Security of Women in Afghanistan

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Pat Glass

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[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Government and international forces need to tell President Karzai now, firmly and loudly, that this kind of law must be repealed.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.