Women's rights in Afghanistan are improving but very slowly on an international level. Through different former rulers such as the mujahideen and the Taliban in the later part of the 20th century, women had very little to no freedom, specifically in terms of civil liberties. Ever since the Taliban regime was removed in 2001, women's rights have gradually improved under the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
Video Women's rights in Afghanistan
Overview
Afghanistan's population is roughly 34 million. Of this, 15 million are males and 14.2 million are females. About 22% of the Afghan people are urbanite and the remaining 78% live in rural areas. As part of local tradition, most females are married soon after completing high school. They live as housewives for the remainder of their life.
Rulers of Afghanistan have consistently attempted to increase women's freedom. For the most part, these attempts were unsuccessful; however, there were a few leaders who were able to make some significant changes. Among them was King Amanullah, who ruled from 1919 to 1929 and made some of the more noteworthy changes in an attempt to unify as well as modernize the country. He, along with other rulers following him, promoted freedom for women in the public sphere in order to lessen the control that patriarchal families had over women. King Amanullah stressed the importance of female education. Along with encouraging families to send their daughters to school, he promoted the unveiling of women and persuaded them to adopt a more western style of dress. In 1921, he created a law that abolished forced marriage, child marriage, bride price, and put restrictions on polygamy, a common practice among households in the Afghanistan region. However, over time these restrictions became nearly impossible to enforce.
Modern social reform for Afghan women began when Queen Soraya, wife of King Amanullah, made rapid reforms to improve women's lives and their position in the family. She was the only woman to appear on the list of rulers in Afghanistan and was credited with having been one of the first and most powerful Afghan and Muslim female activists. Queen Soraya, along with her husband's, advocacy of social reforms for women led to a protest and contributed to the ultimate demise of her and her husband's reign.
Throughout the 20th century, men continued to have ultimate control over women. In 1973, the state was declared a republic by the progressive Mohammed Daoud Khan. One of his main focuses was break free from the ultra-conservative, Islamist tradition of treating women as second-class citizens. During his time he made significant advances towards modernization. Small number of women were able to hold jobs as scientists, teachers, doctors, and civil servants, and they had a considerable amount of freedom with significant educational opportunities. The majority of women, however, lived as housewives and were excluded from these opportunities. In 1977, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) was founded by Meena Keshwar Kamal. Her office was moved to Quetta in Pakistan, where she was assassinated in 1987. RAWA still operates in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
Afghan Women's Council
The Afghan Women's Council (AWC) (also known as the Women's Council) was an organization under the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (1978-87) and the Republic of Afghanistan (between 1987-1992). Until 1989 the leader of the organization was Masuma Esmati-Wardak. The organization was run by Wardak and a staff of eight women. In 1978, under Nur Muhammad Taraki, the government gave equal rights to women. This gave them the ability to choose their husbands and careers. The membership of the AWC was around 150,000 and had offices in nearly all the provinces. Most of the women in Kabul resisted the Mujahideen because of their retrogressive laws concerning women.
The AWC provided social services to women in Afghanistan, in the fight against illiteracy and vocational training for those in the Secretary, hairdressing and workshop fields. Many feared the sacrificing of the AWC in the national reconciliation talks which started in 1987. It is claimed that in 1991 around seven thousand women were in the institution of higher education and around 230,000 girls studying in schools around Afghanistan. There were around 190 female professors and 22,000 female teachers.
Mujahideen and Taliban era
In 1992, the government under Mohammad Najibullah transitioned to the Islamic State of Afghanistan. War in Afghanistan continued into a new phase when Gulbuddin Hekmatyar started a bombardment campaign against the Islamic State in Kabul.
The restrictions imposed when the Islamic State was established were "the ban of alcohol and the enforcement of a sometimes-purely-symbolic veil for women". Women, however, remained in the workplace and the liberal provisions of the 1964 constitution were largely upheld. Women began to be more restricted after Hekmatyar was integrated into the Islamic State as Afghan Prime Minister in 1996. He demanded for women who appeared on TV to be fired. During the violent four-year civil war a number of women had been kidnapped and some of them raped. During this period the Taliban made their way to take control of Kabul.
Like their leader Mullah Omar, most Taliban soldiers were poor villagers educated in Wahhabi schools in neighboring Pakistan. Pashtuns of Pakistan also began joining the group. The Taliban declared that women were forbidden to go to work and they were not to leave their homes unless accompanied by a male family member. When they did go out it was required that they had to wear an all-covering burqa. Under these restrictions, women were denied formal education. Women were usually forced to stay at home and paint their windows so that no one could see in or out. During the Taliban's five-year rule, women in Afghanistan were essentially put under house arrest. Some women who once held respectable positions were forced to wander the streets in their burqas selling everything they owned or begging in order to survive. The United Nations refused to recognize the Taliban government, with the United States imposing heavy sanctions on them, similar as those placed on North Korea. This led to extreme hardship on all the citizens of Afghanistan.
