Young Afghan posing in front of one of the graffiti works of artist Reza Amiri. Credit: Giuliano Battiston/IPS

By Giuliano Battiston
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Jul 8 2013 (IPS)

While United States President Barack Obama and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai scramble to solidify a peace process ahead of the 2014 withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan, fears that the Taliban will use the drawdown to seize power hang like a dark cloud over civil society.

Although NATO handed over the reins to the 352,000-strong Afghan security force on Jun. 18, signaling the end of 12 years of international military presence on Afghan soil that began with the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, unanswered questions mingle with smoke from militant attacks that show no sign of abating.

Even before the power transfer ceremony was complete, a car bomb exploded near the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) offices in western Kabul, killing three and wounding 20.

Unsurprisingly, the Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack, which raised the ire of civilians and activists keeping a close eye on peace talks and the possible inclusion of Taliban representatives in a post-2014 government.“The fact is that they want (total) power for themselves. And we cannot accept that.” -- Asadullah Larawi, regional officer for the Civil Society Development Center

The militants’ new head office in the Gulf emirate of Qatar seems to suggest that the group has already laid its plans for the soon-to-be independent country, placing itself in a central role as future negotiator and national representative. But the 35 million people who have lived for years under the Taliban’s boot might need some convincing.

In Jalalabad, capital of the eastern Nangarhar Province, which sits at the junction of the Kabul and Kunar rivers not far from the border with Pakistan, no one troubles to lower their voice when expressing scepticism about ongoing negotiations, or when criticising the lack of transparency surrounding future plans, none of which have been made public.

This city is hardened after years of war and still shocked by the May 29 attack on the local offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that left one guard dead and three staff members injured, and served as a stark reminder that peace is a long way off.

Hambullah Arbab, artist and regional coordinator of the Youth in Action Association, told IPS that the peace process is failing as a result of incorrect assumptions and methods.

He said that conflicts in Afghanistan are traditionally settled through “jirga” and “shura” (local councils), the idea being that there is a need for neutral third parties to arbitrate any dispute between warring sides.

In the current peace process, however, this role has been assigned to the High Peace Council (HPC). It is a body that the Taliban sees as “illegitimate”, having been created by Karzai in 2010 and chaired by former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, leader of the Jamiat-e-Islami, a party that has a long and conflicted history with the Taliban.

Others fear that the armed group, accustomed to violence, coercion and terror tactics, will be unable to surrender itself to the democratic process or the will of the country’s 35 million people.

“Whoever honestly wants peace can be part of the government,” Ezatullah Zawab, founder and chief editor of the bi-monthly cultural magazine Meena, told IPS, adding that civil society is open to welcoming the Taliban on the condition that the militants stay true to their word of using peaceful means to achieve their goals.

Since late April, Karzai has extended numerous invitations to the Taliban leadership to participate in the upcoming presidential election that is scheduled for Apr. 15, 2014. This will test the waters of public opinion, and allow the Afghan people – not foreign forces or armed groups – to determine the country’s future.

Mohammed Anwar Sultani, a former professor at Nangarhar University and a respected elder in Jalalabad, believes that in the unlikely event that the Taliban fields candidates, few Afghans will be inclined to vote for them.

“The Taliban have already had their chance to rule the country, and they failed,” he said, referring to the period between 1996 and 2001 when, under the flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban exercised total control from their seat of power in the southern city of Kandahar, and in central Kabul.

Having risen to power amid clashes between warring mujahideen groups and waves of brutal rapes throughout the country, the majority Pashtun Taliban portrayed themselves as the saviours of the Afghan people and the guarantors of safety.

“We were convinced they were a bird bringing peace,” Sultani told IPS. It was not until Sultani, like scores of others, witnessed their brutal and coercive regime that he realised he had been misguided, and grew suspicious of the militants.

He is not alone; suspicion is widespread, as is confusion about exactly who and what constitutes the Taliban.

Jalalabad regional officer for the Civil Society Development Center (CSDC) Asadullah Larawi firmly believes that the country should reject “foreign elements”, referring to allegations that the Afghan Taliban is backed by, and takes its orders from, Pakistan’s intelligence service.

