“We Have the Promises of the World”
December 6, 2009

X. Recommendations

Regarding Attacks on Women in Public Life

Human Rights Watch urges the Afghan Government to:

  • Publicly condemn all attacks against women in public life.
  • Ensure that all cases of harassment, threats, and intimidation of women in public life are recorded, monitored, investigated, and prosecuted by officials from the Ministry of Interior or Office of the Attorney General.
  • Review current responses to threats and attacks on women in public life. Work with women in public life to devise and implement reforms necessary to strengthen the government’s response to such threats and attacks.
  • Ensure that security is provided for women who are under threat.
  • Ensure that the abuse of state security resources through patronage networks ends and that security resources (including police escort and vehicles) are allocated on the basis of need rather than political favor.
  • Prioritize investigations into assassinations of women in public life and identify preventive measures.
  • Ensure that women are appointed to high profile political roles, including as ministers and deputy ministers.
  • Reverse the decline in employment of women in the civil service.
  • Ensure that the security of women candidates and voters is addressed from the very start of preparations for the 2010 parliamentary elections.

Human Rights Watch Urges International Donors to:

  • Continue to support long term mechanisms that offer protection for women in public life.
  • Speak out against the failure of the government to select women for high profile roles, including ministerial positions.
  • Provide long-term support for programs to encourage women to enter and remain in public life, including capacity-building programs and assistance with local networking initiatives.

Regarding Sexual Violence

Human Rights Watch Urges the Afghan Government to:

  • Investigate and prosecute crimes of sexual violence.
  • Treat sexual violence as a crime and not a private matter. Prevent informal conflict resolution mechanisms (jirgas and shuras) from addressing the crime of rape through customary norms that violate women’s rights. Ensure that traditional conflict resolution mechanisms do not result in violence or discrimination against women.
  • Release from detention any women or girls charged with the non-existent crime of “running away from home” and issue an apology and compensation for their wrongful arrest.
  • Ensure that no perpetrator of a crime receives preferential treatment or immunity by virtue of his or her connections, social status or any other ground. Investigate cases of political interference in criminal investigations and court processes and hold accountable anyone found guilty of interference.
  • Ensure the creation of complaint mechanisms that allow women to safely report cases of sexual violence, including access to safe houses where appropriate.
  • Ensure that the Elimination of Violence Against Women law is amended with the rights-protective amendments outlined in this report and is fully implemented. Include timelines within the legislation and allocate sufficient resources through the budget to ensure effective implementation.
  • Ensure that women and girls who have been subject to gender based violence have access to services, including medical care and shelters.
  • Ensure that judges, police, and prosecutors receive clear guidance on the distinction between coercive and consensual zina and that no woman who has been raped is prosecuted for “consensual” zina.
  • Ensure that rape is a serious crime under the Elimination of Violence Against Women law and that awareness of the crime is subsequently increased in relevant government ministries (Ministry of Interior, Justice, Public Health, Office of the Attorney General, Supreme Court), in parliament, and among religious leaders.
  • Provide adequate training for law enforcement officials on the provisions of the Elimination of Violence Against Women law to ensure that they are able to implement the provisions of the law.
  • Enact measures to ensure that the media respect and promote respect for women when reporting on gender based and sexual violence. Run extensive awareness-raising campaigns on TV and Radio about gender-based violence in order to increase public understanding of women’s rights and the legal sanctions against crimes of violence against women. Ensure that there is a sufficient budget allocated to carry out this awareness raising.
  • Run specific campaigns to increase understanding of rape as a crime and attempt to reduce the re-victimization of rape victims by their families, communities, and government authorities.
  • Ensure that Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs continue to work towards offering services to victims of rape, including access to medical help, and counseling with a trained female counselor. Prioritize the recruitment and training of female counsellors.
  • Compile and publish statistics annually on the nature and extent of violence against women.

