PRESSURE ON AFGHAN GOVERNMENT TO PROTECT WOMEN

KABUL, Afghanistan - The United Nations joined mounting criticism of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government on Tuesday over women’s rights, urging it to enforce a law designed to prevent violence against women.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a report that the country still had a long way to go in implementing the Law on Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW).
The legislation made child marriage, forced marriage, forced self-immolation and other violent acts, including rape, a criminal offence.

The 2009 law came law came after years of lobbying by Afghans and Westerners alike, and was held up as a beacon of progress.
Afghan women are increasingly concerned for their future as the deadline looms for most Nato-led combat troops to leave by the end of 2014.

• They have won back basic rights in voting, education and work since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
• But some female lawmakers and rights groups say abuse against women is on the rise because Karzai’s government is losing interest as it tries to advance the reconciliation process with the Taliban, an allegation it denies.
• On Monday, unknown gunmen shot dead Nadia Sediqqi, acting head of the women’s affairs department in eastern Laghman province, as she was going to work, in an attack widely condemned by the international community.
• She had replaced Hanifa Safi, who was killed in a bomb attack five months earlier. Afghan women’s groups had expressed concern that without international backing, it would be difficult to press for their rights.

Source: Agency