Still, he strongly endorses the idea of dialogue with the Afghan Taliban if they are willing to accept the achievements of the last decade, like “freedom of speech, freedom of the media, human rights and women’s rights.”

“The fact is that they want (total) power for themselves,” Larawi told IPS. “And we cannot accept that.”

The country’s constitution also offers some middle ground between continued militarism and total political control in the Taliban’s hands.

While the debate rages on in cities across Afghanistan, the U.S. should not consider itself out of the line of fire just yet.

“If the Americans really wanted peace, they would easily find a way to achieve it,” said Baz Mohammad Abid, a journalist at Radio Mashaal, the local branch of Radio Free Europe. “The fact is, they have different goals in mind – they want to maintain a long presence in Central Asia to stop Chinese economic and political growth.”

Tragically, while the Afghan war “is not our war, but a war of foreigners”, the consequences of an ineffective peace process has been paid almost entirely by Afghans, with a 24-percent rise in the number of civilians killed and injured in the first half of 2013 compared to the same time period in 2012, according to Ján Kubiš, the United Nations secretary-general’s special representative in Afghanistan.

Burqas fail to shield many Afghan women from daily harassment, both in the street and at the workplace. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

By Shelly Kittleson
KABUL, May 17 2013 (IPS)

While global attention is fixed on the scheduled pullout of U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan in 2014, women here have a much more immediate concern: how will they survive another day at work?

Having a job is now considered a routine aspect in the lives of many women around the world, but here, female employees are forced to navigate entrenched sexist and patriarchal attitudes, dodge sexual advances, and live with memories of harassment, abuse and even rape.

Last month, the international watchdog Human Rights Watch drew attention to the plight of Afghan policewomen who were being raped and harassed on the job due largely to a lack of gender-segregated bathroom facilities.

A flurry of press coverage ensued, drawing the ire of the Interior Ministry, which grudgingly promised to take action but has yet to implement any concrete safety measures or bring the perpetrators to justice.

In the face of apparent indifference on the part of many officials to a growing trend of sexual abuse in the workplace, one branch of the government has stepped up, drafting a set of anti-harassment guidelines that, if enforced, all employees will be required to abide by.

Spearheaded by 26-year-old Matin Bek, deputy director of Afghanistan’s Independent Directorate for Local Governance (IDLG) and the youngest deputy minister in the country, the draft regulations acknowledge that workplace safety is a fundamental right and provide women with mechanisms to seek redress should this right be violated.

The son of a mujahedeen leader credited with fighting to keep girls’ schools open in his northern Takhar province during years of civil strife from the late 1970s until the end of the Taliban era in 2001, Bek is well aware of the challenges that lie ahead.

In a country where most women languishing in prison are there for committing so-called “moral crimes” – such as having been raped, leaving abusive marriages or choosing their own partners  – he recognises that attempts to improve workplace safety may be perceived by some as “quixotic.”

But, as Bek tells IPS, he grew up in an “entirely different environment” to the urban patriarchal landscape. Since his father’s untimely death in a bomb blast in late 2011 he has been helping to dismantle the patronage networks that have traditionally been responsible for appointing district governors.

The IDLG now promotes a professional, merit-based body of civil servants accountable to the constitution.

This year, his ministry chose the date of Mar. 13, in honour of International Women’s Day on Mar. 8, to institute the anti-harassment guidelines as a national commitment to stop “treating women as commodities,” Bek said.

The guidelines define harassment as either verbal or physical intimidation, including unnecessary physical contact or drawing attention to an employee’s “sex appeal’’. Employers are obliged to follow up on complaints made via email or telephone and take disciplinary action against the perpetrators.

Economic benefits of workplace safety

The threat of rape, harassment and the “loss of honour” are thought to play a bigger role in keeping Afghan women at home than religious motivations.

Sexual harassment is pervasive in the country’s larger cities, like the capital Kabul, the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif and the western city of Herat. One NGO worker who did not wish to be named told IPS the harassment she faced in the capital was so extreme that she left the country in search of work elsewhere.

