More and more women are coming forward to report cases of violence by husbands and members of the family. But the rate of conviction is disappointingly low, say the victims and human rights activists.
More and more women are coming forward to report cases of violence by husbands and members of the family. But the rate of conviction is disappointingly low, say the victims and human rights activists. An investigation by the Independent Media Consortium Productions (IMCP).*Afghanistan has reported a rise in violent crimes against women that range from sexual assault to murder and beating; the rampant practice of ba’ad (where a family gives their daughter in compensation to a family for a crime committed); refusal to give alimony in case of divorce; and, failure to implement the right of inheritance.
A joint investigation conducted by the six-member IMCP reveals widespread concern about the spiraling wave of abuse in the past two years. The AIHRC (Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission) recorded two hundred cases of murder and rape between January and September 2012. In the previous year the commission had reported 89 cases of murder and 45 cases of sexual abuse of women.
Latifa Sultani, women’s rights programme coordinator at the AIHRC, says the commission has a record of only 211 cases of women murdered by their family members between 2002 and 2010 because it was impossible to penetrate the silence around crimes of this kind. Families were not prepared to report such deaths to either the police or rights organisations.
Gross failure
The improved reporting has however not seen an improvement in the rate of punishment of offenders. In 40 percent of cases the accused have not even been investigated, indicating the gross failure of the justice system to establish guilt and redress the victim’s grievance. In cases where the police have probed the crime, the accused have “bribed” their way out of trouble.
Eng. Nafisa Azimi, a member of the parliamentary Women’s Affairs Commission, agrees with the AIHRC’s findings. She says the failure to prosecute the accused has been established as a reason for the rise in cases of violence against women in a 2012 study by AIHRC.
Latifa Sultani reiterates, “The lack of decisive reaction against the culprits and perpetrators of mentioned violence can be the reason for murder of women as well as the sexual aggression on them.”
Fawzia Amini, head of the Legal Department at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, acknowledges there has been an increase in the number of murder and rape, and says the ministry is very concerned. The ministry has recorded 90 cases of murder and 50 of rape in the first nine months of 1391.
Civil society
Last year, AIHRC convened a meeting on the pervasive violence against women. Participants included government authorities, victims of violence and representatives of civil society. There was near consensus about the lack of “decisive action” against the accused in crimes against women.
Latifa Sultani told IMCP, “Decisive action has not been taken against the culprits. Some have fled; others pay the bribe (allegedly demanded by law authorities) and get away.” The situation in remote areas is much worse.
So-called honour killings have increased manifold, according to Sultani, with the guilty hiding behind the controversial Article 398 of the Afghanistan Criminal Code.
The article states that it is legitimate for a husband to kill or wound his wife if he has proof of her infidelity. He cannot be tried for murder but can be awarded a maximum sentence of two years. And when it is vice-versa, the accused woman would be “convicted with a harder punishment”, says AIHRC’s Sultani.
Denied rights
There are people in the government who have killed their wives knowing they cannot be touched, she adds. She could not identify either the murderers or their families in case they took revenge.
“Ours is a patriarchal society. In some parts of Afghanistan there are judges who don’t believe women should have rights,” she observes.
In the opinion of judge Parwin Rahimi, head of the women’s rights and support at AIHRC, most of the killings have been carried out by people who are supported by the powerful people or living under support of powerful people. “Let their names be handed over to the president in anonymous letters,” she argues.
A case in point, she claims is an incident that happened two years ago. “A deaf-mute girl was sexually abused in a neighbouring province. She delivered a child. But the man responsible was never arrested. Whenever the AIHRC asked government authorities what they were doing in the case, they claimed he was a fugitive from the law,”
Rahimi cites yet another example of justice being bent to favour the accused. Nine years ago a man who killed his 12 year old daughter was sent to prison for 12 years. But a year later he was out of prison. “That made us very concerned,” she says.
In another instance two daughters were sexually assaulted by their father. Medical investigation also confirmed the charge but the court dismissed the charge against the father, Jamshed, for lack of evidence.
The AIHRC would continue to appeal in the case, Rahimi says. She is certain the father has bribed court officials. Transparency International in a report released recently has estimated bribes worth 1,250 million USD were given to Afghan justice and judicial officials.