Human Rights Watch Urges the National Assembly to:

  • Strengthen the EVAW law through consultation with women parliamentarians and civil society groups.
  • Ensure that the legislation contains a clear definition of rape as a serious crime, one distinct from zina or adultery.
  • Ensure that the legislation contains a clear sanction against “honor killings” with the same punishments as other kinds of murder.
  • Ensure that the EVAW legislation contains adequate funding mechanisms to ensure that all articles are enforced within a firm timeframe.
  • Remove the death penalty as a potential sanction for any crime under the EVAW.

 

Human Rights Watch Urges International Donors to:

  • Press the government to investigate and prosecute crimes of sexual violence.
  • Press the government to treat sexual violence as a crime and not a private matter. Prevent informal conflict resolution mechanisms (jirgas and shuras) from addressing the crime of rape through customary norms that violate women’s rights. Insist that traditional conflict resolution mechanisms do not result in violence or discrimination against women. Push for existing laws are enforced regarding violence against women, forced marriage, and child marriage.
  • Support efforts to train police to treat violence against women as a crime.
  • Speak out against clear cases of political interference in cases of violence against women.
  • Provide technical support where necessary for implementation of the EVAW law.
  • Provide funds to assist long term support of awareness-raising campaigns about violence against women.
  • Support research on violence against women to improve understanding of the problem.
  • Support Afghan NGOs and civil society groups to work on awareness raising in local communities, in families, and with religious leaders.

Regarding Forced and Child Marriage

Human Rights Watch Urges the Afghan Government to:

  • Continue efforts to ensure all newborn babies have a birth certificate, and retroactively register past births.
  • Adopt and implement legislation to make registration of marriages obligatory. Consider making the registration certificates free so that the charges do not act as a deterrent.
  • Review the registration process with a view to making every district have a public official who can record births, deaths, and marriages.
  • Consider mechanisms to allow marriage registration to take place in wedding halls and/or mosques by qualified officials or religious leaders who have received training.
  • Ensure that the EVAW law is amended and clarified with the rights-protective amendments outlined in this report and ensure that all law enforcement bodies receive training in recognizing, investigating, and prosecuting cases of child or forced marriage.
  • Enforce the existing law that penalizes forced marriages, and the new EVAW legislation on forced marriage.
  • Consider amending the criminal law to include punishments for those who are accomplices in child and forced marriages, potentially including the bridegroom (if he is an adult), witnesses, attorneys, the aqid (the one who weds the couple) and others.
  • Ensure that the EVAW legislation includes protections for girls subjected to child, forced, and baad marriages so that they are not left in a financially vulnerable position after a marriage is invalidated.

Human Rights Watch Urges the Ministry of Interior and Office of the Attorney General to:

  • Ensure that all new and existing police officers and prosecutors receive training in recognizing, investigating, and prosecuting cases of forced marriage.
  • Ensure that, if the EVAW legislation criminalizes child marriage, all new and existing police officers and prosecutors receive training in recognizing, investigating, and prosecuting cases of child marriage.
  • Ensure that women or girls who try to escape forced or child marriages are referred to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and never criminalized on bogus charges of “running away from home.”

Human Rights Watch Urges International Donors to:

  • Support Afghan NGOs and civil society organizations to help raise awareness of the consequences of child and forced marriage.
  • Support awareness-raising campaigns about child and forced marriage.

Regarding Access to Justice

Human Rights Watch Urges the Minister of Interior and Attorney General to:

  • Provide additional training on women’s rights, gender discrimination, and violence against women for all new recruits to the police force and Office of the Attorney General and provide continuous assessment and training for existing police officers and prosecutors.
  • Ensure that all reported crimes against women are recorded and investigated.
  • Reduce corruption and nepotism in the state court system and ensure that those responsible are investigated and brought to justice.
  • Ensure that traditional dispute resolution mechanisms do not result in violence or discrimination against women.
  • Prioritize recruitment of women police officers, and ensure that there are sufficient women to staff Family Response Units (FRUs).
  • Provide specialist training for all FRU staff.
  • Fund awareness-raising and community outreach programs to increase awareness of FRUs and their mandate among the population.
  • Equip all FRUs with facilities including separate offices and bathrooms, and provide separate buildings or entrances to reduce stigmatization of women accessing the units.
  • Provide additional training for female recruits to ensure basic literacy requirements are met.
  • Ensure that Family Response Units are themselves protected and secure and that any threats against women police officers are taken seriously with investigations carried out and action taken against perpetrators of threats or attacks.
  • Monitor the work of FRUs for potential abuses and misconduct.
  • Ensure that any medical examinations of women who have been victims of violence or are accused of zina are carried out only by qualified female doctors.

