Women In Afghanistan Essay

Decent Essays
I wake up every morning to my alarm and dread getting up and going to class or work, but I put on whatever outfit I choose and walk out the door. I take for granted the fact I can walk the streets of this town without worrying about being violently attacked just because I’m a woman. Now imagine waking up every morning with the fear that your life could be taken simply because you’re a woman. Imagine not having access to adequate healthcare. Imagine your parents marrying you off at age 16. Imagine not having a formal education. As hard as this may be to believe, this what women in Afghanistan deal with every day of their lives.
Women in Afghanistan have it especially hard. 85% of Afghan women have no formal education or are illiterate. Only
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One being that women in Afghanistan are still considered inferior to men. Afghanistan is definitely a male dominated culture. The women are expected to stay home and be housewives while the men go to work. Men also dominate in society and government. “Only nine of the seventy members of the High Peace Council, responsible for negotiations with the Taliban, have been women, and they have largely been shut out of discussions related to the transition process.” This makes it hard for women to get a foot in the door when it comes to changing laws or pushing to have bills based. While there is some progression in this area, men still continue to have very large majority of the major roles in government.
Violence is also a huge barrier against the progression of women’s rights. Violence against women continues to rise despite the Elimination of Violence Against Women law being passed, law enforcement fail to investigate the violence happening to women and children. Out of the incidents reported against women, about 30 percent were related to physical violence, about the same amount to psychological violence, about a quarter had to do with sexual violence and about 14 percent were a combination of all three categories. And women don’t have to look far for their perpetrators—about 8 in 10 incidents
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One of these organizations being Women for Women International, the Afghanistan chapter. Women for Women has created a yearlong program that educates women on how to develop health and well-being, as well as create networks for support. The program was started in 2002 and so far this program helped nearly 48000 Afghan women. Women for Women works on changing the attitudes of men by allowing them to become allies against the cause. Roughly 1600 men have engaged in the program to spread awareness of women’s rights. Despite there being many great programs, there is still work that needs to be done. There needs to be more enforcement of the laws and constitution in order to protect these women. Law enforcement needs to stop turning a blind eye to what’s going on and help women and children be better protected. Afghanistan so far has done a create job of putting policy changes in the new constitution, it’s just a matter of getting the men of Afghanistan to follow them. Adding more policy changes won’t help the matter if we cannot find a way to get people to abide by them

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