Human Lives Human Rights: With the end of the military rule and the establishment of the national government in Afghanistan, the situation gradually improved and the status of women’s rights was also on the path of progress.
Although the situation of women’s rights was far better than during the first Taliban government, however, it was difficult for the extremely traditional society of Afghanistan to accept some things and there was still serious resistance against the restoration of women’s rights, with the difference that after the formation of the national government, the laws were aimed at the realization of women’s rights, but some parts of the society opposed them.
Among the most important challenges that women face are violence against them at home and in social life, forced marriage and difficulty in accessing education, especially among the Pashtun tribes living in southern Afghanistan, the story of women is generally different from those living in Kabul.
According to the report of the United Nations Human Rights Council published in 2017, 66% of Afghan girls between the ages of 12 and 15 do not go to school. In Afghanistan, only 37% of young girls are literate. While this figure is 66% for boys. Among adult women, only 19% are literate; while this figure is 49% for men.
According to Afghan law, all children are required to study until the ninth grade, but the fact is that the government of this country was neither able to provide the necessary facilities for this purpose, nor could it guarantee that all school-age children entered the education system in order to force them to continue their education until the ninth grade.
This lack of efficiency has led to the exclusion of many girls from education. On the other hand, the employment percentage of Afghan women is low compared to other Asian countries, and even compared to the period before the Taliban when women made up 70% of the country’s teachers, now men are in the majority and women are in the minority, because the literacy rate of women in this country is extremely lower than the literacy rate of men due to the ban on girls’ education during the Taliban era and it is natural that the employment rate of women in jobs that require higher education is much lower than that of men.
Another issue in the discussion of women’s rights is the issue of sexual and physical violence against women, as evidenced by the report of the Global Rights Organization in 2015, 8 out of 10 Afghan women have experienced physical, sexual or forced marriage violence. This statistic shows the peak resistance of a part of the Afghan society against women’s rights.
Another issue in the category of violence against women is that due to the highly traditional structure of the Afghan society, many legal issues are resolved in the old way and by the judge, and basically many of these cases do not come to the knowledge of the Afghan judicial system, so that they could be pursued through legal means.
According to general statistics, between 2015 and 2017, about 237 cases of violence against women were reported to the Afghan judicial system, of which about 140 cases were resolved through mediation and were not prosecuted.
Having said that, despite the extensive efforts of the national governments of Afghanistan to restore women’s rights, as well as the growing activities of women in the Afghan society, still, most of the women in this country are far away from their basic and definitive rights, which require much more time and efforts.