Plan for a Sustainable Afghanistan: Women

Gender Mainstreaming:

Context: Gender mainstreaming is an internationally accepted strategy for promoting gender equality that has been implemented in Afghanistan. Gender mainstreaming, according to the UN, involves ensuring that gender perspectives and attention to the goal of gender equality are central to all activities – policy development, research, advocacy/ dialogue, legislation, resource allocation, and planning, implementation and monitoring of programs and projects. The National Action Plan for the Women of Afghanistan (NAPWA) is the main resource for gender mainstreaming in Afghanistan's government institutions.

Problems:

· Gender mainstreaming is widely perceived as a policy imported from outside the country, and people do not generally feel they have ownership of its implementation

· Lack of political will of influential figures to take real action. There is no real coordination of gender mainstreaming efforts as it is assumed each department will deal with this itself, often leading to it never being implemented.

Solutions:

· Create a recognized body within the Afghan national government to oversee gender mainstreaming across ministries headed by Fatana Gailani, the founder of the Afghanistan Women Council

o Located within the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA)

o All agencies working on gender policies will be effectively held accountable to this body

o Ms. Gailani will provide the political will and strong leadership that current gender mainstreaming efforts are lacking

o Continue to establish gender units in various government ministries to ensure that gender equity principles are being developed and implemented

Eliminating Violence Against Women:

Context: While Afghanistan's new constitution guarantees men and women equal rights as citizens, violence against women, including so-called honor killing, is on the rise. This happens despite the fact that women hold more than 25 percent of the seats in the Afghan parliament and women's rights activists stand up to protest and defend women's rights.[1] The lack of rule of law in Afghanistan has severely hurt women and inhibits their forward progress. At the local level, "Afghanistan plays host to well entrenched, localized systems of customary law based on tribal tradition, particular and politicized interpretations of sharia law, local political interests and cultural norms. Customary law is characterized by deeply patriarchal values and attitudes towards women, and is bolstered by the minimal reach of the central government into the provinces.[2]

Solutions:

· Institutional justice mechanisms must expand their outreach to the local level as security and lack of law enforcement are two of the main impediments to decreasing violence against women.

· Increasing women's presence in the security forces will allow the police to react to violence against women, family violence, children in trouble, and kidnappings. They will also be able to investigate female suspects, provide support to female victims of crime, and ensure the security of women in communities

· Legal counseling centers need to be set up and offer information to reduce the number of situations in which women must act under compulsion such as forced marriages, wife exchange, and violence against women

· The Afghan Ministry of Information should organize a public-education campaign incorporating messages opposing violence against women displayed on billboards in cities, and clips prepared for broadcast on the radio. [3]

· The Afghan Ministry of Health must work with international partners to establish a training facility for doctors and nurses to be trained in recognizing, treating and reporting cases of domestic violence. [4]

Women in the Security Forces:

Context: Incorporating women into the Afghan National Police has benefits both for the policewomen themselves and for Afghan society. In an Islamic society, the ANP cannot properly respond to incidents involving women as suspects or victims; policewoman have the ability to go where no man can and are able to interrogate female suspects, provide support to female victims of crime, and can ensure the security of women in their communities.[5] It has been shown in other countries that the growing number of women entering policing has contributed to a shift from repressive command-and-control approaches to an emphasis on human rights, police professionalism, crime prevention and service to communities.[6]

Problems:

· Lack of coordination, direction and commitment to achieving gender equity within the police force.

· Lack of political will to recruit large amounts of Afghan women into the ANP and to provide them with the proper training to ensure their success.

· Insufficient finances: Gender equity does not have specific funding as it should be present in every department

· Failure to employ policewomen in value-producing work. Often merely assist male police, not taking advantage of their unique advantage as a policewoman

· German forces train educated professional police (use the European state policing model), and the US train largely illiterate "soldiers" (use the common law model)

o Leads to disconnects and miscommunications, and a lack of a comprehensive law enforcement system able to coordinate its actions

Solutions:

· Set up a gender unit within ANP devoted to promoting the recruitment of women and ensuring their successful completion of training equivalent to that a man receives. The gender unit would be given its own budget to ensure the implementation of gender equity principles and practices. This unit should be headed by an expert advisor on police gender issues, preferably from a Muslim country, who has an understanding of the issues these women will face both at work and within their communities.

· Developing leadership through intensive training of women in police competency and skills development

· Create more Family Response Units, like the Kabul District 10 family violence unit[7]

o Staffed by women police officers in a building adjacent to the police station, which allows complainants to access it without having to pass by policemen often present at the station’s entrance, which helps in maintaining victims’ confidentiality.

o Emergency mobile phone number available for men, women and children seeking help and advice on family related crimes.

o Afghan policewomen will receive training by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on methods to address family violence.

o The new unit will allow policewomen to react to violence against women, family violence, children in trouble, and kidnappings. They will also be able to interrogate, detain and investigate female suspects; provide support to female victims of crime and ensure the security of women in communities

o Only with a greater policewoman force is the expansion of such programs across the country possible

Microfinance:

Currently there are 14 microfinance Institutions (MFIs) operating in Afghanistan, providing loans to 400,000 borrowers, approximately 80% of whom are women.[8] However, many women have refused such loans because sharia law prohibits interest. Several MFIs have started to engage in Islamic microfinance, distributing interest free murabaha loans. Islamic microfinance needs to be expanded into all of the provinces, so women are not inhibited by religious beliefs that MFIs can easily incorporate into their operations.