[fpn_atrocities] Atrocities: Afghanistan: Girls and Women traded for Opium debts
FPN
c6.htm
(IRIN) - On 4 November 2006, Nasima, 25, a member of a local women's
council, grabbed the AK-47 from the policeman guarding the council meeting
in the Grishk district of southern Helmand province and killed herself.
She had had enough of the daily beatings by her husband. Like many other
women in Helmand, Nasima was given away by her family in 2005. Her father
owed a huge amount to an opium dealer and, unable to return the money or
provide the quantity of opium he had promised, he offered his daughter to
the smuggler, who already had a wife and four children. Under Islamic law
and in many Muslim countries a man is allowed up to four wives.
"Nasima was enduring a bitter life in the family. The family members and her
husband considered her as an extra burden," Gulalai, head of the local
women's council in Grishk district, told IRIN.
Nasima's case is just one of hundreds of such incidents where women are
traded for debts. Most go unreported in the troubled southern provinces,
where most of the opium in Afghanistan is produced. The practice is also
reported in other provinces, particularly the east and the north, but the
stakes are higher in the south, the heartland for drug trading.
In another case in the Marja district of Helmand, 18-year-old Saliha
considers herself lucky to be living a relatively peaceful life. "I was 13
when my father married me off to a 20-year-old man, whose father had given a
loan to my parents and they were unable to return the amount or the quantity
of opium," Saliha said.
She says she is fortunate to be the first wife and only wife for her
husband, who is only seven years older and not double her age, which is
common in this part of the country.
Qais Bawari, acting head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission
(AIHRC) for the southern region, based in Kandahar, said they received 69
cases of self-immolation and murders from Helmand and Kandahar provinces in
2006 alone. He said several were related to marriages in exchange for drugs.
"Unfortunately many of the cases of violence against women go unreported and
a very small proportion is reported to us," Bawari said.
He said people were reluctant to report cases regarding domestic violence
against women for fear of reprisals.
Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the opium available in the
world today. Human rights activists say local drug dealers pay in advance to
farmers for their poppy yield but they often end up giving their daughters
to the drug traffickers when they fail to harvest the expected yield.
The sale of opium is banned in Afghanistan - but since the fall of the
Taliban in 2001, the crop has re-emerged as a profitable trade. Despite
government efforts and international pressure, poppy farmers are reluctant
to give up their crop in return for a less lucrative alternative in a
country where poverty is rife.
Afghanistan and its female population are at the bottom of the global
poverty scale. The country is the fourth lowest in the world for living
standards and third lowest in gender disparities, the United Nations
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) stated in August 2006.
Ahmad Shah Mirdad, legal analyst with AIHRC in Kabul, criticised central
government for doing little to stem the growing problems faced by women in
the country.
"Stronger efforts are needed to battle these awful and discriminatory
practices in our communities," Mirdad said.
Some say the status of women has not changed much since the ousting of the
Taliban, which enforced strict rules on the movement of women and curtailed
their rights. Head of the women's affairs department in Helmand, Fawzia
Ulomi, said more than 20 women and girls had committed suicide over the past
10 months - most of them had been handed over to dealers instead of drugs,
or to settle family disputes.
Cases of violence are generally kept secret in rural areas but if the victim
or family chooses to complain, tribal Jirgas or local councils are convened
to resolve it. Such cases were rarely referred to the women's affairs
department or other concerned authorities, Ulomi said.