Human Rights Watch Urges the Supreme Court to:

  • Provide training for new and existing judges about women’s rights, gender discrimination, and violence against women and girls.
  • Clarify the difference for all judges between coerced and consensual zina under existing laws, and the meaning of the crime of rape under the new Elimination of Violence Against women law.
  • Ensure that all judges understand that rape is a crime that the Supreme Court takes seriously and that women and girls who have been raped should not be punished.
  • Clarify the law to all judges so that the women and girls are never charged for “running away from home.”
  • Consider witness protection schemes for cases of violence against women.
  • Review the obstacles to women seeking justice in the court system, including inflexible requirements for witnesses.

Human Rights Watch Urges International Donors to:

  • Prioritize long term support for strengthening the court system with particular attention to increasing access for women.
  • Ensure that any programs working with traditional dispute resolution mechanisms help to eradicate practices which condone violence and discrimination against women and girls and do not fund initiatives which continue to employ rights abusing practices including the use of baad.
  • Urgently address shortcomings in training of staff in FRUs, and provide mentoring for each FRU.
  • Strengthen sessions on gender-based violence and laws regarding women’s rights in police training programs.
  • Provide long term support for Legal Aid Referral Centers for Women and promote the training of more women to ensure that they can continue to be staffed by qualified women.

Regarding Girls Secondary School Education

Human Rights Watch Urges the Afghan Government to:

  • Work on retention strategies for girls enrolled in primary school so they continue their education.
  • Collect information on why students fail to enroll or drop out and use this information to develop gender-sensitive enrollment and retention strategies.
  • Increase the number and geographic coverage of girls’ secondary classes by:
    • Building more girls’ secondary schools
    • Converting boys’ schools into co-ed schools, including by introducing morning and afternoon shifts, and adding secondary level classes to existing primary schools.
    • When building new schools, involve women and girls in the decisions about their location.
    • Allocate funds to provide transportation for female students.
  • Condition the creation of new schools on equal access for girls in each area.
  • Monitor the location and condition of girls’, boys’, and co-ed schools in order to plan strategically for expanded coverage and equal access for boys and girls.
  • Prioritize work in geographical areas with low participation by girls in education
  • Ensure that sufficient numbers of women teachers are being recruited and trained, with greater flexibility in training capacity in rural areas.

Human Rights Watch Urges the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Defense, the National Directorate of Security, and the Attorney General’s Office to:

  • Prioritize the protection of educational facilities and staff.
  • Investigate all attacks on schools, teachers, and students, and ensure that those responsible are held to account.
  • Work with local communities to ensure that they assist in the protection of their schools and are aware of the commitment of the government to preventing attacks on girls’ schools.

Human Rights Watch Urges the Taliban, Hezb-e Islami, and Other Armed Groups to:

  • Immediately stop all attacks on education, including teachers, students, and their schools.
  • Cease all threats against teachers and students, such as through the use of night letters.
  • Publicly declare an end to such attacks and threats.

Human Rights Watch Urges International Donors to:

  • Increase support for construction of secondary schools for girls.
  • Increase support for teacher training institutes for women in rural areas.
  • Prioritize programs in areas where girls’ enrollment or attendance is low.
  • Support community owned transportation alternatives for students, with a priority on girls’ access to education.
  • Support the construction of school perimeter walls, buildings, and girls’ bathroom facilities where communities believe that this will encourage the retention of teenage girls.