AFGANISTAN WOMEN'S PRISON  
 
abstract

 
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AFGANISTAN WOMEN'S PRISON

Photo/text: Manca Juvan/www.ipak.org

The current afghan administration is facing very difficult tasks involving the reconstruction of judicial system which currently is not capable of protecting primary human rights standards. It is clear that international community's intervention in Afghanistan in November 2001, accompanied by a commitment to reconstruction, has with all passed time turned its focus to an emergency assistance rather than long-term reconstruction. The central government in Kabul is evidently lacking resources and expertise to reconstruct a prison system that confirms to international minimum standard.

Thousands of prisoners are being held for long periods in poor conditions such as overcrowded cells, some shackled, with inadequate bedding and food. The Interim Government ratified all major human rights treaties including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Convention against Torture, Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women and Convention on the rights of the Child. But in spite of these binding treaties and lack of financial support the changes have so far been minimal.

In the end of March 2003, a joint commission with Italy as the lead donor of the justice sector was established and a Presidental decree provided legal basis for the transfer of prisons from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Justice. The act would mean, that prison officials wouldn't be only armed policemen, they would take over the research of crimes and interrogations of detainees, and that would reduce the tortures, with which they forced them to get confessions. But, little is known about it across the country. The main problem still is that police hasn’ t got the right tools to investigate the crimes.

Women are often being imprisoned for so called « moral crimes » and receive very little information regarding their cases. The only ones who care are their relatives or human rights organisations. Like men and children, they are being held for months in prisons across the country before having the legality of their detention determined by a judge.

In Afghanistan children are being detained with their parents but there are no systems in place in prison to care for these children.
 
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