Some believe pending legislation could help tackle abuses, while others say Islam provides women with protection.
By IWPR Afghanistan
Afghanistan
ARR Issue 520
http://go.iwpr.net/1EQTApc
At a series of debates organised by IWPR in Afghanistan, opinion was divided on the significance of a controversial law on eradicating gender violence.
Although passed by presidential decree in 2009, the bill was rejected by parliament in May 2013, and has been shelved ever since. Conservative parliamentarians claim that it contradicts Islamic law.
Some participants in IWPR debates held in Kandahar, Kunar and Paktia provinces in late July said it was vitally important for the law to be enacted, while others argued that Afghan society was not ready for this kind of legislation.
Sahebzada Nalan, head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) department for people with disabilities in the southern Kandahar province, told the debate that anyone who opposed the gender violence law did not support human rights.
“It was mostly those who weren’t committed to women’s individual, human and civil rights who opposed the law in the lower house [of parliament], and the reason they gave was that the law contravened our customs and traditions,” he said.
Mohammad Zafar Ghurzang, a judge in Kandahar, said that several decades of war had led to people being poorly educated about legal issues and unaware of the damage caused by some customs.
“The contents of the law on eradicating violence against women mostly does not contradict Islam. If someone says it does, it’s because he doesn’t have enough information on the subject,” he Ghurzang.
Civil society activist Ahmad Zaker Patyal said that the continuing lack of security in Afghanistan meant that women’s basic rights to study and enjoy freedom of movement had been trampled on.
Hekmatullah Afghan, a legal expert in Kandahar, stressed that while most Afghan customs were beneficial, there were some that needed to be eradicated. But lawmakers still needed to take tradition into account.
“Afghanistan is an Islamic and traditional