physical abuse and mental torture. Particularly, when this marriage is forced, then it will be an irreparable harm. Child marriages violate many human rights; including education, freedom from violence, reproductive rights, access to reproductive and sexual health care, employment, freedom of movement, and the right to consensual marriage. A child put up for sale at the cost of all these rights is a matchless example of vibrant violation of children rights and women rights.
In Afghanistan violence against women is much widespread and deeply rooted in different parts of the country. Violence against women is a dramatic problem in Afghanistan that has caused lots of damages to the life of women itself as well as to the society. Women in Afghanistan have no or little voice to be heard and they have always been victims of violence either from their own family or from the society. They have never given equal rights specially the right to freedom and never been treated equally like men because the traditions, customs and practices have always kept men to be superior.
Violence against women in Afghanistan have kept women very far away from education which is one of the reasons that usually subjected them to extensive discriminations because they are kept ignorant of their fundamental rights. The choices of Afghan women are extraordinarily restricted; the family decides the fate of their lives. There is little chance for education, little choice about whom she marries, no choice at all about her role in her own house. Her principal undertaking is to serve her husband's family.
Violence against women in Afghanistan such as domestic violence, honor killing, and sexual violence against women and young girls are some examples of violence that has caused lots of destructions to Afghan women in particular and to the society in general.
Formerly, Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a strongly-worded letter to President Hamid Karzai, called for immediate action to be taken against child marriage practices and domestic violence in Afghanistan. The international humanitarian group argued the persistence of the issues marked as negligence in Afghan development that led to a number of other problematic public health and social trends.
The HRW highlighted the disadvantageous health and economic consequences of child marriage and violence against women and girls. The finding was based on a study carried out by HRW to investigate the effects of the practices, which have traditionally been pervasive in Afghan society but seen increasing pushback since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. One of the explicit measures the HRW report urged President Karzai to take was the immediate implementation of the Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW).
The EVAW law was inked in 2009, but not fully applied till date. The constitution and ratification of the law was indeed a bold step forward that installed a ray of hope amongst international community and human rights defenders, to imminent betterments.
A 2006 study by Global Rights found over 85 percent of Afghan women had reported that they had experienced physical, sexual, psychological violence or forced marriage. The survey also found that an estimated 2,000 Afghan women and girls attempted suicide by setting themselves on fire each year, which was linked to domestic violence and early or forced marriages.
According to the EVAW Law, child marriage has been declared an illegitimate act and that the violators of this law must be put to severe punishment. The EVAW Law imposed tough and new penalties for abuse of women, including making child marriage and forced marriage illegal under the Afghan law for the first time in the nation's history. Yet the HRW noted that child marriage still remains a common practice in Afghanistan that increases the likelihood of early pregnancy, heightening the risk of death and injury during childbirth. The administrative restraints and socio-religious norms provocative to women rights are the greatest hurdles for differed implementation of the law.
The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) released a mortality survey in 2010 that showed 53 percent of Afghan women between the ages of 25 and 49 were married by the age of 18; 12 percent of girls aged 15-19 became pregnant or gave birth; and 47 percent of deaths of women aged 20-24 were related to pregnancy. Reportedly, an Afghan woman died every two hours because of pregnancy in 2010.
In the decade since the overthrow of the Taliban government, the Afghan government has failed to take adequate measures to curtail child marriage and domestic violence, the HRW said. Bangladesh, Egypt, and Jordan among others have risen the minimum age of marriage to 18. Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Malaysia have introduced legal reforms to combat domestic violence. Afghanistan has not yet considered this very immediate issue to reverse the life losses of immature girls early age pregnancy.
At a development donors' conference in Tokyo in July 2012, the Afghan government promised to do more to enforce the EVAW Law in return for $16 billion in pledges for future aid to Afghanistan. However, the HRW felt it has hardly lived up to that promise.
Afghan authorities are continuously called to take, much greater steps to both facilitate reporting of incidents of violence against women and launch immediate investigatory cells in districts and division level facilitating the prosecution. As long as women and girls in Afghanistan are subject to violence with impunity, little meaningful and sustainable progress for women’s rights can be achieved in the country. Ensuring rights for Afghan women – such as their participation in public life, including in the peace and reconciliation process and equal opportunities in education and employment – requires not only legal safeguards on paper, but critically, speedy and full enforcement of the EVAW law.