Shockingly high numbers of cases of violence against women have again raised a red flag on the issue and concerns that the fight to change the demographic is nowhere near done.
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) registered 4,000 cases over the past 11 months. Latifa Sultani, head of women’s rights at the commission, says cases of physical violence were the most reported (1,351) followed by verbal assault (1,093). Two hundred and thirty one women were murdered by their husbands or members of his immediate family.
The practice of ‘baad’ and underage marriages continue in spite of sustained campaigning by women’s rights departments of the government and non-government organisations.
On the basis of information from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, the situation has worsened. While it reported 821 cases in 2016, the number of cases reported over the same period last year was 2,167. Farzana Safi, head of women’s access to justice in the ministry, says 92 cases of killings were registered since March 2017.
Both the ministry and AIHRC have raised concerns about the rise in cases of murder in cold blood of women. AIHRC’s figure of 231 includes 84 cases from the north zone, 57 in the south, 34 from the west, 28 cases in the eastern zone and 15 in the central provinces. Latifa Sultani says investigations are going on but in some zones there is more progress than in others. She told Killid, “Unfortunately the level of people’s access to justice is not satisfying. Despite the fact that we are living in an Islamic country and have good supportive laws too but still the authorities have not been able to prevent the terrifying assassinations of women by family members.” Farzana Safi in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs sees it as a failure of implementation of the law in secure areas of the country. She said that most of the accused in murder cases escape to areas outside government control.
The concerns regarding a spike in violence against women, particularly the killing of women in such cases is because millions of dollars have been spent on raising awareness and implementing many programmes to ensure justice for the survivors.