“I couldn’t take it anymore,” she said.

A large part of the female workforce is employed in the government sector, but even here women are far outnumbered by their male counterparts: last year the Reuters news service reported that out of a total of 363,000 state employees, only 74,000 were women.

According to a report by the World Bank, the labour participation rate of women over the age of 15 years was 14.4 percent in 2012, compared to 80 percent for men.

Increasingly, even this small portion of women who are able to secure jobs are being forced by their male relatives to stay home, or are doing so out of fear of being attacked on the job.

This trend, according to Bek, is a dangerous one, as a result of which entire communities suffer significant economic losses: in a country where per capita GDP is about 1,000 dollars, a woman’s salary can mean the difference between healthy and malnourished children, or between sending youth to school versus forcing them into child employment.

Thus the new anti-harassment regulations, implemented in hundreds of local government offices under the IDLG’s beat, aim not only to raise respect for individual rights within Afghan society but also to foster economic growth, Bek said.

Various studies show that women’s participation in the workforce and in leadership positions play a vital role in economic and overall development.

One such report claims that if female employment rates were to match male rates, Japan could see a rise in GDP of nine percent, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of 12 percent and Egypt of 34 percent.

If women were allowed to concentrate on their jobs instead of looking for ways to avoid harassment, molestation and violence, their potential to the Afghan economy could be “vast,” Bek noted, adding that women’s participation in economic activities could also contribute to overall stability in the region, as fears of “chaos” and even civil war proliferate ahead of the 2014 departure of Western troops.

Entrenched sexism

Despite ample evidence on the need for such guidelines, enforcing them will not be easy. Reports of misconduct by public officials often meet with accusations that such claims by women or their advocates “insult the honour’’ of the alleged perpetrators or the public institutions to which they belong.

For example, the Apr. 25 HRW report on the need for safe bathroom facilities for Afghan policewomen provoked the wrath of the Interior Ministry, which demanded the rights group “apologise” for its findings.

HRW Afghanistan Researcher Heather Barr told IPS that the ministry “seems determined to claim that there have never been any cases of sexual harassment, sexual assault or rape of female police officers by male police officers.”

The government of President Hamid Karzai had set itself the goal of recruiting 5,000 women into the Afghan National Police (ANP) before 2014 to boost the miserable one percent female participation rate that currently exists.

Barr says this move is crucial, since most Afghan women are too frightened to report rape to male officers and cannot be searched by them. But, she said, the Interior Ministry’s attitude towards reports of rape and harassment could “harm efforts to recruit female police.”

An Afghan soldier protects the palace of King Amanullah (1919-1929) that was partly destroyed in the 1992-1996 civil war. Credit: Giuliana Sgrena/IPS

By Lal Aqa Sherin
KABUL, May 16 2013 (IPS)

Western fears of a civil war in Afghanistan are growing ahead of the scheduled pullout of international troops in 2014. However, experts here say the situation on the ground is not comparable to either 1988, when the Soviets withdrew from the country, or the mujahideen’s rise to power in 1992, which plunged the country into civil war.

Speaking to BBC’s Radio 4 last month, British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond described the future of Afghanistan as uncertain, echoing a British Parliamentary Defence Committee warning that the country could descend into civil war within a few years.

But locals who have been watching the situation closely do not share this bleak prognosis of the country’s future.

Retired Colonel Mohammad Sarwar Niazai, a military observer, says the situation is different to what it was in the early 1990s when the Soviets pulled out, leaving the communist government of Mohammed Najibullah without support and presenting seven jihadi parties, armed and aided by the United States, with the perfect opportunity to seize power.

This time around, “no one can get the government out forcibly,” Niazai told IPS, referring to the fact that the U.S. and its coalition partners in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have promised to stand by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his government for the foreseeable future.

Recently retired ISAF Commander General John Allen, speaking in Washington on Mar. 25, said the U.S. and its allies would retain a presence in Afghanistan big enough to bolster Afghan forces after the withdrawal of international combat troops at the end of 2014.

