Afghan President Bows to Pressure from Women's Groups

Last month the Afghan parliament made a small but significant change to Afghanistan’s criminal laws. They banned relatives of an accused person from testifying against them. Most violence against women in Afghanistan is within the family, so the law would have silenced victims, as well as most potential witness to their suffering.

The draft of the law was prepared by the Criminal Department of the Ministry of Justice. Chief of the department Ashraf Azimi says the law was to create a fair trial. “If the court forced family members of the victim to give their testimonies, there’d be a risk... maybe they’d lie to the judge in favour of the family. Witnesses are not the only way to investigate a case.”

Many fear that this would let perpetrators of domestic violence and rapists off the hook. And this would also mean that “honor killings” by fathers and brothers who disapprove of a woman’s behaviour would be almost impossible to punish. Forced marriage and the sale or trading of daughters to end feuds would also be largely beyond the control of the law. Afghan female MP Masooda Karokhi says she didn’t want to see it passed but they were outnumbered.

“When the law was passed, there were only 69 women out of a total of 249 members. We didn’t have the majority vote. The argument from male MPs was strong, they know more about Sharia law.”

But the bill needed to be signed by the President Hamid Karzai to make it law. Hundreds of Afghan women took it to the streets demanding that he didn’t sign it. Hasina Safi is the chief of the Afghan Women Network.

“We are here to show that we’re against the new criminal law and violence against women. We support any international attempts to decrease violence against women, especially in Afghanistan where women face many difficulties.”

And President Karzay seems listened. He bow to national pressure and the international outcry and ordered a revision of the law. Amnesty International praised the President’s intervention. Local human rights workers are also saying it’s a huge relief.

Parween Rahimi is from the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. “We appreciate Karzay’s decision. We believe that this shows the President’s support for women’s rights in Afghanistan.”

Now women’s rights activist are calling on the authorities to implement the 2009 Elimination of Violence Against Women law throughout the country.

The law criminalized some 20 acts of violence against women and girls, including domestic violence, underage and forced marriages.