HERAT - As part of its advocacy on a recent United Nations report on the implementation of the Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW) law, a human rights team of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) travelled to a district in the outskirts of Afghanistan’s western Herat province last week.

“Our aim during such trips is to engage local officials and counterparts regarding human rights issues and share information concerning our public reports at the local level, especially regarding women’s rights and the protection of civilians. It also allows us to expand our networks and our knowledge of local conditions to better understand human rights challenges throughout the region,” said a UNAMA human rights officer who led the team, Ravi Kumar Reddy.

The human rights team met with Karokh district officials, including judges, prosecutors and the police chief, and shared with them the findings of the latest joint report of UNAMA and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

The joint report, ‘A Way to Go: An Update on Implementation of the Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women in Afghanistan,’ noted Afghan authorities of registering more reports of violence against women under the EVAW law over the past year, but prosecutions and convictions under the law remained low, with most cases settled by mediation.

One of the priority areas of UNAMA is to focus on combating violence against women and enabling their participation in the public sphere.

UN human rights officers in other Afghan provinces are also conducting these kinds of advocacy visits to encourage implementation of the EVAW law.

Enacted in 2009, the landmark law criminalizes numerous forms of violence, including child marriage, forced marriage, the selling and buying of women for the purpose or under the pretext of marriage, the traditional practice of ba’ad which requires the giving away of a woman or a girl to settle a dispute, forced self-immolation and 17 other acts of violence including rape and physical abuse, while also specifying punishment for the perpetrators.

The 49-page UN report released earlier this month compares and updates findings from UNAMA’s December 2012 report on EVAW law implementation and is based on consultations with 203 judicial, police and Government officials, and monitoring of almost 500 cases of violence against women throughout Afghanistan.

The report found both advances and continuing gaps in enforcement of the EVAW law by police, prosecutors and courts in 16 provinces. In the sample of 16 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, police and prosecutors registered 650 incidents of violence against women with prosecutors using the EVAW law in 109 or 17 per cent of cases and courts applying the law in 60 decisions.

The report includes a separate section on Herat Province due to the fact that in Herat (along with Kabul Province), UNAMA observed comparatively high rates of reported incidents of violence against women, along with proactive implementation of the EVAW law.

During last week’s visit to Karokh district, local officials informed the UN team that only six cases of violence against women had been referred to district authorities in the past year, with four cases transferred to Herat city for further processing while two were withdrawn by claimants. The officials also said that most of the violence against women cases occurs in remote villages of the district where no government institution exists.

“Women who are suffering from violence in the impassable and remote villages of Karokh are not able to share their grievances with us because they are not able to reach the district centre on the same day they are traveling and also because we don’t have any shelter to keep such women over the night,” said the head of prosecution office in Karokh, Mohammad Shaif Zafar. He added that the lack of accommodation for women who endeavour to be protected by the Government means that many cases of violence against women are not referred to them.

According to local officials, the fact that there is no female officer in the district prosecutor’s office also causes a lack of trust among women to share their concerns with male officials.

Related article:

- UN report finds mixed results on implementation of Afghanistan’s EVAW law over past year