The Human Rights Watch has urged the Afghan government to urgently act to end wrongful imprisonment and humiliating, scientifically invalid “virginity exams” of women and girls.
Accordin to the rights organization, the Afghan police and prosecutors continue to engage in the abusive practice, despite a pledge from President Ashraf Ghani in a February 2016 letter to Human Rights Watch to “prevent the imprisonment of women accused of running away from their family.”
Heather Barr, senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, said “President Ghani’s promise to end the practice of arresting women and girls for ‘running away’ is an important step forward for women’s rights in Afghanistan.”
“But to make a real difference, the president needs to issue a clear and binding order that immediately changes how every police officer and prosecutor handles complaints against women and girls. For too long, women and girls fleeing violence have been treated as criminals while their abusers go free,” Barr added.
HRW added that the government should take concrete steps to implement the promised reform and ensure that women and girls who have been the victims of violence are protected by the legal system.
“In Afghanistan today, hundreds of women and girls are imprisoned on charges of “moral crimes,” Human Rights Watch said, adding that “These so-called crimes include “running away” from home, and committing or attempting to commit zina, or having sex outside of marriage.”
According to HRW estimate, in 2013 that half of all women in prison and about 95 percent of girls in juvenile detention in Afghanistan have been arrested on “moral crimes” charges.
Citing a research report, HRW said in most cases, the women and girls accused of these “crimes” were fleeing forced child marriage or domestic violence. In some cases, women and girls who have been raped were charged with zina, alongside their rapist.
HRW said the so-called “virginity tests” have no scientific validity in reality, insisting that their use is based on the mistaken belief that “virginity” can be determined by examining a woman or girl’s hymen to determine whether it has been broken during sexual intercourse.
“In fact, some girls are born without a hymen, hymens often break during daily non-sexual activities, and some hymens remain intact after sexual intercourse. These factors make “virginity examinations” so unreliable that the World Health Organization has said that they have no scientific validity and health workers should never conduct them,” HRW added.
