MADRID 10 Oct. () –
A report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) reveals that hundreds of Afghan women suffered harassment, assault and sexual abuse within the Afghan National Police before the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan and denounces widespread impunity, as well as the lack of accountability for these cases.
The NGO – which has carried out interviews with 24 women in different parts of Afghanistan, as well as in the United States, Sweden, Italy, Iran and Pakistan – has warned in a forceful report that the abuses occurred during the stage in which Western countries trained the Afghan police forces.
The United Nations launched an investigation in 2012 into sexual abuse within the Afghan National Police. A year later, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) delivered the results to senior government officials, although they were not made public for fear of reprisals against the victims.
The report contained 136 testimonies that determined that sexual violence within the Police was “systematic and frequent.” 70 percent of the women interviewed claimed to have suffered cases of harassment or abuse by their male colleagues.
Previous authorities downplayed the UN report, saying they had not received complaints about it, although they promised reforms to end corruption within the police institution, which had a reputation for routinely accepting bribes and tolerating abuse.
The Gender Department of the Ministry of the Interior was responsible for investigating these cases. Many former agents highlight, however, that this section of the ministerial portfolio was rather symbolic, since the complaints were not taken seriously.
Despite promises of reform, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, John F. Sopko, detailed in 2019 that women in both the Afghan National Army and the National Police “frequently” suffer harassment, discrimination, sexual behavior inappropriate behavior and aggression, which is why these cases persist.
TESTIMONIES OF HARASSMENT, ABUSE AND VIOLATIONS
The NGO assures that the majority of women recruited by the Afghan Police before the Taliban takeover had few economic resources, so they were particularly vulnerable to abuse, and were perceived as sexually promiscuous in conservative communities due to their work.
“Everything seemed fine from the outside, but for those who worked inside it was different. I have witnessed bodyguards harassing women, stopping them and even touching them,” a former police officer from the city of Khost tells HRW.
Among the cases reported are requests for sexual favors from their superiors in exchange for promotions or to avoid losing their job; sexual harassment in the work environment and even sexual rape.
“They never promoted me because I didn’t accept their offers to have sex. They wanted me to have sex with them and stay the night. They said if I had a good family, what was I doing there? I tried to complain but nothing happened,” says one agent who was in the Afghan Police for 16 years.
Another woman who was head of recruitment assures HRW that of the 35 women who worked under her, all of them had been harassed in exchange for promotions. On one occasion, he disguised himself in a burqa and posed as a visitor to observe the behavior of his male colleagues with their female staff.
“There were about eight or nine men working with her at that station. Each one of them would come up and say, ‘You look really pretty today. You’ve done your makeup really well. Are you going somewhere? Do you have enough money? Do you want some ?’ Every five minutes, one of them would come and harass her,” she explains.
Another former police officer who investigated complaints of women who had been assaulted recounts the case of a police officer who tried to rape one of his colleagues in the prayer room. After an attempted bribery, he was fired from his position and prosecuted, although the victim withdrew the complaint. “I asked her if she had been threatened, but she said she didn’t want her case to become public and embarrass her,” she says.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE TALIBAN TO POWER
After the lightning takeover of Kabul in August 2021, the Taliban carried out a cleansing of the institutions of those officials who worked for the previous government, with extrajudicial murders and disappearances.
“About three months after the takeover I received a call from the Taliban telling me to return to work. I gave them a false name, but they accused me of lying and told me that I had to show up at any cost. I got scared and cut off the phone call,” one of the women assures the NGO.
In addition to damage to their mental health due to abuse at work and subsequent threats from the Taliban, many former police officers have reported facing numerous obstacles in submitting resettlement and asylum applications.
Another former police officer says she is afraid to apply for a new passport to try to flee the country because fingerprints could reveal her whereabouts. “I’m worried that if I get a new document, the Taliban could find me,” he says.
HRW researcher Fereshta Abbasi has noted that policewomen have been “doubly betrayed”: “First by the former Afghan government, which allowed serious sexual abuses against them to continue unchecked, and then by countries that ignored those abuses.” abuses and have been unwilling to resettle or grant asylum to women seeking protection.
The NGO in its report also presents a series of recommendations for countries that supported programs to train and hire women in the Afghan Police, such as the United States, Canada, Germany, Japan and members of the European Union.
Among them is that former police officers who remain in Afghanistan or in third countries, including refugee camps, are identified and have access to resettlement, refugee status and other relocation avenues.
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