Still, Kabul Regional Chief of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) Shamasullah Ahmadzai warned that the roughly 336,000-strong Afghan National Army, though highly motivated, is in serious need of the weapons and arms promised by western allies during talks about the pullout.

Strategic interests

As international media reports of “impending” or “inevitable” conflict continue to proliferate, experts here contend that Western countries with a vested interest in maintaining their military presence have conjured the bogey of civil war to justify continued engagement.

“Their…goal is to create fear in Afghanistan,” Ghulam Jailani Zwak, head of the Afghan Analytical and Advisory Centre, told IPS, adding that he sees “no substance” in the predictions of chaos after 2014.

“Over the last 11 years, Afghanistan has built up a functioning civil society and a strong parliament that has shown it can stand up to the executive,” he said referring to the fact that at the end of 2012, 11 ministers were issued summons to appear in parliament or face impeachment for failing to spend 50 percent of their annual budgets in the last financial year.

Abdul Ghafoor Lewal, head of the Regional Studies Centre, believes threats of civil war are a deliberate Western ploy to maintain a military presence here, particularly in the Bagram airfield, one of the largest U.S. military bases in Afghanistan, located in the Parwan province.

Western powers would like Afghans to believe that foreign troops are their “best bet for security,” Lewal told IPS. The government must be “wise, prudent and…protect itself from the machinations of the West,” he added.

Meanwhile, Major General Rahmatullah Raufi, former commander of Paktia Army Corps and erstwhile governor of the southern province of Kandahar, dismisses the fears of war, claiming Afghans are more united now than they were 11 years ago.

A clear example of this was seen at the third ministerial conference of the Istanbul Process, held in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, on Apr. 26.

Originally intended to foster regional cooperation in the so-called ‘heart of Asia’ – primarily between Afghanistan and its neighbours – this year’s high-level gathering delved into a host of social issues, from education to disaster management, to help strengthen the war-torn country’s economic stability.

The independent Afghanistan Analysts Network said the Afghan government’s participation made clear that it saw the regional initiative as crucial to securing its future after 2014.

Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul, who led the delegation, said Afghanistan was “determined to reclaim (its) rightful place” as an economic centre connecting South Asia, Central Asia, Euroasia and the Middle East.

Moreover, according to experts like Member of Parliament (MP) Habibullah Kalakani – a former jihadi commander who fought against the Soviets – Afghan civil society is no longer “pliant” to foreign interests.

Independent media and human rights organisations including the AIHRC, whose president Sima Samar won the Alternative Nobel Prize last year, are widely respected and have earned international recognition for their efforts to build a culture of peace here.

Kalakani also pointed to the increasing number of educated young Afghans who are perfectly positioned to help their country make a democratic transition.

According to the Institute of International Education (IIE), only 4,000 students submitted applications for university admission in 2004. In 2005 this number increased tenfold to 40,000, reached 52,000 in 2006 and finally passed the 120,000-mark in 2012.

Girls now occupy 25 percent of the seats in public universities, a numbers that is increasing annually, while 52 new private universities have popped up around the country.

Defence Ministry Deputy Spokesperson Siamak Herawi agreed that 2014 will be a “year of change” but insisted there was good reason to believe “the change will be positive not negative,” he told Killid, adding that, this time around, “Afghan hands” will help to build the country.

* Lal Aqa Shirin writes for Killid, an independent Afghan media group in partnership with IPS.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) estimates a 22 percent increase in cases of violence against women. Marius Arnesen/CC-BY-SA-2.0

By Kreshma Fakhri
KABUL, Dec 5 2012 (IPS)

Afghan women are no strangers to gender-based violence. For decades now, violent crimes against women have been heading for epic proportions, as young girls are forced into marriage, wives and daughters are abused, and women are dealt harsh punishments for ‘moral crimes’.

Now, officials and rights groups have noticed an alarming surge in these incidents, with crimes against women becoming more frequent – and more savage.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) estimates a 22 percent increase in cases of violence against women during the last six months of 2012 compared to the same period the previous year.

On Oct. 12, three people were arrested for the murder of a woman named Mah Gul at her home in Shalbafan village in the Injil district of Afghanistan’s northwestern Herat province. The woman’s head had been cut off.

