The report – titled “Injustice and Impunity” – documents the experiences of women who survived violence and tried to bring criminal complaints against their male attackers in 237 cases across Afghanistan from August 2015 until December 2017. The landmark 2009 Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) law criminalises child marriage, forced marriage, forced self-immolation, rape and other violence against women. There is no provision in Afghan law that allows for mediation in such criminal cases. “Once mediated, incidents of violence against women are essentially transformed from ‘criminal acts’ into mere ‘family disputes’,” Danielle Bell, UNAMA’s human rights chief, told AFP. But it said the frequent failures to investigate and prosecute such crimes contributed to “the existing high rate of impunity and strengthened the normalisation of violence against women in the Afghan society.” --AFP

Source: New Strait Times May 29, 2018 09:11 UTC