Because most teachers had been women before the Taliban regime, the new restrictions on women's employment created a huge lack of teachers, which put an immense strain on the education of both boys and girls. Although women were banned from most jobs, including teaching, some women in the medical field were allowed to continue working. This is because the Taliban required that women could be treated only by female physicians. Moreover, for several reasons, it was difficult for women to seek medical attention. It was extremely frowned upon for women to need to go to a hospital, and those who did try to go to a hospital were usually beaten. Even when a woman was able to make it to a hospital she had no guarantee that she would be seen by a doctor.
Several Taliban and al-Qaeda commanders ran a network of human trafficking, abducting women and selling them into forced prostitution and slavery in Pakistan. Time Magazine writes: "The Taliban often argued that the brutal restrictions they placed on women were actually a way of revering and protecting the opposite sex. The behavior of the Taliban during the six years they expanded their rule in Afghanistan made a mockery of that claim."
21st century
In late 2001, a new government under Hamid Karzai was formed by the United Nations, which includes women like in pre-1990s Afghanistan.
In March 2012, President Karzai endorsed a "code of conduct" which was issued by the Ulema Council. Some of the rules state that "women should not travel without a male guardian and should not mingle with strange men in places such as schools, markets and offices." Karzai said that the rules were in line with Islamic law and that the code of conduct was written in consultation with Afghan women's group." Rights organizations and women activists said that by endorsing this code of conduct, Karzai is endangering "hard-won progress in women's right since the Taliban fell from power in 2001. The BBC reported that a number of women have reacted to the endorsement with humor. One Afghan woman working in London posted on Facebook "Ladies, you should not surface on Facebook without a male partner."
The overall situation for Afghan women has improved in the last decade, particularly in the major urban areas, but those living in rural parts of the country still face many problems. In 2013, a female Indian author Sushmita Banerjee was killed in Paktika province by militants for allegedly defying Taliban diktats. She was married to an Afghan businessman and had recently relocated to Afghanistan. Earlier she had escaped two instances of execution by the Taliban in 1995 and later fled to India. Her book based on her escape from Taliban was also filmed in a Bollywood film.
A 2011 government report found that 25 percent of the women and girls diagnosed with fistula were younger than 16 when they married. In 2013, the United Nations published statistics showing a 20% increase in violence against women, often due to domestic violence being justified by conservative religion and culture. In February 2014, Afghanistan passed a law that includes a provision that limits the ability of government to compel some family members to be witnesses to domestic violence. Human Rights Watch described the implementation of the 2009 Law on the Elimination of Violence Against Women as "poor," noting that some cases are ignored.
In March 2015 Farkhunda Malikzada, a 27-year-old Afghan woman, was publicly beaten and slain by a mob of hundreds of people in Kabul on a false accusation of Quran desecration. A number of prominent public officials turned to Facebook immediately after the death to endorse the murder. After it was revealed that she did not burn the Quran, the public reaction in Afghanistan turned to shock and anger. Her murder and the subsequent protests served to draw attention to women's rights in Afghanistan.
Human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom have expressed concern at women's rights in the country. According to latest reports, Afghanistan ranks as one of the top worst countries for women.
Maps Women's rights in Afghanistan
Politics and workforce
A number of women served as members of the Afghan Parliament, including Shukria Barakzai, Fauzia Gailani, Nilofar Ibrahimi, Fauzia Koofi, Malalai Joya, and many others. Several women also took positions as ministers, including Suhaila Seddiqi, Sima Samar, Husn Banu Ghazanfar, and Suraya Dalil. Habiba Sarabi became the first female governor in Afghanistan. She also served as Minister of Women's Affairs. Azra Jafari became the first female mayor of Nili, the capital of Daykundi Province.
The Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), which includes the Afghan National Police, have a growing number of female officers. One of the Afghan National Army Brigadier generals is Khatol Mohammadzai. In 2012, Niloofar Rahmani became the first female pilot in the Afghan Air Force pilot training program to fly solo. Other notable Afghan women include Roya Mahboob, Aziza Siddiqui, Mary Akrami, Suraya Pakzad, Wazhma Frogh, Shukria Asil, Shafiqa Quraishi, Maria Bashir, Maryam Durani, Malalai Bahaduri, and Nasrin Oryakhil. In 2015, a 17-year-old Negin Khpolwak became Afghanistan's first female music conductor.
The most popular traditional work for women in Afghanistan is tailoring, and a large percentage of the population are professional tailors working from home. Since the fall of the Taliban women have returned to work in Afghanistan. Some women became entrepreneurs by starting own businesses. For example, Meena Rahmani became the first woman in Afghanistan to open a bowling center in Kabul. Many others are employed by companies and small businesses.
Because Afghanistan has a struggling economy overwhelmed with massive unemployment and poverty, women often cannot find work where they receive sufficient pay. One area of the economy where women do play a significant role is in agriculture. Of the 80 percent of Afghans employed in the agriculture field or similar occupations, 30 percent of them are women. In some areas in Afghanistan, women may spend as much time working on the land as men do, but still often earn three times less than men in wages. According to World Bank, in 2014, women made up 16.1% of the labor force in Afghanistan.
