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TechnoratiUN: Rape in Afghanistan a Human Rights Problem of 'Profound Proportions'
KABUL - Rape in Afghanistan is under-reported, concealed and a human rights problem of "profound proportions", the United Nations said on Monday.
![[An Afghan woman in burqa walks down the street in Kabul November 16, 2009.
(REUTERS/Jerry Lampen)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/rape_afghanistan_hrproblem.jpg "rape_afghanistan_hrproblem.jpg")
Norah Niland, the United Nations' human rights representative in Afghanistan, said field research conducted late last year and early this year found rape affected all parts of Afghanistan, across all communities and social groups.
"Women and girls are at risk of rape in their homes, in their villages and in detention facilities," Niland said at a news conference in Kabul, as part of a 16-day activism campaign against gender violence.
"It is a human rights problem of profound proportions."
Niland said feelings such as shame exacerbate the problem and are often attached to victims rather than perpetrator.
Rape occurs within the family and beyond and victims are often prosecuted for committing adultery, she said.
During Afghanistan's civil war of the early 1990s, rape and sexual violence towards women was widespread and Islamist Taliban militants gained strength at first because of their tough stance against the crime.
Women's rights in Afghanistan have improved markedly since the 2001 overthrow of the strict Sunni Islamist Taliban government which prohibited women from working, attending school or leaving their homes without a male relative.
However Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative Muslim society, particularly in remote rural areas where cultural and tribal laws often supersede civil laws.
"It's also a problem because there is very little possibility of finding justice, there is no explicit provision in the 1976 Afghan penal code that criminalises rape," Niland said.
The United Nations has recommended that legislation on the elimination of violence against women make "an explicit reference to rape" and hold the government responsible for tackling the crime, she said.
Niland also singled out the growing trend of violence against women in public life, saying it was an indicator that women's roles in decision-making processes are not valued or fully acknowledged in Afghan society.
"Democracy and peace in Afghanistan is dependent on the elimination of violence and the full participation of women, as well as men of course, in decision-making processes that affect their lives and the future of the nation," Niland said.
(Editing by Paul Tait)
11 Comments so far
Show AllWe should clean up the situation in our own armed forces. Then we might have some credibility.
Joe
let's see now,I wonder how many of the men that are committing the rapes were held down and had their genitals mutilated against their will in the the name of Allah or god. I'd be willing to bet that it's near 100%. When are we going to come to grips with the fact that genital mutilation of any human being is a human rights abuse. Foreskin is not a birth defect, body parts do NOT cause disease, behavior does. We live in a country that is beyond belief, that somehow we have come to accept that it is OK to mutilate boys but the same act is an abomination when it comes to girls? It is sick! all of it, rape, genital mutilation, what's the difference? What has been lost in translation is the fact that Christ said he was the new covenant and the old covenant was abandoned, i.e. circumcision, STOP! stop mutilating infants and adolescents without their consent, against their will. Sexual violence is sexual violence, if the genitals are involved it's sexual, if it's cutting of healthy tissue it's violence, an assault. The number of men in America who are distraught over the fact that their parents did this to them is in the 10s of thousands if not more, this practice is disgusting and no different than rape, WAKE UP! OPEN YOUR EYES, SEE! Islam, Israel(Judaism) and America, the three major cultures that have instituted genital mutilation have brought us to the brink of oblivion, and the only difference between them is the PROPHET of the same vindictive, hateful, jealous god revealed to Abraham. The psychopaths are willing to annihilate the world to prove that they are right! What rational being could possibly believe that their creator would command them to mutilate the genitals of their own children, to prove their love? to enter into some sort of covenant? IT IS INSANITY STOP!!!
It is INSTITUTIONALIZED DOMESTIC SEXUAL VIOLENCE! WAKE UP!!! 85% of the world population doesn't participate, and they're not lining up to do so! No one joins this club voluntarily, we have all been held down against our will while some psychopath proves that they love god more than us! No other creature on the planet does such a thing to it's own young!
I remember when George H.W. Bush back in Jan. of 1991 told Americans that Operation Desert Shield was not about oil, it was about naked aggression and a new world order. But U.S. troops were sent to Saudi Arabia to protect the monarchy's naked aggression against girls and women, while pretending to protect Saudi Arabia against a worse evil Saddam Hussein.An example of Saudi abuse of girls and women became public when the The female persecution of a 19 year old girl victim became apparent when she was given six months in jail and 100 lashes because she was a victim of a gang rape.(Reported in local paper Nov. 21, 2007).In Jan.2005 Newsweek's Jonathan Alter article pointed out the selective and hypocritical U.S. policy of preaching democracy in the middle east- except for those who sell us oil. When Sharbat Gula, the girl who was in a refugee camp due to the Russian war in Afghanistan and who was a cover girl in the 1984 National Geographic, was found in 2004 and was asked" if she ever felt safe"? she answered "No, but life under the Taliban was better. At least there was peace and order." We say that the people can chose their own leaders through Afghanistan's ( fraudulent) election But we need 30,000 more troops to kill the bad guys, the Taliban in Afghanistan. America Leaders do not have any idea of who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. We are destroying the United States morally, economically, and spiritually, with the wars in the middle east.Does Obama really think that the present government or any government in any other country in that region wouldn't let al-Qaeda train terrorist when we leave? How dare our leaders think they can control the destiny of the American and Afghanistan people with a gun, bomb ,drone,our young troops lives and our children's tax dollars by continuing the ancient cycle of violence for a new world order?
WTF? It's US, NOW raping the whole DEM country!
Anyone who thinks that we are in Afghanistan to help Afghan women or Afghans in general has a screw loose somewhere. The military industrial complez couldn't care less about human rights at home or abroad and the politicians who are their slaves will not let such silly notions stop them from following orders. The trick is to leave the impression that it is the president who makes big decisions like escalation when in fact he is merely a front man.
even code pink rethought their ideas about pulling out of Afghanistan
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1006/p06s10-wosc.html
Peace at any cost is not peace, its slavery.
I will say what I have said before, I have been to Afghanistan twice and will be back there, if you dont go, you dont know,
volunteer, do something besides post on a board that already agrees with you,
Be the Change you want to see in the world
who said that?
Gandhi said that.
I think the United States' activities in Afghanistan are a far cry from what Gandhi intended by that statement.
An article by Nicholas Kristoff in the NY Times a couple of weeks ago estimated that we could provide primary education to nearly every child lacking it in the world for the same cost as sending 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan for a year. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/opinion/29kristof.html?_r=1
Each new soldier sent to Afghanistan costs $1 million per year. The per capita GDP in Afghanistan is $800. Eight hundred dollars. We spent 3x more per person in just the war supplemental from last spring alone than the per capita GDP in Afghanistan.
Oh, oh, oh, it's about the raping . . . and about building "the school."
It's not about TAPI. It's not, it's not, it's not.
Whatever is responsible for this abominable problem, it is not a reason for us to be there.
Agreed. But tptb will undoubtedly keep trotting this out as a (one among many) justification(s) for being there, even tho' it is quite arguable that US presence in Afghanistan has done anything to address the issue. It's doubtful that it is even on the radar, let alone any sort of agenda other than PR....
Afghan women like Malai Joya disagree with Rueters and say the conditions and rights of women have not improved with the Talibans overthrow.