She does not have the right to breathe a word regarding her life-partner. She has to live her life, with whom her father finds, by hook or by crook. Stating a word about life-partner puts her dignity under question because she is girl and shyness and timidity are her honor. If she talks with any suspicious boys, she will be flogged but if she elopes with a boy, she will be stoned or hanged. She must know that she is a girl which means to live inside the four walls of the home, be born there, gives birth there and dies there. Inside home is her world, her paradise or her hell.
The phrase, ‘Violence against women’ is hackneyed for being used repeatedly as headlines on the newspapers. Women lurch from one violence to another in the country, flogging here, burning there and dying elsewhere. As the International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women, was on Monday this week, let me write about the condition of women in Afghanistan.
According to BBC report, a young girl and boy, who were accused of eloping, were hanged in Baghlan Province, North of Afghanistan, based on Ahmad Zai tribal agreement. The report adds that Syed Jan Ahmad Zai, the chief of local police, says that the boy and girl were arrested by local people and held on tribal trial after eloping home on Saturday. The police chief adds that they were killed by the girl’s father, based on written writ issued by tribal council, to save family honor. He further adds that Afghan Security Force arrived in the area after they were arrested by them; however, thousands of members of Ahmad Zai’s tribe prevented them from standing legal trial. According to him, the girl was engaged to another boy but she did not want him and that is why she eloped with whom who was arrested.
It is a copycat murder which happened in Helmand Province more than a month ago. There also a boy and a girl, who fell in love with each other, were found beheaded after elopement.
The graph of violence against women is on the rise across the country. As a result, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) on Monday announced a 25 percent jump in reported cases of human rights violations against women in Afghanistan in 2013. The AIHRC released a report on November 25, which was the International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women, which stated that 4, 154 cases of human rights violations had been filed by Afghan women in only six months of the current solar year. The AIHRC adds that violations against women can include psychological, physical, sexual, economic and verbal mistreatment.
According to Ministry of Women Affairs, Hasan Banoo Ghazanfar, the ministry recorded 4000 cases of violence against women. She added that this statistics did not show the exact violence against women and that was only the cases which have been referred to judicial and justice institutions. According to her, only little violence which is done against women in the villages is recorded.
In addition, on Monday, the International Day of Women, Afghan women staged a demonstration against street harassment applied against women. They chanted slogan, “Don’t taunt women, Stop teasing and taunting, we want immunity we are also citizens.” They railed against harassment and misbehavior which are used against women in public places. According to them, some men tease them by making fun of them, mocking, and even using foul languages.
Women suffer violence severely indoors and outdoors. Even though she is laboring twenty-four/seven, she is insulted, misbehaved, abused, tormented or even tortured to death. The girls are forced to marry whoever is selected by their fathers and however he is. Her dignity is broken through being used as a tool for satiating the carnal desire of men. Some unlucky girls fell victim of violence in their infancy that hardly ever survive. This is the violence used indoors.
Outdoors, poisonous acid is sprayed on her face on the way to school and her school is burned. She is attacked sexually on her school way as revenge to her brother or her father’s act. She is teased, mocked, threatened and even kidnapped. She walks fearfully and anxiously outdoors so as not to face any unlucky or shabby treatment.
In the villages the condition is severe. When I was working in a program under the name of ‘Elimination of Violence Against Women’ in Nahor District of Ghazni Province, I was amazed to see the women working the same as men in the field. Alike the men, they were cultivating, planting, harvesting, etc. moreover, at the same time they were also babysitting. They were working more than men because they had to work indoors as well such as cooking, preparing tea, washing dishes, etc. In addition, violence against women was also rampant there.
When I was conducting session to lecture women’s rights, in Nahor District, the men felt angry, some were looking askance at me, some were insulting me, and some were leaving the session as a protest. Except few villages, any villages I stepped in for conducting session, I was treated coldly by men. But mostly after the session, when they realized that I was talking from the perspective of Islam over the rights of women, they felt calm and happy.
It was tangible there that many of the men were uneducated and ignorant to the rights of women. They were trained in the same traditional areas with the traditional customs. Some were of the view that the rights of men are more than women or husband is higher than wife in position. Hence, ignorance was one of the factors leading to violence in that district.
It is believed that ignorance, poverty and joblessness are the great factors which bring out violence in our society. Hence, it is better for the government to spend time and energy on eradicating these factors together with adopting other official development strategies.