Ind: The Afghan women jailed for being victims of rape

Independent.co.uk
The Afghan women jailed for being victims of rape

In Lashkar Gah, the majority of female prisoners are serving 20-year
sentences for being forced to have sex. Terri Judd visited them and
heard their extraordinary stories

Monday, 18 August 2008

Beneath the anonymity of the sky-blue burqa, Saliha's slender frame
and voice betray her young age.Asked why she was serving seven years
in jail alongside hardened insurgents and criminals, the 15-year-old
giggled and buried her head in her friend's shoulder.

"She is shy," apologised fellow inmate Zirdana, explaining that the
teenager had been married at a young age to an abusive husband and ran
away with a boy from her neighbourhood.

Asked whether she had loved the boy, Saliha squirmed with childish
embarrassment as her friend replied: "Yes."

Ostracised from her family and village, Saliha was convicted of
escaping from home and illegal sexual relations. The first carries a
maximum penalty of 10 years, the second 20. These are two of the most
common accusations facing female prisoners in Afghanistan.

Two-thirds of the women in Lashkar Gah's medieval-looking jail have
been convicted of illegal sexual relations, but most are simply rape
victims – mirroring the situation nationwide. The system does not
distinguish between those who have been attacked and those who have
chosen to run off with a man.

Sitting among the plastic flowers around his desk, where an optimistic
United Nations scales of justice poster competed for space with images
of Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, Colonel Ghulam Ali, a high-
ranking regional security officer, explained sternly that he supported
the authorities' right to convict victims of rape. "In Afghanistan
whether it is forced or not forced it is a crime because the Islamic
rules say that it is," he claimed. "I think it is good. There are many
diseases that can be created in today's world, such as HIV, through
illegal sexual relations."

But there are signs of progress. A female shura, or consultative
council, was established in Helmand province last week to try to
combat the injustice of treating an abused woman as a criminal, and
not a victim. British officers and Afghan government officials from
the province's reconstruction team are also overseeing a project to
build humane accommodation for the 400 male and female prisoners.

Inside the fortified compound of the prison in Lashkar Gah, Helmand's
capital, the 330 male prisoners laze about in the shade of their straw
huts. The prison security was was recently upgraded with new razor
wire and guard posts following the attack on Kandahar's prison in
which more than a 1,000 inmates escaped, including 400 Taliban. Past
the main gate, inmates – whether on remand and awaiting trial or
convicts – are incarcerated alongside 50 insurgents.

In a separate area are the female "criminals" – the youngest is just
13 years old – along with their small children, who must stay with
their mothers if no one else will claim them. Their only luxury is a
carpet, two blankets, basic cooking facilities and two daily
deliveries of bread. They have neither medical care nor, as Colonel
Ali acknowledged, "basic human facilities", such as washing areas,
electricity and drinking water. All this he hopes will be rectified
when the new building his finished.

Pushing her five-year-old son's arm forward imploringly, Zirdana, 25,
pointed to the festering wound buzzing with flies. The little boy was
just two months old when his mother was convicted of murdering her
husband, his father. Zirdana had been handed over to him at the age of
seven, as part payment in a financial dispute. She gave birth to the
first of her children when she was 11 and was pregnant with her fourth
when her husband disappeared and she was accused of killing him. Her
three older children were taken from her by her brother-in-law. "When
I first came to jail I cried so much blood was coming out of my mouth.
My husband's brother told me he would give my children back when I
came out of jail but he has become a Talib. Nobody comes to see us in
jail. There are a lot of diseases," she said.

Next to her, Dorkhani, 55, sobbed so much that the glint of her tears
shone through the mesh of her burqa. Married for four decades to a
relatively wealthy man from Nowzad, the couple had fled to Lashkar Gah
after a family dispute. When he returned to Nowzad, to try and reclaim
his money, he disappeared. "The ones who killed my husband, they have
money and they threw me in jail. I am 100 per cent innocent. I have no
one, no brother to look after me," she said, explaining that those
with cash could buy their freedom.

Last week, in Helmand, the new Women and Children's Justice Shura met
and voted in its constitution with the help of advisers from the
Afghan Human Rights Committee and support from the Women's Affairs
Department, as well as a government legal adviser.

The shura, made up of 20 influential women, mostly teachers, hopes to
tackle the inequality of the system by first ensuring that women in
the province become aware of their basic right: not to have to endure
abuse.

Earlier this year a report by Womankind, Taking Stock: Afghan Women
and Girls Seven Years On, revealed that violent attacks against women,
usually in a domestic setting, are at epidemic proportions – 87 per
cent of women complain of such abuse, and half of it is sexual. More
than 60 per cent of marriages are forced and, despite laws banning the
practice, 57 per cent of brides are under 16. Many of these girls are
offered as restitution for a crime or as debt settlement. Afghanistan
is the only country in the world with a higher suicide rate among
women than men.

In the UK, the MP Malcolm Bruce, chairman of the House of Commons
International Development Committee, warned: "There is a dangerous
tendency to accept in Afghanistan practices which would not be
countenanced elsewhere, because of 'cultural' differences and local
traditions."

The shura is hoping to provide a place where women can report abuse
and create a separate centre for women and girls incarcerated for
running away. It would be a compromise of custody without the stigma
of being thrown in jail.

"They are very aware of the inequality in the system," said Royal Navy
Lieutenant Rebecca Parnell, a member of the Cimic, or civil-military
co-operation, team. "The most refreshing thing is that there are plans
coming from the Department of Women's Affairs. It is not just us
pushing our ideas on to them." The military aid team has programmes
for monthly health checks and trauma counselling in the prison as well
as vocational training in carpet weaving, tailoring, literacy and
basic health education.

As she was led away to her jail cell yesterday, Dorkhani lifted her
burqa to reveal a sun-battered face streaked with tears and pleading
eyes: "Please, please take our words somewhere where people will be
kind and help us."


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