“The regime and its leadership are acting as advocates of women rights but in reality, are abusing the women working in governmental offices of the regime and violating their sanctity by asking them for sexual favours and almost all the heads, ministers and advisors are involved in this malpractice. Those women working for the regime have been victims of the regime itself and are now speaking anonymously to the international media about their suffering.”

One may straightforwardly reject the abovementioned allegation by calling it a propaganda war as this statement was published by the Taliban and its championing is not just their story but that of their families too who amidst all the restrictions ensured that their daughters win a place in the society which has successfully been the case today. It would be nothing but disheartening for them to acknowledge that their daughters are at equal risk at their work as those women who suffer abuse domestically.

Today in a satisfactorily significant region of Afghanistan women are able to enjoy their human rights in an unrestrained manner mainly the right of education and right to work. But in the wake of realization of these rights by women, yet another set of abuse has followed which have so far gone unnoticed by the lawmakers and civil organizations and the women have suffered unceasingly. Even though the international community has focused effusively on the violence against women in Afghanistan, most of the advocacy and campaigns have primarily focused on gender violence within a domestic setup. The traditional international portrayal of women of Afghanistan has been mainly as the victims of a highly conservative patriarchal society where the violence and abuse vary from honour killing, rape, baad, forced prostitution etc., almost all of which are committed within the domestic setup. During the Taliban era, women were further suppressed and their economic and educational rights were completely abrogated which was one of the major factors behind the international condemnation of Afghanistan Taliban movement prior to 9/11.  In 1997, Madeleine K. Albright, then US secretary of state, had stated: “It is impossible to modernize a nation if half or more of the population is left behind”. M. Albright and Hillary Clinton were the rallying voices which shaped the international criticism of the Taliban on the grounds of their harshest approach towards women. After toppling of Taliban regime these two portrayals of Afghanistan, first, as a nation infested with a culture of domestic violence against women and, second, the absolute restriction on rights of women during Taliban reign, shaped the approach for the international community to deal with human rights issues and violence against women. The international community since then have primarily and profusely focused on ensuring women their educational, economic and political rights on par with those of men and many resources have been exhausted to eradicate domestic violence against women. Initially, they paid off and undoubtedly, inclusion and partaking of women in the political, economic, and educational sphere can be recounted as one of the rare ‘success’ of Afghan government which has been possible with the relentless support of UN, stakeholder nations and international organisations through funds and advocacy. But as women gradually made progress and the nation strode toward inclusivity of women in the economy, the approach of the international community and even the Afghan government stayed the same and no further attempts were made to build on it in order to explore the new realms of rights and corresponding duties which arose after women actively started working at public and private institutions. Again, it is a bitter pill to swallow that after two decades of strenuous efforts and adoption of various policies and a legislation called EVAW Law, even the domestic violence against women has continued to more or less the same extent. Moreover, as women gained the capacity to work and actively sought employment opportunities to play a major role in the nation-building, another worsening reality gained hold at offices and institutions which is the unethical practice of harassment and abuse of women at the workplace which, until recently, had remained mostly inconspicuous. In the last two decades, women’s inclusion in the work sector of Afghanistan has witnessed significant progress but no specific protection and prevention measures for women at workplace have been brought forth. These inaction and delinquency are not just the government’s failure but international partners and stakeholders have also failed to deliberate over the wider long-term policies taking into consideration the upward inclination of women’s assertive role at various institutions. But the international partners can be forgiven for this ignorance as the duty to scrutinize and monitor such unethical and immoral practices rest primarily with the government. The sanctity and dignity of women in Afghanistan is held high in reverence and it is a teaching of Islam that when a woman is a daughter, she opens doors of paradise for her father, when she is a wife, she completes half of the faith of her husband and when she is a mother the paradise lies beneath her feet. If such unethical and dishonourable practice which threatens the sanctity and dignity of a woman has been in existence at workplaces and various institutions then the government’s claim of championing women rights and ensuring them equality will merely remain a stained and duplicitous achievement. One may also put forward this argument that why these issues were not raised during previous years and a valid answer to this question could be found by briefly analysing the legal and social scenario which tells an entirely contrasting reality with what government has so far rhetorically come forward with. Afghan women’s silence on the abuse and harassment at the workplaces has been a by-product of some major factors like continuous tagging of gender violence as a private family matter, ineffective system of justice due to widespread corruption, and failures on the part of the government.

