{"id":10487,"date":"2019-01-23T16:04:50","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T14:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=10487"},"modified":"2019-01-23T16:13:15","modified_gmt":"2019-01-23T14:13:15","slug":"2018-survey-of-afghan-people-shows-womens-rights-are-complicated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2019\/01\/2018-survey-of-afghan-people-shows-womens-rights-are-complicated\/","title":{"rendered":"2018 Survey of Afghan People Shows Women\u2019s Rights are Complicated"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE ASIA FOUNDATION<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

By Farrah Azeem Khan<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

According to The Asia Foundation\u2019s 2018\u00a0Survey of the Afghan People<\/em><\/a>, women\u2019s rights and participation in Afghanistan are improving, but very slowly. The broadest and longest-running nationwide poll of Afghan attitudes, the Survey has gathered the opinions of more than 112,000 men and women since 2004, providing a unique longitudinal portrait of evolving public perceptions of security, the economy, governance and government services, elections, the media, women\u2019s issues, and migration.<\/p>\n

Although the current Afghan government is publicly committed to women\u2019s rights and empowerment, women continue to face significant barriers<\/span>\u00a0to exercising those rights. It was not always thus. From the 1930s to the early 70s, Afghanistan was relatively liberal\u2014to the point that Kabul was often referred to as the Paris of Central Asia. In subsequent decades, however, women experienced significant repression, culminating in large-scale violations of women\u2019s rights and violence against women under the Taliban, who enforced strict gender segregation and the elimination of women from the public sphere.<\/p>\n

Since the removal of the Taliban regime in 2001, women have made substantial gains.<\/span>\u00a0Women\u2019s rights were enshrined in the national constitution of 2003, and successive national governments have vowed to protect women\u2019s rights, eliminate violence against women, and support women\u2019s economic empowerment and political participation. The Afghan constitution and the Law on Elimination of Violence against Women afford rights, protections, and opportunities to women that are unprecedented in the region and among other Muslim countries.<\/p>\n

The 2018 findings are encouraging when it comes to women\u2019s access to justice. More women than men (21.8% vs. 16.4%) reported bringing family disputes to court, the Huquq Department, or the local shura or jirga, progress that can be partly attributed to three agencies of the Afghan government\u2014the Ministry of Women\u2019s Affairs, the Attorney General\u2019s Office, and the police\u2014which have established specialized units to provide support services to women in cases of violence and civil disputes. Media and public awareness campaigns led by civil society organizations and international donors are also making women more aware of their rights. In many ways, this progress is a major collective achievement of grassroots activists, CSOs, the Afghan government, and the international community since 2001.<\/p>\n

Waning support for traditional practices such as\u00a0baad<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0baddal<\/em>\u00a0is another bright spot for women (figure 1), one of the few areas related to women\u2019s rights that has improved each year since 2004.\u00a0Baad<\/em>\u00a0is the practice of giving away a daughter to settle a debt or a dispute between families.\u00a0Baddal<\/em>\u00a0is the exchange of daughters in marriage between families, mostly for economic reasons. Both these practices neglect women\u2019s choice in marriage. This year, just 9.5% of respondents agree that\u00a0baad<\/em>\u00a0is an acceptable practice, down from 12.0% in 2017 and 18.0% in 2016, and the same downward trend holds true for\u00a0baddal<\/em>, which just 25.2% of respondents find acceptable in 2018, down from 29.1% in 2017 and 31.8% in 2016. Conversely, the acceptance of miras\u2014a daughter\u2019s right to inheritance from her father\u2014has continued to climb, with 90.2% of Afghans now agreeing that women are entitled to inherit. And despite a long tradition of child brides in Afghanistan, some 36.4% of men and 29.0% of women in 2018 say the ideal age for a girl to marry is 18 years.<\/p>\n

Local, national, and international activists and organizations must work as hard as ever for women\u2019s rights and empowerment in Afghanistan. The Foundation\u2019s 2018 Survey of the Afghan People provides valuable data that can be used by the Afghan government, the international community, researchers, and the media to support evidence-based policymaking and improve the public debate about women\u2019s rights in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Download the full report HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although the current Afghan government is publicly committed to women\u2019s rights and empowerment, women continue to face significant barriers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":10492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,19,85,43,11,17,49],"tags":[699,1063,958],"class_list":["post-10487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-citizens-and-civil-society","category-human-rights","category-human-rights-online-library","category-issues","category-women","category-womens-rights","tag-conflict-related-sexual-violence","tag-humans-rights","tag-womens-empowerment","country-afghanistan","Documents-conventions"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10487"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10493,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10487\/revisions\/10493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}