Clippings Detail
Empowering women for a better Afghanistan
AT News Report
KABUL: After a decade in power, Women’s Affairs Minister, Husn Banu Ghazanfar told Afghanistan Times in the capital Kabul about the increased awareness of women about their rights. Empowering women has long been a rigid task in the traditional and conservative society of Afghanistan. But advocating women’s rights has not been a wild goose chase, after all. Banu Ghazanfar confided to us that 22% of government and private sector employees are women.
Can you describe the main responsibilities of the Women’s Affairs Ministry?
A. “The Women’s Affairs Ministry has two main responsibilities to discharge.
1. Devising work plans, policies, rulings, regulations, procedures and laws for resolving challenges confronting the Afghan women across the country. The Women’s Affairs Ministry is also.
2. Overseeing and evaluating all activities of ministries, state and non-state institutions that involve women’s affairs and projects and programs. In the interim, the women’s affairs ministry acts as a facilitator and coordinator as well. As a facilitator, the ministry has constructed 197 capacity-building complexes for women. Under the auspices of donors and contracting agencies, the ministry implements roughly 1,000 projects in different aspects.
Q. What has the ministry hitherto accomplished in the sphere of regulating laws for empowering of women?
A. “Over the past 13 years, the ministry has devised the 10-year work plan for women, which is currently being implemented effectively. The ministry has also devised and finalized the ‘law on prevention of violence against women’, the draft law of family, and law on orphans’ caretaking.”
Q. As you mentioned, you are a policy-making ministry. Can you reckon how many policies has the ministry formulated under your command for reintegrating women?
A. “During the past decade, around 20 policies have been formulated. One of them is the policy for improving female prisoners. Women inmates alongside their children had been living under extremely bad conditions in prisons. They had no library, pharmacy, and clinics. The policy for boosting the girls’ enrolment in schools was among the many policies enforced in the first years. Now girls’ enrolment in schools jumped to 41% from zero. Enrolment of girls in higher education institutes has also increased. Now girls make up 19% of university and higher education students, while 15% of lecturers are women. Also 34% of school teachers are comprised of women. All these figures were tantamount to zero in the past. Moreover, the ‘policy of protection centers for vulnerable women’ and the ‘policy for prevention of excessive expenses for weddings’ are being readjusted as laws and ready to be passed.”
Q. Do you acknowledge there is a degree of relatively high concerns about shelters?
A. “Yes, there were some concerns before. We had dispatched a committee comprised of representatives of concerned offices to most of the shelters. They didn’t find any issue of great concern. But two shelters operating without compliance to the defined guidelines were sealed.”
Q. Can you tell us about any developments in ‘strategy on the elimination of violence against women’?
A. “Strategy on the elimination of violence against women is a big undertaking. This strategy has been finalized but hasn’t been passed yet. In addition to this strategy, we have a counter-violence commission – in which deputies from 13 ministries have membership – and its activities circles around prosecution of cases of violence against women, and such panels are operating in all provinces.
Q. What are the statistics on violence against women?
A. “Officials of the ministry are active in all the provinces of Afghanistan. We receive roughly 4,000 cases, out of which 50-60% of cases involved minor incidents which are resolved with the ministry’s intervention. The cases are thoroughly assessed in the legal department. Family sessions also play a key role as part of our intervention in resolving family conflicts. Those victims of violence who are reunited with their families will be under the care of the ministry for a year, while the remaining cases will be referred to concerned authorities.
Q. A relatively troubling problem is that women are rarely recruited in state and private institutions. What has the ministry achieved in reintegrating women back into society?
A. “We had a special scrutiny on the recruitment of women last year. Women employed last year in the Public Health Ministry make 25% of its overall staff, 5% in the National Directorate of Security and 10% in the judiciary. As I mentioned earlier, women make up 25% of government employees in education and higher education sectors, while 22% of government and private sector employees are women. Women are proactive in political ranks too. Almost 9% of political power is at women’s hands. There are three female ministers in the cabinet. Women are also governors in some provinces and district chiefs and village chiefs as well. This also illustrates that women are present in every tenet of the society. And our activities and scrutiny has helped empower women.”
Q. What have you done to increase the scale of women’s employment?
A. “We have built 21 gardens for women -- popular as “women’s garden” – in which women have various activities. Three markets and some 120 shops have been built for women to sell their handmade products. Our annual programmes are comprised of language and vocational training courses. Over 100,000 women graduate from these training courses with different skills.”
Q. Are donors financially supporting the ministry to accomplish its programmes?
A. “Many donors and international organizations have funded our programmes. In addition to UN Women, UNDP, Asia Foundation, USAID, all ministries shall help us implement our programmes.”
Q. The underspending of budgets has prompted public concerns. What has the ministry accomplished in that aspect?
A. “Initially, we could spend only 20 percent of our budget. Yet now, we spent over 92 percent of the allocated development budget. Developments in budget spending illustrate the growth in capacity and skills of the ministry staff and consolidation of the ministry’s administrative affairs. To accentuate the progress in budget spending, I have to mention that we spent 19% of the budget in 2005, 13.7% in 2006, 38% in 2007, 49% in 2008, 47% in 2009, 50% in 2010, 66% in 2011, 83% in 2012, and 91.5% in 2013.”
Q. Can you explain the ministry’s future plans?
A. “The ministry is planning to extend its activities at district level, to help empower women all across the restive parts of the country. Moreover, we are considering scaling up legal consultancy services to 25 percent ad provide legal assistance to women.”
Q. How are you going to improve awareness for women?
A. “We are carrying out intensive nationwide programmes in mosques with the help of preachers, through seminars, conferences, house-to-house campaigns, workshops, roundtables, television spots in a bid to improve public awareness.”