The police arrested her husband and in-laws following a claim by the dead woman’s brother – who took Gul’s body to the office of the Women’s Affairs Department in Herat City – that the family murdered her.

Mahboba Jamshidi, head of the Women’s Affairs Department, confirmed that Abdul Qader, Gul’s brother, had indeed been the one to bring in the body.

“We saw (Gul’s) jugular vein had been slashed. She died due to excessive bleeding,” Jamshidi told Killid.

The case was then handed over to the office of the Attorney General (AG), and the arrests were made.

Mah Gul’s family says their daughter was killed because she resisted her mother-in-law’s attempts to push her into sex work.

This story deserves to be categorised as an unprecedentedly horrific crime, but in fact it is just one example of an increasingly common phenomenon in Afghanistan.

A few months ago, a 20-year-old named Kulsoom, who resisted her abusive husband’s attempt to sell their daughter for money, was brutally murdered by him in her father’s house.

According to Jamshidi, “Kulsoom was against the practice of forced marriages, and had run away with her children to her father’s house. Her husband Anwar followed her there, and killed her.”

Family jail

Last month newspapers reported the release of a woman, also named Kulsoom, who had been forcibly detained in a “family jail” – a makeshift holding cell in part of an old stable – in Kasho Village in the Teshkan district of Afghanistan’s northeastern Badakhshan province.

Kulsoom said her husband, who was already married, was a very cruel man who kept her imprisoned; she was sexually abused and tortured.

“They (Kulsoom’s husband and his first wife) kept me in a dark room and beat me,” the woman told the media from her hospital bed, where she was shifted after being rescued by the police.

Assistant Professor Zofanoon Hassam, head of the provincial Women’s Affairs Department, said Kulsoom – who was pregnant when she was rescued – delivered a severely undernourished baby after being admitted to the hospital.

Sahar Gul from Darayem district was sold through marriage to a man from the northeastern Baghlan province. Her mother-in-law forced her into prostitution. Earlier this year the police rescued her.

On Jun. 27, armed men beheaded a 13-year-old girl called Shazia for resisting their attempt to kidnap her. Police have made three arrests in the case.

Lack of security

AIHRC Commissioner for Human Rights Dr. Soraya Sobhrang said the majority of fatalities involving women who resisted their captors took place in the country’s less “secure” provinces.

Moreover, she told Killid, “The commission is particularly concerned about the fact that in 80 percent of cases of sexual assault the survivors are teenage girls, under 18 years old.”

Meanwhile, the ministry of women’s affairs says a total of 471 cases of violence against women were registered in 2012. Most of the victims had resorted to suicide or self-immolation, or else run away from the house to escape brutal domestic violence.

Fawzia Amini, director of the legal department at the ministry of women’s affairs, said, “Unfortunately we have seen that more than 50 percent of the cases involve murder, (suicide), self-burning and hanging, as a result of family violence. The violence is more severe than in previous years.”

Parwin Rahimi, in charge of the Women’s Support Department at the AIHRC, believes a lack of security is the leading cause of the rise in violence.

“When everyone has a weapon, and the criminals are being supported by powerful, armed people or a commander, the numbers (of crimes against women) will keep increasing,” she said.

Rahimi added that though the law very clearly states that punishment for perpetrators of crimes against women will be most severe and there will be no amnesty or shortening of their jail terms, politically-connected assailants use Afghan courts to secure amnesty and light sentences.

“We have seen that many criminals who have committed crimes against women are released by (presidential) decree. The lack of law enforcement (is a major reason) for the increase in violence against women.”

The AG’s office stoutly defends its track record. Rahmatullah Nazari, deputy AG, says his office has investigated cases that rights groups were not even aware of.

On Nov. 19, Afghan President Hamid Karzai backtracked on an informal moratorium on the death penalty and signed the final execution warrants of 16 Afghan prisoners convicted of crimes including rape, murder and abduction. The prisoners were hanged.

*Kreshma Fakhri writes for Killid, an independent Afghan media group in partnership with IPS.