Afghan Women Demand Action Over Street Harassment

Latifa, 22, earns up to 150 US dollars each month working in a factory that processes dried fruit. She needs the money, but longs to leave her job because of the gauntlet she has to run on her journey to and from work each day.

Every morning, as soon as she leaves her house and heads for the bus stop, men begin to harass her. Private cars pull up beside her and the occupants try to lure her inside.

"These men invite me to go have fun with them, they offer to pay me money, they harass and taunt me," she told IWPR. The same thing happens on the way home.

The harassment had reached a point, she explained, where she would prefer not to have to go out to work at all. However, she has to support her family as her father was killed in a suicide bombing three years ago.

Campaigners say that street harassment in Afghanistan has reached epidemic proportions. Women furious at the extent of the problem have been organising public protests across the country.

In Herat, in the west of the country, activists held two weeks of protests earlier this month to highlight the problem. In Kabul, women have also been marching to demand the government to take urgent action

"We should never surrender to these problems; we have to fight and find solutions to these challenges," said Zuhra, a third year literature student at Kabul University who has marched in several recent demonstrations in the capital.

"Our success lies in our struggle, not in our retreat to sit in a corner of the house and [be imprisoned] by its four walls."

But street harassment limits educational and employment opportunities for many women.

Habiba, a ninth grade student at the Qabul-bai school in Kabul, told IWPR that she would dearly like to carry on studying.

Her family, however, had forbidden this.

"Our home is located far from the road, on a back street with narrow lanes; when girls and women pass by, the boys who loiter there harass and bother them. They even get physical if they get the chance."

This meant that her family would not let her travel the extra distance to a local college to continue her education.

LEGISLATION AN IMPORTANT TOOL

Lia Jawad heads the Transitional Justice Coordination Group, a civil society forum that has organised demonstrations and public awareness workshops.

One historic problem had been the lack of specific legislation on street harassment, Jawad said.

"The police did not consider street harassment a crime because it was not included in criminal law. This was why the Transitional Justice Coordination Group presented a recommendation to the council of ministers, via the ministry of justice, to consider it to be a crime so that those who commit it can be prosecuted. Fortunately this regulation was passed."

Adela Amarkhail, deputy head of the women's support section of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), told IWPR that street harassment was a huge social problem.

This was exacerbated by a lack of education, poverty and conservative attitudes towards gender roles. Legislation, she added, was an important tool in the battle against such discrimination.

"The implementation of the law on the elimination of violence against women is one of the ways to prevent abuse on the streets," Amarkhail said. "This problem will persist until the laws are applied."

Although passed by presidential decree in 2009, this law was rejected by parliament in May 2013, and has been shelved ever since. Conservative parliamentarians claim that it contradicts Islamic sharia law.

But religious experts also noted that harassing women was forbidden under Islamic law.

Maulawi Abdulbasir Haqani, head of the religious scholars' council of Kabul, told IWPR that such behaviour was a grave sin. Imams in mosques frequently repeated this message to their congregants, he said.

"If people commit to the religious teachings and respect them, society will not have this problem and there will be no need for the police and threats and abuse," Haqani continued.

Experts say that the disruption of decades of continuous conflict have also served to change men's behaviour.

Political scientist Abdul Ghafoor Lewal said that the government needed to urgently address the resulting ethical and cultural damage to society. The movement of population had had a marked effect, he added.

"Villagers who have moved to the cities for various reasons are not familiar with cultural traditions in urban areas, so they cause trouble," Lewal continued.

In addition, he attributed bad behaviour to former fighters who had become accustomed to behaving exactly as they pleased. Now back in civilian life, they continued to throw their weight around.

Kabul resident Shah Jan, 52, noted that women did not experience such problems 40 years ago, despite the fact that they had less personal freedom and rates of poverty, illiteracy and unemployment were high.

"At that time, women used to wear over-the-knee socks [and] miniskirts; women and girls mostly did not wear headscarves," she said. "However, no one disturbed them when they walked around the city. Then there were culture, principles and honour. Respecting women was part of Afghan culture. Now, social morality has become very weak. People do not fear the law or the police, because policemen themselves are among the offenders."

Kabul police spokesman Basir Mujahid denied such accusations, adding that officers dealt harshly with incidents of street harassment.

They had made between 130 and 150 arrests for such offences in the last two weeks alone, he added.

"The police emergency number, 100, is active 24 hours a day," Mujahid continued. "Citizens can inform the police."

Women who were pestered should report all incidents, he added, so that appropriate action could be taken.

"First, we contact the family of the accused, as well as community leaders in his local area, so that they can all try to correct the faults in his behaviour. We only release him after receiving guarantees from the family [that the offender will stay out of trouble]. We also shave his head as a warning, and if he has a criminal record then we refer him to the attorney's office."

The government says it is taking some action to combat violence against women.

Afghanistan's second vice-president, Sarwar Danish, told media last month that dedicated courts and prosecuting attorney offices had been created in all the country's 34 provinces.

Danish said that the courts would deal specifically with gender violence and that their creation was the result of many years of petitioning from female activists.

Lewal said that there was no alternative to the rule of law. Ultimately, the security services would have to crack down on abusers.

"Although educational programmes have their uses, one of the ways to prevent such behaviour is through punishment," he said. "And it is the job of the police to keep order in our cities."

This report was produced under IWPR's Promoting Human Rights and Good Governance in Afghanistan initiative, funded by the European Union Delegation to Afghanistan.