Q. You confide to us about the shelters. How effective have these safe houses been in eliminating violence and improving women’s overall status?
A. “Shelters can’t possibly play an effective role in improving women’s conditions. These shelters serve as safe houses for women who are subjected to violence. They stay there temporarily until their problem is solved. Not more than 500 women live in shelters now.
Q. What do you think about the widely-circulated speculations that violence against women has increased?
A. “Violence might not have surged. It’s the number of registered accounts of violence that has increased. The reason why acts of violence against women have mounted is not because the number of perpetrations of violence has increased. It’s simply because women are now aware of their rights, and appeal to women’s rights and advocacy institutions after undergoing an act of violence or an atrocity.”
Q. What type of violence is the most alarming?
A. “Acts of violence that contradict Islamic teachings, cultural values, and acceptable traditions of the society, and are at odds with the country’s laws are the most alarming forms of violence.”
Q. Islamic preachers believe violence can be curbed exponentially if the society is given Islamic upbringing. Do you approve that statement?
A. “No violence of any form would have existed inside our society, should the entire nation have completely comprehended and abided by the true Islamic axioms. Taking that into account, we’ve initiated trainings on legal and human rights of women through mosques and religious preachers. Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), an association of 57 Islamic states, are promoting women’s rights too. OIC often contemplates eliminating violence in Islamic nations, to set an example for other countries in the globe.”
Q. What have been the barriers preventing you from implementing your plans and how successful do you think you have been?
A. “Our work plan has been implemented hook, line and sinker. Last year’s budget had been spent by almost 92 percent. But a pyramid of challenges – most troubling, insecurity – have bedeviled the implementation of some projects in a few insecure provinces. Preposterous traditions and customs are to blame too. Forced marriages, widows and children being married off, and restrictions in the families prevented many women from partaking in awareness campaigns.”
Q. What do you think about the public notion that women can’t pull off difficult tasks?
A. “I certainly don’t believe that standpoint that women are bereft of the capability to accomplish difficult tasks. Women’s role in the society, in fact, has been understated. Women have active role in all sociopolitical, economic and cultural spheres. Afghan women have accomplished considerably important achievements for the first time in history; their proactive role in commerce and industries is a self-evident to that statement. Women are now running a whopping 760 companies and enterprises. Around 500 women’s advocacy NGOs are registered with the ministry. Women’s role in industries has improved too. Women are working in wood and stone carving, jewel making, paintworks, and carpentry, –which had been considered to be male work before – but women are undertaking these works. Policewomen and women in special force squads take part in night operations. Moreover, women are also being trained as pilots.”
Q. How are you fighting corruption in the ministry?
A. “Women’s Affairs Ministry is categorically devoid of corruption. The ministry is accountable for every penny of the $1 million annual development budget. I personally administer and assess all administrative affairs to avoid the possibility of corruption in the ministry’s structure, neither in budget spending nor in procurements and appointments.”
All Clippings
-
No end to Afghan-Pak tensions in foreseeable future: Think t
AT News ReportREAD MORE
-
Hunt for Mullah Omer: Afghans allege US of playing double ga
SituationerREAD MORE
-
Standing for a cause: Is Reza Gul the reincarnation of Malal
By Ahmad Siyar SiratREAD MORE
-
Corruption won’t end sans job security: Analysts
AT News ReportREAD MORE
-
Afghanistan has potential to generate 314,500 MW electricity
READ MORE
-
1,200 heritage sites on verge of collapse: Minister
“Plan to build a new museum is on the card READ MORE
-
Top Afghan think tank discusses causes, effects of corruptio
AT News ReportREAD MORE
-
90 percent population have access to cellular services
National treasury annually earns $200m from telecom sector: Minister
READ MORE
-
Illiteracy rate in Afghanistan stands at 64pc
5 million citizens educated since 2002 including 60 percent females; seven million citizens still illiterate; 78 ‘adult lite READ MORE
-
Afghans need lasting peace, stability to make headway in spo
By Baber Khan Sahel and Ahmad Siyar READ MORE
-
Empowering women for a better Afghanistan
AT News Report
READ MORE
-
Stranded asylum seekers in Afghanistan
Though, Afghans leave their country to seek refuge in secure parts of the READ MORE
-
Rana Think Tank discusses repercussions of election crisis o
Anti-Afghanistan elements taking advantage of political turmoil; lifespan of proposed nat READ MORE
-
Apiculture training to spur honey production
MAZAR-I-SHARIF: Abdul Ghani Sharaf, a resident of northern Balkh province, has switched to the be READ MORE
-
Ancient treasures highlight Afghanistan’s golden history
Pictures of war and waste may spring to mind when the average Australian thinks of Afghanistan, b READ MORE
-
Analysts term national unity govt as viable solution at this
AT News ReportREAD MORE
-
Approving law on rights and privileges for MPs: Struggle for
“Why should the MPs get 25% of their salary and other privileges after retirement w READ MORE
-
Hamid Karzai: 'I Didn't See a War in Afghanistan—I Saw a C
An exit interview with the Afghan president:
READ MORE
-
Saving Buddhist statues: Afghanistan’s big dig
MES AYNAK- Logar: Less than half an hour’s drive from Kabul, the congested and narrow two-l READ MORE
-
Bamyan declared as SAARC cultural capital for 2015
AT News ReportREAD MORE
Clippings
Iran and blame the victim game
Tehran is continuously interfering in Afghanistan and pressurizing Kabul under one pretext or the other. Iran’s meddling into our internal affairs while giving it name of concern as Tehran did it recently when its ambassa...