In Afghanistan, violence against women is a result of an extremely conservative patriarchal society which is intricately embedded with the concept of ‘honour’ which is a bond between an individual and the society. For Afghan men, this bond endowed to them a duty to establish and defend their social status and Afghan women were labelled with a responsibility of not tarnishing the social status which has been established by men. While the men are endowed with an authoritative duty to establish and defend that honour in the society, the women have been traditionally seen merely as a liability who may bring bad light to the honour so established by men. This collective consciousness among men of seeing women as a liability has made women vulnerable to various forms of violence and they severely limit their ordeals to the four walls of the house which will leave no question of jeopardizing the so precious honour. So, though the rights of women have been advocated exhaustively and they have been enshrined under the constitution, the men still hold on to this deeply embedded common belief of seeing women as a liability that eventually results into keeping women’s rising voices within the four walls. Resultingly, any abuse or violence that occurs is mostly kept within the family and no remedy is sought by the victim through the formal way of justice in public. Moreover, women’s sensitivity to maintain and not to disrepute their family’s honour which is at stake has shackled them into psychological confinement from which it is extremely difficult to find a way out unless a change is brought in the attitude and perspective of Afghan men regarding women. They suffer abuses silently but due to this sensitivity, they don’t dare to discuss it with anyone because they fear they will bring a  reputation to their family and they will face social and matrimonial consequences.

In 2009, Elimination of Violence Against Women Law (EVAW) was adopted and it was welcomed with alacrity as a judicial milestone since it was a fine manifestation of recognition of abuses women have suffered for time immemorial. The civil society and women rights activists finally looked at the glimmer of hope that a concrete step has been taken for eradicating this evil from our society. But in a decade the hope has heavily subdued because instead of bringing a radical change in the status quo regarding violence against women this legislation has been accommodated with the reality of the society. The legislation makes no provision for settling any of these crimes through the process of mediation; prosecution of the preparators and pronouncing a punitive sentence is the only approach. However, under Article 39 it has been given that the victim may withdraw her case at any stage except in the cases of rape, enforced prostitution, publicising the identity of a victim, burning or the use of chemical substances and forced self-immolation or suicide. Nonetheless, withdrawal would still be a far thought as only a small number of cases reach the stage of prosecution. Many of the cases which are reported to police, Huqooq, or any other EVAW institutions, the officials deny to register it and they show reluctance to pass them to the prosecutors’ office or the court and most often even those cases which reach the court are referred to mediation through informal ways in order to settle them. The institutions and the officials instead of abiding themselves to this legislation, they abide by the traditional norms of the society which normalizes violence. Certainly, it is nothing but the failure of the legislation but again, a legislation in itself is not the solution of a problem when the vast population of a nation holds the same conviction that justifies violence against women in the name of protecting honour. The authorities, including many judges and police, are part of the same society and they too hold the same belief and always prefer settlement of the gender crimes through informal processes. A legislation is merely an instrument which is the foundation step of facilitating justice that can only be ensured when other contributory factors are brought into synchrony. It is a wider grievance of the victims that many judges are under the heavy influence of powerful persons, are unskilful and they force the victims to withdraw the cases as a prerequisite to refer them to mediation. These all make it evident that it is arduous for a victim to seek justice through the EVAW Law because the authorities act outside the purview of this law and the perpetrators remain unpunished. It is nothing less than a risk for the victims to seek redressal through the EVAW Law just to end up tainting the ‘honour’ of the family and facing rebuke and isolation without getting justice.

It is disheartening to observe that all the above-mentioned factors create an extremely hostile environment for women in which even after the so-called ‘zero tolerance’ policy of the government and strenuous international efforts the victims of violence are reluctant to approach the authorities. It is because the fear of repercussions outweighs the expectation of justice which anyways holds a little chance and moreover, they fear they will tarnish the ‘honour’ of the family by doing so. It is imperative to remember that dignity can only be insured when social justice is not merely an empty rhetoric but a reality. And social justice can be ensured through entitlement and protection of rights. Although women in Afghanistan are entitled to their rights against discrimination and violence, the measures which have been taken to protect these rights are highly inadequate and ineffective.