Plea for justice
The case of the two daughters is emblematic. Their mother Rahela, a teacher in Khair Khana Kotal girls’ school (teacher in a girls school in Sar-e-Kotal of Khair Khana), has accused her husband (Jamshed) of raping his two daughters who are 14 and 15 years old respectively. They were repeatedly assaulted over three days last December.
“My husband forced himself on my two daughters,” the mother says very boldly. She says he locked the two girls in the bathroom on Dec 11, but they managed to escape through the window. A case was first reported at the 11th security district in Kabul.
Rahela claims court officials told her that her husband paid about 300,000 Afs (5,465 USD) as bribes in the court. He was let off by Sefatullah, the judge, for lack of evidence. She says the judge told her she was guilty of leaving her daughters alone with her husband. “You should have hidden a camera in the room that now you would have proof. Now you don’t (have any proof).”
Two views
Differing results of two medical examinations on the two girls appear to have gone against them.
Dr Ghulam Farooq Masjedi, head of Forensic Medicine Department, confirms that both girls (their names have been deliberately withheld to protect their identities) were examined by his female doctors.
The result of examinations that have been carried out in December 2012 (a copy is available with IMC) shows that the hymen is intact.
But another section in the Department of Forensic Medicine has certified differently after examination. The report states: “Considering the results of commission and results of histology laboratory gotten from virginity membrane the spermatozoon have been seen that shows a positive result.”
The two teenage girls say they were frequently sexually assaulted by their father. In tears, the elder girl says, “My father must be punished. That is our request to the government.”
Efforts to contact their father, Jamshed, failed.
Meanwhile, Kabul resident Sayed Abdul Rahim says justice has been denied in the murder of his sister.
His sister Freshta, who was a mother of three children, was killed by her husband, Abdul Wase, on night of Jan 21. The police arrested him, his two brothers and their father in connection with the murder. Abdul Wase was sentence to death but the rest were released by Kabul Primary Court.
Rahim says Wase’s mother and sister should also be tried because the accused had confessed that he planned the crime with their assistance. He believes Wase has paid 300,000 Afs worth of bribes to court officials to influence the case.
Allegations of bias
In another case, Mohammad Alam from Bamiyan province complains his 16-years-old sister Shakila was shot in February 2011 in Zargaran village of Bamyan but her dossier was kept pending in the Attorney General’s (AG’s) Office.
Mohammad Alam who has come to Kabul to pursue the case says Shakila was killed in her married sister’s house. Her sister’s husband Qurban was earlier a guard of Sayed Wahidi Beheshti, former Member of Parliament (MP) from Bamyan.
At the time of the murder Qurban’s wife was not at home but Beheshti, his wife and his brother’s son were present. Mohammad Alam was told by Beheshti’s nephew that his sister had committed suicide.
Mohammad Alam says: “The security forces got the finger prints of Qurban, his wife and Shakila but they neither got the finger print of Beheshti, his wife and nephew nor were they investigated as they were respected people in the area.”
According to Mohammad Alam, the primary court convicted Qurban who was not involved in the case but he got relief in the second court.
Alam accuses Sayed Jamal Fakoori Beheshti, MP, and brother of Wahidi Beheshti of keeping pending the dossier of the case.
But the MP says, “Murder of Shakila is not linked to me and my brother at all. Shakila committed suicide in her sister’s house, and Shakila’s sister is a witness in the case.” He denied charges that he had a hand in slowing down the progress of the case dossier.
Fatima Kazimi, the head of Bamyan’s Department of Women’s Affairs would like to see the murderers punished in the case. She thinks the facts seem to indicate Shakila was killed and did not commit suicide.
“When we heard about the case, we sent our officers to investigate one day after the murder of Shakila,” she says. “We found that the case cannot be followed up and there is a game of power. For instance the AG’s Office had arrested Qurban who was not present during the murder but they never interrogated those who were present at the (crime) scene.”
Basir Azizi, spokesperson at the AG’s Office, denied the charges of corruption. He said the dossiers were being investigated according to the law, and if rights organisations feel 40 percent of rape and murder cases are not probed they should “contact the AG’s office”.
(*) Independent Media Consortium is a joint initiative of Pajhwok Afghan News, The Killid Group (radio and print media), Saba Media Organisation (Saba TV-Radio Nawa nets) and Hasht-e-Subh. This is the second of a series of investigative reports on corruption and human rights cases.
Pajhwok’s Zarghona Salehi shares the IMCP’s investigative reporters’ team.
