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15/12/2011
Afghanistan: 'Afghan TV Challenges Attitudes Towards Domestic Violence'

Afghanistan has been called one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman, and much of that danger lies in the home.

According to the United Nations, more than 87 per cent of all women there suffer from domestic violence.

But now, a radical television show is challenging attitudes to this abuse, inviting women to speak candidly and anonymously about their problems at home.

From Kabul, Tahir Qadiry reports.

Please go to the BBC link below to see the video report.

7/12/2011
Afghanistan: 'Karzai Orders Release of Rape Victim'

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered the release of an Afghan woman imprisoned for adultery after a relative raped her. The move comes after Afghan judicial authorities met to consider the case and proposed a pardon for her on Thursday. CNN is identifying her only as Gulnaz to protect her identity.

2/12/2011
Afghanistan: 'Afghan woman to be freed from jail after agreeing to marry rapist'

An Afghan woman jailed for adultery after she was raped by a relative is set to be freed – but only after agreeing to marry the man who attacked her. The case, which has highlighted the plight of Afghan women jailed for so-called moral crimes, was to be the subject of a documentary film funded by the European Union – until diplomats censored it out of fear for the woman's welfare, and for their relations with the Afghan government.

13/11/2011
Afghanistan: 'Afghanistan Mother and Daughter Stoned and Shot Dead'

A group of armed men have stoned and shot dead a woman and her daughter in Afghanistan's Ghazni province, security officials have told the BBC. The officials blamed the Taliban, who they said had accused the women of "moral deviation and adultery". The police said two men had been arrested in connection with the murder.

The attack was only 300m from the governor's office in Ghazni city, which is on a list of places to be transferred to Afghan security control.

Taliban grip

4/10/2011
Afghanistan: 'Afghan Women's Rights "Under Threat"'

Women's rights in Afghanistan are once again under threat after 10 years of progress, two leading British aid agencies have said.

Oxfam and Action Aid said on Monday many Afghan women were worried that the impending international troop withdrawal, coupled with an on-going effort to secure a political deal with the Taliban, could undermine their future.

3/10/2011
Update: Afghanistan: Women's Groups Secure Independence of Shelters

In Afghanistan, women's groups are claiming a rare victory. Last winter, the government was planning to bring battered women's shelters under government control.

Women's rights advocates sprang into action, complaining that the new rules would turn shelters into virtual prisons for women who had run away from home because of abuse. But after a flurry of media attention, the Afghan government agreed to re-examine the issue. And this month, President Hamid Karzai's Cabinet quietly approved a new draft that has support from women's groups.

18/7/2011
Afghanistan: In high heels, head scarves, women protest harassment

In high heels and head scarves, a small band of Afghan women took to the streets of the country's capital, Kabul, on Thursday to protest harassment by men in public places. Carrying signs, that read "This street also belongs to me" and "We won't stand insults anymore" the 20 or so women -- and some men marching in solidarity -- protested being abused, groped and followed on the city's streets. Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative country, with heavy cultural and social restrictions on women's freedoms, even though the ouster of the hardline Taliban nearly a decade ago brought huge improvements in their legal rights.

23/2/2011
Afghanistan: Calls for women's shelters to be secured

Uphold the rights of Afghan women and girls to be freed from gender-based violence. Secure the independence of women shelters in Afghanistan. The Global Campaign to Stop Violence against Women in the Name of ‘Culture’, an international network of women’s human rights defenders and advocates, fully supports our sisters in Afghanistan in resisting their government’s attempt to put the country’s women shelters under State control. If the Afghan government proceeds with this proposed legislation, it will invite serious risks to the already-fragile security of women and girls who are in desperate need of protection from gender–based violence in their country. This development is alarming and deserves the attention of the international community.

16/2/2011
Afghanistan: Government’s takeover of women’s shelters adds insult to injury

The recent move by Afghanistan’s Ministry of Women Affairs (MoWA) to take control of women’s shelters is deeply worrying.  I have spoken to NGO workers who run these shelters, and they have been outraged by the new legislation. Over the past few years I have personally been able to see the work of five of these shelters out of a total of 14 set up around the country by NGOs after the Taleban’s fall. The shelters house hundreds of Afghan women and girls whose lives are at risk due to forced marriage, underaged marriage, and other forms of violence. Amnesty International urges the Afghan government to reconsider this terrible piece of legislation and, instead, recommit itself to protecting the women of Afghanistan and those courageous human rights defenders, many of them women, who are trying to counteract years of discrimination and sexual violence against the women of Afghanistan.

2/2/2011
Afghanistan/United States: Call for papers on cultural factors that shape lives of Afghan children

As a sequel to their edited volume, Land of the Unconquerable: The Lives of Contemporary Afghan Women (University of California Press, March 2011), Jennifer Heath, independent scholar, author and editor of nine books, and Ashraf Zahedi, a University of California, Berkley scholar, are assembling an edited book about  the children of Afghanistan. The first of its kind, this comprehensive collection will examine the impact of socio-economic, political, and cultural factors that shape the lives of Afghan children from birth to the legal marriage ages of 16 and 18 and that contextualizes their experiences in diverse social settings. Articles (no longer than 5,000 words) will be due on May 1st, 2011.