In terms of percentage women rank high in the fields of medicine and media, and are slowly working their way into the field of justice. Because women are still highly encouraged to consult a female physician when they go to the hospital, nearly fifty percent of all Afghans in the medical profession are women. The number of women having professions in the media is also rising. Currently there are more than ten television stations that have all female anchors as well as female producers. As women are given more opportunities in education and the workforce, more of them are turning towards careers in medicine, media, and justice.
However, even the women that are given the opportunity to have careers have to struggle to balance their home life with their work life, as household tasks are seen as primarily female duties. Since the economy is so weak, very few women can afford to hire domestic helpers, so they are forced to take care of all the household work primarily on their own. Those who choose to work must labour twice as hard because they are essentially holding two jobs.
Education
Education in Afghanistan is very poor but slowly improving. The literacy rate for females is merely 24.2%. There are around 9 million students in the country. Of this, about 60% are males and 40% females. Over 174,000 students are enrolled in different universities around the country. About 21% of these are females.
In the early twentieth century, education for women was extremely rare due to the lack of schools for girls. Occasionally girls were able to receive an education on the primary level but they never moved past the secondary level. During Zahir Shah's reign (1933-1973) education for women became a priority and young girls began being sent to schools. At these schools, girls were taught discipline, new technologies, ideas, and socialization in society.
Kabul University was opened to girls in 1947 and by 1973 there was an estimated 150,000 girls in schools across Afghanistan. Unfortunately, marriage at a young age added to the high drop out rate but more and more girls were entering professions that were once viewed as only being for men. Women were being given new opportunities to earn better lives for both themselves and their families. However, in the after the civil war and the takeover by the Taliban, women were stripped of these opportunities and sent back to lives where they were to stay at home and be controlled by their husbands and fathers.
During the Taliban regime, many women who had previously been teachers began secretly giving an education to young girls (as well as some boys) in their neighborhoods, teaching from ten to sixty children at a time. The homes of these women became community homes for students, and were entirely financed and managed by women. News about these secret schools spread through word of mouth from woman to woman. Each day young girls would hide all their school supplies, such as books, notebooks and pencils, underneath their burqas to go to school. At these schools, young females were taught basic literary skills, numeracy skills, and various other subjects such as biology, chemistry, English, Quranic Studies, cooking, sewing, and knitting. Many women involved in teaching were caught by the Taliban and persecuted, jailed, and tortured.
The Taliban are still opposed to education for Afghan boys and girls. They are burning down schools, killing students and teachers by all kinds of means, including chemical warfare. For example, in June 2012, fifteen suspects were detained by Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) "in connection with the serial anti-school attacks in northern Afghanistan." The NDS believes that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence was behind the idea. During the same period, Pakistan has been refusing to deliver Afghan bound school text books.
In 2015 the Kabul University began the first master's degree course in gender and women's studies in Afghanistan.
Sport
In the last decade Afghan women have participated in various types of sports including futsal, football, and basketball. In 2015 Afghanistan held its first marathon; among those who ran the entire marathon was one woman, Zainab, age 25, who thus became the first Afghan woman to run in a marathon within her own country.
Marriage and parenting
Afghanistan is a patriarchal society where it is commonly believed that men are entitled to make decisions for women, include those pertaining to engagement and marriage. A man can divorce without needing his wife's agreement, whereas the opposite is not true.
The country has a high total fertility rate, at 5.33 children born/woman as of 2015. Contraception use is low: 21.2% of women, as of 2010/11.
Arranged marriages are very common in this part of the world. After a marriage is arranged, the two families sign an engagement contract that both parties are socially and culturally obligated to honor. It is common among low-income families for the groom to pay a bride price to the bride's family. The price is negotiated among the heads of the family; the bride herself is not included in the negotiation process. The bride price is viewed as compensation for the money that the bride's family has had to spend on her care and upbringing.
In certain areas females are sometimes bartered in a method of dispute resolution called baad that proponents say helps avoid enmity and violence between families, although the females themselves are sometimes subject to considerable violence both before and after marrying into a family through baad. The practice of baad is considered illegal in Afghanistan.
Under the Afghan law, "if a woman seeks a divorce then she has to have the approval of her husband and needs witnesses who can testify in court that the divorce is justified." The first occurrence of a woman divorcing a man in Afghanistan was the divorce initiated by Rora Asim Khan, who divorced her husband in 1927. This was described as unique at the time it occurred, but this was an exception, as Rora Asim Khan was a foreign citizen, who obtained her divorce by assistance from the German embassy.
See also
- Women for Afghan Women
- Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan
- Afghan Women's Network
- Afghan Women's Council
- Afghan Women's Business Federation
- Access for Afghan Women Act
- Afghanistan women's national football team
- Afghanistan national women's cricket team
- Prostitution in Afghanistan
- The Afghan Women
- Women in Islam
- Women in Arab societies
- Women in agriculture in Afghanistan
- DIY Creations - Empowering women through business startups in Afghanistan
- Humira Saqib
References
External links
- Afghan Women - National Geographic
- A Place At The Table: Safeguarding Women's Rights in Afghanistan
- Women, Afghan Law, and Sharia
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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