While the government’s rhetoric of ‘zero tolerance’ of violence against women has always been said to be a priority, it is discouraging how little has been achieved since the fall of the Taliban. Women of Afghanistan, mainly in the cities, have been given right to education and work but the conditions of society still remain hostile towards women, and the authorities, too, align themselves to the common shared patriarchal approach of settling the crimes of gender violence among involved families through mediation which normalizes these crimes. Also, very often they totally deny to even recognise such crimes because in their eyes these ‘minor’ acts of violence are too normal to be even considered.

In such a hostile environment where justice in the case of gender violence and discrimination is almost impossible, even those women who face abuse and harassment at work cannot dare to discuss their grievances and hence they suffer silently. To stop this treatment of women at the workplace from becoming an epidemic the families and civil organisations should play a more assertive role because the government has been proved unable to bring any real change.  The common perception among men will change in favour of the modern role of women only when the civil organisations directly engage in dialogue with the male members especially elders because they are the pillars of any family structure in Afghanistan. Only when the elder male members in a family are receptive to the sensitivity of women and acknowledge their rights, the women who face any such abuse or harassment at work will open up. Afghan women fear if they share with their family the treatment they faced at work, they will be stopped from going to work or seeking any employment. Secondly, the women rights civil organisations should act together in consensus to advocate for transparency at the workplace and they in themselves can stay vigil by welcoming those women who are facing abuse to share their grievance while guaranteeing their anonymity. The international community’s approach to women rights has met a stagnation as every report and most of the campaign is only concerned with domestic violence. There is a need for serious discourse over the build-up and development of the right to work which is right against exploitation and harassment at the workplace. These two rights are indispensable without each other as merely ensuring the right to work without enough protection to women at the workplace will make women employment yet another arena for those abusers to exploit women sexually and abuse them. Every right in their wake give rise to a corresponding duty and the same is true in the case of violence against women. Unless men understand their duties and obligation to respect the rights of women it will be futile to only promote the rights of women against violence as it is only half of the bulwark needed for their protection. The government should have come with a legal framework regarding the protection of women at the workplace with extreme caution that it doesn’t end up merely remaining empty rhetoric once again, just as EVAW Law. It is equally important that this legislation for the protection of women at institutions and workplaces should have emphasised more on the duties and obligations of men instead of merely enumerating the rights of women. The emphasis on duties and obligations of men is the primary requirement for any legalisation for the protection of women at workplace against any abuse, discrimination, and exploitation. Such legislations have a greater rate of success because those who are in advantageous position at workplaces will be obligated to protect the dignity of women because they have many things at stake and if they attempt not to be apprehended in the wake of any such abuse committed by them, which mostly is the scenario in many cases against violence in Afghanistan, their assets could have been attached by the government to ensure justice and evade others from committing any such abuse in future.

In the rise of recent events of revelations made against sexual abuse at workplaces and other institutions it will be extremely menacing and damaging to turn a blind eye to this matter because professional women in Afghanistan are the torchbearers of all that has been achieved in the last two decades and if even they cannot be safeguarded against abuses then eradicating violence against women that takes place within the four walls of a house will remain just an empty rhetoric with no tangible and prospective outcome. If this opinion becomes prevalent among Afghans that women are at a greater risk of sexual exploitation and abuse at their workplaces then even the progressive families in Afghanistan will be reluctant and sceptic towards allowing their girls to work. While the government proves to be maladroit and merely pays lip service to enforce protection for women against violence and ensure them justice in the wake of such violence, the responsibilities lie with the families and civil society organisations to play a prominent and assertive role in establishing a working environment in which all our women can thrive and prosper. While the rights of women are surely at stake as Afghanistan inches closer to reconciliation with the Taliban, nevertheless the concern of sexual abuses and harassment of women at their workplaces is no less alarming. If women are still suffering violence even in the provinces near Kabul and no one is there to listen to their voices; if the government proves to be inefficient to protect dignity of women even at their workplace and other institutions; if women like Mena Mangal are killed in daylight because they deny relenting to the demand of their male partners to leave their work, then it is for every Afghan to introspect what they have gained and how little they have gained in the last two decades since the fall of Taliban’s misogynist regime.

View expressed in this article are of the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Pajhwok’s editorial policy.

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