Afghan women are among the most vulnerable in the world. Under the Taliban regime, women and girls were systematically discriminated against and marginalised, and their human rights were violated. Women’s removal from the public domain meant that they could not play any role in the political process and were excluded from all forms of formal or informal governance. Women and girls were also severely restricted in their access to education, health care facilities and employment.
The overthrow of the Taliban in November 2001 raised hopes that women in Afghanistan would rapidly regain their human rights. Ongoing threats to women’s security make their participation in public life almost impossible.
Afghani women have relatively low level of protection within the family context. Marriage is a community affair and forced early marriage is quite common. Human Rights Watch estimates that 57 per cent of Afghani girls are married before the age of 16.
The Afghan Constitution and Islamic Sharia law both support polygamy, allowing men to take up to four wives. Certain conditions apply to polygamous marriages, such as the equal treatment of all wives, but these are not always observed. A report by the Max Planck Institute reveals that the social prestige of divorced women is so low in Afghanistan that many divorcees will agree to be a second or third wife rather than remain single – even if they are treated unfairly by the husband.
Under Islamic law, provisions on parental authority hold that fathers are the natural guardians of their children. In the case of divorce, mothers are usually granted physical – but not legal – custody of children until they reach the age of custodial transfer. At that time, children are returned to the physical custody of the father or the father’s family.
Women’s right to inheritance in Afghanistan may vary, depending on whether they are determined by Islamic and customary law. Under Islamic law, women may inherit from their parents, husbands or children, and, under certain conditions, from other family members. However, their share is always smaller than that to which men are entitled. This is commonly justified by the argument that women have no financial responsibility towards their husbands and children. Under customary law, women do not inherit from their fathers or husbands, but are taken into the care of the husband’s family. If a widow is young, she is often encouraged to marry one of her brothers-in-law as a means of being able to take care of her children.
Laws protecting the physical integrity of Afghani women are quite weak. A report by the UN Economic and Social Council identifies four main factors that contribute to the vulnerability of women in Afghanistan: i) the traditional patriarchal gender order; ii) the erosion of protective social mechanisms; iii) the lack of the rule of law; and iv) the poverty and insecurity in the country following years of conflict.
Violence against women is widely practised and tolerated. Abusers are rarely prosecuted and the authorities seldom investigate complaints of violent attacks, rape, murder or suicide of women. Women who report rape face being locked up and accused of having committed crimes of zina (that is, laws that criminalise sexual relations outside marriage). Nonetheless, the recognised need to combat violence against women is gaining ground.
The incidence of missing women is particularly severe in Afghanistan. The country has the world’s highest percentage of missing women relative to its total female population. Census data from a study by Hudson show that more than 1.1 million Afghani women were missing in 2001. This is primarily the result of son preference, which leads to female sex-selective abortions, relative neglect of young girls (compared to boys) in early childhood, and the abandonment of young girls. Female genital mutilation, however, is not practised in Afghanistan.
Legislation in Afghanistan provides only weak support for the financial independence of women. Many women work in the agriculture sector, but their access to land is very limited and very few own land of their own. While Islamic law protects a woman’s access to property other than land, customary law traditionally deprives women of economic assets, leaving them dependant on their husbands, fathers or brothers (if unmarried) throughout their lives.
Afghani women have only limited access to bank loans, although this is not necessarily a sign of discrimination: most Afghans, men and women, are too poor to provide collateral for loans. Since 2001, foreign aid has helped to establish several micro-finance institutions in the country, which are available to both women and men.
Afghani women have a very low degree of civil liberty. Prior to the fall of the Taliban in 2001, women’s freedom of movement was severely restricted by the Taliban’s policies. Conditions have since improved, but true change has been limited due to ongoing security threats.
Unlike the Taliban, the current government imposes no legal restrictions on women’s freedom of dress. Nevertheless, following deeply rooted traditions of purdah (the segregation of women from men) most Afghani women still cover themselves from head to toe, wearing the typical burkha. Women who choose to go unveiled in public run the risk of being verbally or physically harassed.
Amnesty International (2005), Afghanistan: Women Still Under Attack – A Systematic Failure to Protect, ASA 11/007/2005, Amnesty International, London.
ECOSOC (United Nations Economic and Social Council) (2002), Discrimination Against Women and Girls in Afghanistan: Report of the Secretary General, E/CN.6/2002/5, UN, New York, NY.
ECOSOC (United Nations Economic and Social Council) (2006), Integration of the Human Rights of Wo¬men and a Gender Perspective: Violence Against Women, E/CN.4/2006/61/Add.5, UN, New York, NY.
Grace, Jo (2005), Who Owns the Farm? Rural Women’s Access to Land and Livestock, AREU (Afghanis¬tan Research and Evaluation Unit) Working Paper Series, Kabul.
Hudson, V. and A. Den Boer (2005), “Missing Women and Bare Branches: Gender Balance and Conflict”, ECSP (Environmental Change and Security Program) Report, No. 11, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC.
Human Rights Watch (2004), The Status of Women in Afghanistan, HRW, New York, www.hrw.org.
Klasen, K. and C. Wink (2003), “Missing Women: Revisiting the Debate”, Feminist Economics, Vol. 9, No. 2-3, Routledge, London.
Max Planck Institute for Foreign Private Law and Private International Law (2005), Family Structures and Family Law in Afghanistan: A Report of the Fact-Finding Mission to Afghanistan January-March 2005, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg.
Microfinance Times (2005), Addressing the Needs of Afghanistan’s Poor and Developing a Sustainable Microfinance Sector, Vol. 1, No. 3, MISFA (Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan), Kabul.
Uhlman, K. (2004), Overview of Shari’a and Prevalent Customs in Islamic Societies: Divorce and Child Custody, Expert Law, www.expertlaw.com.
UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) (2005), Country Programme Evaluation: Government of the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan / UNICEF (2003-2005), UNICEF, New York, NY.
