Women, Violence and Law in Afghanistan: legal reforms and continuities in times of armed conflict and liberal ‘peacebuilding’ (2001-2021)

Since the US-led military invasion of Afghanistan until the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in August 2021, the enhancement of women’s and girls’ access to justice was central to reconstruction and development projects in Afghanistan funded by OECD member states. The government of Afghanistan committed to legal reforms to advance women’s rights in accordance with international laws, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (ratified in 2003). The Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) law, decreed by former president Hamid Karzai (2009) and reconfirmed by former president Ashraf Ghani (2018), was deemed a legal milestone towards the criminalisation of social practices sustaining and normalising Violence Against Women. However, although the number of women law students and women’s professional participation in the justice sector increased, the implementation of EVAW law was consistently trumped by state and non-state actors.

Across provinces, women and girls could not make use of their rights nor seek reliable protection from gender-based violence. The panel centre-stages women in Afghanistan and discusses the extent to which women in Afghanistan have been imbued with rights that they could not access. Particularly, the panel will use the opportunity to reflect on the scope and impact of EVAW law and discuss political and social dynamics that hindered the comprehensive implementation of EVAW law.

Particularly, the panel will use the opportunity to reflect on the scope and impact of EVAW law and discuss political and social dynamics that hindered the comprehensive implementation of EVAW law.

Speakers

Nazifa Haqpal

Nazifa is a doctoral candidate at the School of Law, SOAS University of London. Her research addresses assessing the legal and institutional initiatives in securing women’s rights, particularly focusing on the elimination of violence against women in Post-2001 Afghanistan. Prior to her doctoral studies, Nazifa worked for more than ten years in Afghanistan as a civil servant and a diplomat with the Afghan government. She has also worked as a practitioner in the field of human rights and women's rights with UNAMA (United Nations Assistant Mission in Afghanistan) and ActionAid International advocating for women rights and women empowerment. She obtained her LLB in law and politics from the Law and Political Science faculty of Kabul University and a master's degree in International Security and Diplomacy from the University of East Anglia-UK. She is also a commentator on Afghanistan's politics and appears in the media.

Dr. Paniz Musawi

Paniz received her Ph.D. in Gender Studies at SOAS, University of London, in 2019. Her dissertation, “The War Mode of Visual Art Production: A Feminist Geopolitical Analysis of Art Producing Masculinities in Kabul from 2014-2018”, investigates fragmentation, cohesion and competition among men, and in their encounters with women, as they pursue visual art as knowledge- and income-generating labor in contemporary Afghanistan. After earning her Ph.D., Paniz worked as a consultant, author, and researcher in the fields of gender politics, migration and labor politics, and prison politics in times of liberal war, development and reconstruction in Kabul and since August 2021 in Leipzig. Paniz is joining Duke University's Programme in Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies as a Postdoctoral Associate and will be part of the 2022-2023 theme year programming in “Feminist Theory and Imperialism.”