Security of Women in Afghanistan

Pat Glass Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I also wish to thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for this debate. I speak whenever I can in this House on the issues of education and women, and today I want to bring those issues together in this debate on the security situation of women in Afghanistan. I do so for a number of reasons, one of which is that when I became an MP in May 2010, the very first thing—and I mean the very first thing—I had to do officially was attend the funeral of Daryn Roy, a young man who was born and brought up in Dipton in my constituency and who died in Camp Bastion in Afghanistan right at the end of April 2010. When I attended his funeral, I found that his parents took great comfort from the fact that he had told them that he was fighting in Afghanistan on behalf of not only Britain, but the people of Afghanistan and that he and his colleagues were there not only to deal with terrorists and remove them from that sorry land, but to create a land in which education could be brought to children—all children, both girls and boys. He had taken great pride in the fact that he and his colleagues were protecting women from the worst excesses of the Taliban.

As we know, the lives of women in Afghanistan have never been easy, but under the spiritual leader Mullah Omar the Taliban brought a whole new level of misery and terror to the lives of many, particularly women. Women were not allowed to work outside the home; and they were not allowed to leave their home unless accompanied by a male relative. Women who could not afford a burqa or who did not have a living male relative were, in effect, housebound for four years. Education for women and girls was banned by the Taliban, and as most of the teachers in Afghanistan were women, the education of boys and girls suffered. Throughout that time, brave women teachers continued secretly to teach young girls, and some boys, in their homes. Information about secret schools was spread by word of mouth, from woman to woman. Through the generosity and bravery of these women teachers, some young girls did continue to receive an education.

The international invasion and the election of President Karzai’s Government did lead to a relaxation of some restrictions on women, but women’s lives continued to be difficult. His Government endorsed a code of conduct that continued to require women to be accompanied by a male relative when travelling and not to mingle with strange men—anyone outside the family—in places such as schools, markets and offices. Although that did not amount to a ban, it made work and life very difficult for most women.

We know that Afghanistan continues to be one of the most challenging places in the world to be a woman. More women and girls die in pregnancy there than almost anywhere else in the world. Nine out of 10 women cannot read or write. One in 10 children dies before their fifth birthday. The life expectancy of a woman in Afghanistan is 44 years of age, one of the lowest in the world. More than 50% of Afghan women are married or engaged by the age of 10; 60% are married by the age of 16; 80% of marriages are either forced or arranged; and violence against women is endemic.

There are 1.5 million widows in Afghanistan, one of the highest proportions in the world, 94% of whom are illiterate. The average age of a widow is 35. Widows without male relatives prepared to support them have few options, and most are forced to beg or are forced into prostitution.

Education for women has improved since 2001, but still, in 2011, of the 8 million students in Afghanistan, only 30% of them were women and girls. Things have improved, and education is no longer banned, but the Taliban has continued to conduct a reign of terror against schools. There is a campaign of burning down schools and of killing students and teachers, and the Taliban has been helped in this by its supporters in Pakistan who have banned the delivery of school books and texts to Afghanistan.

Teachers and those running schools endure violent threats from the Taliban on a daily basis. There are attacks on their families and they risk losing their homes and those closest to them, and yet they persevere. They continue to provide essential education to women and girls across the country at great cost to themselves.

[Mr Ellwood]

I am reluctant to interrupt what is a very powerful speech, but does she agree that there is huge concern about the contracts for schools and clinics? The west builds them, but then we do not provide the contracts for the teachers to continue there—certainly after we have left. That applies not only in the southern area, the Pashtun area, where the Taliban operate, but in the north.

[Pat Glass]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I hope that the Minister is listening.

As I was saying, it is because of the teachers—my professional colleagues of whom I am so proud—and others working in women's health, human rights and security that the lot of women in Afghanistan has improved. However, that is now at risk as the time of withdrawal draws close. Most international forces are set to withdraw this year, and, as the deadline draws near, women activists, women teachers and doctors and those working on behalf of women in Afghanistan become increasingly concerned about the future.

I want to give just one small example of what is happening now. We worry about what will happen after we withdraw in 2014, but what is going on now? In 2009, the law on the elimination of violence against women finally criminalised acts of child marriage, rape and other forms of violence against women. Despite that, there was a 27% increase in attacks on women last year in a society where attacks on women usually take place within the family and are rarely reported or challenged. Now a small, seemingly inconsequential change in the criminal law could make domestic violence against women almost impossible to prosecute. The new law proposes that relatives can no longer testify when a woman has been assaulted or raped. Essentially, that means that no one can testify on a woman’s behalf, because in Afghanistan a woman rarely sees anyone outside of the family. Relatives are the only people who would ever be privy to a woman being abused, who would see her afterwards or who could testify on her behalf. The change in the law would mean that women could be beaten and raped without any fear of prosecution for the persecutor.

We are withdrawing from Afghanistan, but we have not gone yet. This Parliament, the British Government and international forces need to tell President Karzai now, firmly and loudly, that this kind of law must be repealed. It is an offence to Afghan women and to women everywhere and it needs to go. This is not what Daryn Roy and the other young men and women from constituencies up and down this country fought and died for. Although I understand the need to withdraw, surely we owe an assurance to our war dead and to those who have been injured and who have fought on our behalf in Afghanistan that they did not fight for nothing and that they leave a lasting legacy that includes a better, safer and educated future for the women and girls of Afghanistan.