Human Rights and Democracy - Official Documents

Women’s rights
Women in Afghanistan continued to face huge challenges throughout 2010, including
high illiteracy rates, domestic violence, forced marriages, poor access to healthcare
and lack of livelihoods. However, some encouraging gains were also made.
Women played a full and active role in the June Consultative Peace Jirga – an event
hosted by the Afghan government to gain the support of the Afghan people for their
reconciliation and reintegration proposals – where they made up almost 25% of all
participants. There are nine female members of the High Peace Council, including
at least one woman on each subcommittee. In the parliamentary elections, women
won 69 seats in the Lower House, breaking through the constitutional quota of 68.
The Afghan government has pledged to improve the situation of women through its
conference commitments and efforts to include women in the political process.
However, there remains much to be done by the government to promote women’s
rights in Afghanistan and, particularly, to improve the lives of women in rural
communities across the country. The London and Kabul Conference communiqués
contained clear commitments on women’s rights, including implementing a National
Priority Programme for Human Rights and Civic Responsibilities and the
implementation of the National Action Plan for Women and the law on elimination of
violence against women. Committed implementation of these programmes and
legislation will be key to ensuring improvements over the next few years.
We continued to work closely with Afghan women’s rights advocates to improve the
status of women in Afghanistan. In 2010 we supported a Kabul women’s legal aid
centre run by the NGO Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of
Afghanistan, which provides legal assistance to female and child victims of violence
and discrimination. As part of our work to empower Afghan women, we funded a
project to provide support to female parliamentary candidates. The year 2010 was
also the final year of the UK’s five-year women’s empowerment project with
Womankind Worldwide in Afghanistan. The UK’s National Action Plan on UN
Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security was launched on
25 November and contained a specific country action plan for Afghanistan. This plan
sets out how our defence, diplomatic and development work in Afghanistan will
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