Over the past few weeks, I have noticed several stories in the New York Times that shed a disturbing light on our allies in Afghanistan. Although the Afghan government has taken token measures toward protecting women’s rights in the country, the overall picture is one of systematic abuse, often with the sanction of the country’s legal system or even at its hands.
Among the most recent abuses to come to light has been the subjection of imprisoned Afghan women to so-called virginity tests, which have been condemned by the WHO and Human Rights Watch. Just as disturbing is the blasé attitude of the Afghan justice system towards crimes against women, demonstrated by yesterday’s commutation of the sentences of four men involved in the killing of Farkhunda, who was falsely accused of burning the Quran, just a week before the one year anniversary of her death.
My Gut Reaction: Aren’t you so glad we spent so much US tax money and so many American lives on creating such a better, more just society?
More below the fold….
A recent report by the Independent Human Rights Commission in Afghanistan found that out of 53 imprisoned women Afghan women surveyed, 48 had been subjected to “virginity tests.” These tests involve manual probing of a woman’s vagina to determine if her hymen is intact. In 2014, the World Health Organization recommended that these tests be banned worldwide. As Human Rights Watch reports in an article linked above:
The recommendation, included in a November 2014 WHO handbook, “Health care for women subjected to intimate partner violence or sexual violence,” states that health workers should never use “virginity tests.” The handbook emphasizes respect for a woman’s rights and comfort, and makes clear that any physical exam should be conducted only with informed consent and focused on determining the nature of medical care required. It concludes that the invasive and degrading “virginity test” or the “two-finger’ test” - still used in some countries to “prove” whether a woman or girl is a virgin - has “no scientific validity.”
“The WHO handbook upholds the widely accepted medical view that ‘virginity tests’ are worthless,” said Liesl Gerntholtz, women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Health authorities worldwide should end the practice of ‘virginity testing’ in all cases and prohibit health workers from perpetuating this discriminatory and degrading practice.”
Even more disturbing is the fact that most of the women suffering these tests are incarcerated for supposed moral crimes or zina (unmarried sex). The moral crimes often involved girls running away from their families to avoid coerced marriages.
One would think that Afghan justice system had better things to do given the prevalence of crimes against women in the country. All too typical is the case of Reza Gul, a woman whose nose was cut off by her husband because she disagreed with his plan to marry his six or seven year old first cousin. Gul’s mother, dissatisfied with the Afghan police’s lack of progress in apprehending the husband, had to turn to the Taliban for help in capturing him.
Yes, readers, you understood that correctly. We’ve spent over a billion dollars in aid to help the Afghan legal system, yet people feel compelled to turn to the Taliban when their daughters are attacked.
Even when the Afghan government manages to apprehend someone who hurts or kills a woman, they are not likely to face particularly heavy penalties. Even a case which received international attention, such as the murder of Furkhunda, is likely to be soft-pedaled by the authorities after the journalists have moved on. The people who killed Furkhunda, at least one of whom did so in order to cover up his own crimes, have gotten away with comparatively light sentences, as described in the article linked above.
The United States has spent billions of dollars and over two thousand American soldiers’ lives to prop up a country that is still considered by the United Nations Development Program as one of the worst to be born a women in. Our other initiatives, such as wiping out the Taliban, have similarly failed. It’s time to recognize that our presence in the country is not productive and leave.