Monday 7 April 2014

Afghanistan elections unlikely to prove a boon for women, warns activist

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/apr/02/afghanistan-elections-womens-rights-gender-equality


None of the candidates in Afghanistan's presidential race will radically improve women's lives, and activists need to prepare a strategy to push the winner to take bold action, according to an Afghan lawyer and former judge.

Najla Ayubi, a long-standing women's rights advocate who is deputy country representative for Afghanistan at the Asia Foundation, is sceptical about the noises of support for women emanating from the frontrunners in the presidential elections, which begin on Saturday. She believes their rhetoric to be empty talk designed to win votes and charm the international community.

"Women are being used as a political weapon," she said. "They are on top of the agendas of all of these powerful men because they know how to put their thoughts together, because if they don't talk about them, they don't get support."

None of the five contenders considered to be in with a shot at the presidency – Abdullah Abdullah, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, Zalmai Rassoul, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and Gul Agha Sherzai – have proved they have the commitment to champion women's rights, said Ayubi, who was in London last week for a meeting of the British and Irish Agencies Afghanistan Group (BAAG). She noted that while all the men have served in government in some capacity, none of them did much during their time in office to suggest that they wanted to pursue gender equality or fight fundamentalists.

"We need dramatic change. We need someone to change reality," said Ayubi. "We have to prepare ourselves to pressurise them to do what civil society wants and women need. We need to fight. We have to be prepared together, to put an agenda together."

Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, women's rights have improved in Afghanistan. Gender equality is now enshrined in the country's constitution, women have been allowed back to work, millions of girls are now enrolled in school, and women sit in parliament. In 2009, Afghanistan took steps to address gender-based violence by adopting the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) law.

However, these gains are coming under constant threat. Last year, hardliners sought to have the EVAW law overturned when it was debated in parliament. In December, the UN said that while the number of reported cases of violence against women and girls in the previous 12 months had increased, prosecutions and convictions under the EVAW remained low.

Further evidence of discrimination against women emerged this year when the Afghan parliament passed a law that, by banning relatives from testifying against one another, would in effect have legalised domestic violence. The law, the criminal procedure code, was eventually blocked by President Hamid Karzai after it had been widely condemned.

Last month, the EU ambassador to Kabul, Franz-Michael Mellbin, said Afghanistan remained the worst place to be a woman. Mellbin criticised Karzai's government for failing to prioritise women's rights and taking insufficiently strong action against conservative opposition.

But Soraya Sobhrang, commissioner for women's rights in the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, who also attended the BAAG meeting, said she was optimistic that one presidential candidate could be good news for women. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, a former finance minister who worked at the World Bank, has apparently already outlined plans about how he will support women's rights in his first 100 days in office.

"I think Ashraf is the best because he has a programme for women … He has promised during the first six months he will prepare a report about human rights and how this is implemented in Afghanistan, and also he will have an advisory group for women activists," said Sobhrang.

Sobhrang is involved in the women's charter movement that is pushing presidential candidates to accept a number of demands during their campaigning. Among the requests from the movement is greater representation for women in key government departments, including the judiciary, and an assurance that women's rights are not sidelined in the country's quest for peace.

Ghani Ahmadzai's allegiance with Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former warlord and deputy defence minister in the country's first administration after the Taliban, has, however, raised some concerns about his suitabillity. Dostum has been accused of numerous war crimes, including letting hundreds of Taliban prisoners suffocate in metal shipping containers. Sobhang said Dostum's apology last year went some way towards atonement.

"Dostum is not a fundamentalist. He has apologised for his past crimes. He's acknowledged his mistakes and apologised. It's a political decisision by Ashraf as he now has the votes of Dostum. We all know those things, we don't say he [Ashraf] is the best man, but in his team, Dostum is only a player. I wouldn't say that the team is ideal but in a democratic process you have to choose one."

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