Really Want to Help Afghans? Help the Women!

It is good that there is a call for taking rape more seriously but tougher laws are seldom successful unless authorities are willing to enforce them. In neighboring Pakistan, it took one woman years to get her attackers charged - then they were freed and now being charged again. Hers was not an unusual case.

clipped from www.irinnews.org AFGHANISTAN: Call for tougher laws on rape Photo: Darmani/IRIN Maryam was raped by a stranger in August and her mother and brother used razor blades to cut her open to take out the foetus KABUL, 8 July 2009 (IRIN) - Rapists in Afghanistan too often get away with their crime, whilst rape victims lack access to justice and experience stigma and shame, according to a report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Maryam was raped by a stranger in August and her mother and brother used razor blades to cut her open to take out the foetus “In some areas, alleged or convicted rapists are, or have links to, powerful commanders, members of illegal armed groups, or criminal gangs, as well as powerful individuals whose influence protects them from arrest and prosecution,” said the report entitled Silence is Violence, launched in Kabul on 8 July. “Women and girls are at risk of rape in their homes, their communities and in detention facilities,” it said.