Fear of further abuses of women's rights

The current situation in Afghanistan could fuel abuses against already oppressed women there, an Afghan women's rights group told IRIN on Friday.

"We expect increases in rapes and beatings. The Taliban are angry, and to vent their anger they will take it out on their own people," Marina Matin, of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), said. She added that women were already living under terrible conditions, and the present crisis, occasioned by the US-led air strikes, was rendering them even more vulnerable, especially widows.

Under the Taliban regime, women have become invisible and have lost all of their rights, including the rights to be educated and to work, Matin said. RAWA, which has representatives in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and an underground network of women in Afghanistan with a membership of about 2,000 are working towards improving conditions for women there.

However, Matin said the situation in Afghanistan at present was making their operation increasingly difficult. "We had to be careful before, but we have to be even more careful now. But we will continue our battle against the Taliban to fight for women's rights," she added.

Afghan women in Pakistan, including RAWA members, had been taking part in consultations with the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative, Lakhdar Brahimi, and expressing their views on a post-Taliban government, she said.

RAWA stressed that the UN had a significant role to play, Matin said. "The international community should realise that there is no difference between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance; both have committed crimes against women in Afghanistan," she explained.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently released a report entitled "Humanity Denied: Systematic Violations of Women's Rights in Afghanistan", backing RAWA's concerns over deteriorating conditions for women inside Afghanistan.

The document urged the international community to protect women's rights during the conflict. "Women have borne the lion's share of human rights abuses in Afghanistan throughout the conflict, and they are in particular danger now," the executive director of the women's rights division of HRW, LaShawn R. Jefferson said.

The report also included interviews with women who had suffered at the hands of the Taliban. Shokria Ahmad, a doctor in Kabul told of an incident where she was beaten by the Taliban while she and her husband tried to take their son to hospital. They beat the taxi driver taking them, and also hit her on her back and arms. "The Taliban asked me why the holes in my chador [Muslim woman's veil] were so big... I said, beat me, but do not hurt the child," she said.

Jefferson stressed that any future political arrangements in Afghanistan would have to take special account of what women had suffered and how that could be remedied.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International has argued that peace and security could never be assured in Afghanistan unless human rights guarantees were central to a political settlement. It called for an immediate cessation of human rights abuses and an end to impunity for past abuses. A report released by the rights body called for a focus on incorporating human rights in the political negotiations. "The UN and its member states have a responsibility to assist the Afghan people in establishing a peaceful, stable society," it said.

Asked whether there should be a representation of women in a new Afghan government, RAWA members said that in the context of the current situation it would be impossible for this to happen. They added, however, that the first thing that should happen was the reinstatement of women's basic rights. "In a country where women aren't even allowed to laugh in public, we would like to see them given these basic and fundamental rights," Matin said.