{"id":2626,"date":"2014-01-24T21:21:55","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T19:21:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=2626"},"modified":"2014-01-24T21:35:41","modified_gmt":"2014-01-24T19:35:41","slug":"womens-rights-in-afghanistan-worsen-in-2013-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2014\/01\/womens-rights-in-afghanistan-worsen-in-2013-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s rights in Afghanistan worsen in 2013: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

NBC<\/a><\/p>\n

\"140123_afghanwomen.photoblog600\"<\/a>

Aref Karimi \/ AFP – Getty Images
Two burqa-clad Afghan women walk on the outskirts of Herat on Wednesday.<\/p><\/div>\n

KABUL \u2013 Women\u2019s rights in Afghanistan have regressed in the past year, increasing worry about what the future holds, according to a\u00a0Human Rights Watch report<\/a>\u00a0released Thursday.<\/p>\n

As the country faces a large-scale troop withdrawal by the end of 2014, the organization expressed concern that, \u201cwith international interest in Afghanistan rapidly waning, opponents of women\u2019s rights seized the opportunity to begin rolling back the progress made since the end of Taliban rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comprehensive global report outlines actions it says Afghan President Hamid Karzai\u2019s government has taken to specifically undermine rights for women and girls.<\/p>\n

Among those actions was a parliamentary attempt to appeal the groundbreaking law on the \u201cElimination of Violence Against Women,\u201d which was passed by presidential decree in 2009.<\/span><\/div>\n

Although the law remains valid, its enforcement is weak, the report states. A brief debate on the law \u201cheralded, and perhaps triggered, subsequent attacks and setbacks within the government during the year,\u201d said the Human Rights Watch report.<\/p>\n

Another setback was the reduction of parliamentary seats reserved for women from 25 percent to 20 percent, triggering concern that female representation may even wane further in years to come.<\/p>\n

Also, the Ministry of Justice \u2014 with parliamentary approval \u2014 revised the criminal code, adding a provision that bans family member testimony in criminal cases. This, the report argues, \u201cmakes it extremely difficult to prosecute domestic violence and child and forced marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

During 2013 there was also an uptick in violence against high-profile women in positions of authority. Targeted assassinations included the\u00a0shooting of a member of parliament, Roh Gul<\/a>, as she was traveling through Ghazni province with her family in August. She survived the attack but her 8-year-old daughter and driver were killed.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, world-renowned author\u00a0Sushmita Banerjee was also found murdered\u00a0<\/a>in September. Her dramatic memoirs about marrying an Afghan man and escaping the Taliban were turned into a Bollywood movie, \u201cEscape From the Taliban,\u201d before she moved back to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

And the highest ranking police officer in Helmand Province, Lt. Nigar, who was known by just one name,\u00a0was killed<\/a>\u00a0just months after her predecessor\u2019s assassination.<\/p>\n

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Beyond attacks on women\u2019s rights, the report outlines other general examples of \u201cdeclining respect for human rights\u201d across the country.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cImpunity for abuses was the norm for government security forces and other armed groups,\u201d it states, which raises concerns about the \u201cfairness of the upcoming presidential election.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NBC KABUL \u2013 Women\u2019s rights in Afghanistan have regressed in the past year, increasing worry about what the future holds, according to a\u00a0Human Rights Watch report\u00a0released Thursday. As the country faces a large-scale troop withdrawal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,166,90,16,85,65,88,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-afghanistan-womens-50-campaign","category-editor-selection","category-expert-narratives","category-human-rights","category-others","category-slider","category-womens-rights","country-afghanistan","Documents-statements-multimedia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2626","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2628,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2626\/revisions\/2628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}