HRW: Desire to withdraw from Afghanistan overshadowing human rights

Jan 22, 2012, 15:07 GMT

Cairo/Berlin - The desire by international forces to withdraw from Afghanistan has 'entirely overshadowed' human rights concerns, advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged in a report released Sunday.

'The looming date of 2014 for withdrawal of most international troops ... begs the question of exactly what kind of Afghanistan the troops will be leaving behind,' the organization wrote.

NATO's efforts to train a 134,000-strong police force and 171,600 soldiers faced 'serious challenges,' HRW wrote in its annual World Report, citing 'attrition, insurgent infiltration, and illiteracy and substance abuse among recruits.'

The US-backed Afghan local police - village-based defence forces - had been implicated in 'killings, abductions, illegal raids, and beatings,' most of which went unpunished, the group wrote.

Shifting power structures had led to the 'appointment of individuals implicated in serious human rights abuses,' including the police chiefs in the provinces of Uruzgan and Kandahar, the report stated, while Kabul continued to give 'free rein' to known warlords and corrupt politicians and businessmen.

HRW found that Afghan society remained hostile towards 'women's autonomy and ability to protect themselves from forced marriage.'

It said '87 per cent of women face at least one form of physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage in their lifetimes.'

The report's authors were also worried by an anticipated steep decline in foreign aid budgets this year.

'Internationally supported efforts to promote human rights, civil society, education, rule of law, governance, and access to health care are imperiled by declining international aid.'

HRW noted that support had grown for a negotiated peace agreement with the Taliban, but said efforts were hampered by factors including the killing of a key negotiator, former president Burhanuddin Rabbani and 'pressure from Pakistan for a key role in the process.'

The report said that the armed conflict had escalated in 2011, spreading to new parts of the country, while the use of night raids against suspected insurgents - 'widely despised by Afghans because of their infringement on family life' - had increased to a reported 300 per month.

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