Afghanistan

Written evidence from Amnesty International UK

Summary of recommendations

1. The UK should ensure that a gender analysis is included in the assessment of the transition of security responsibility to the ANSF.

2. The UK should assist the Afghan government to increase the proportion of female recruitment at all levels of the ANSF.

3. The UK should press strongly for the Afghan authorities to investigate cases of attacks against women and hold perpetrators accountable, and provide support and assistance to monitor and investigate human rights abuses.

4. The UK must ensure the commitments made in the Chicago Summit communiqué relating to the participation of Afghan women are translated into funding and meaningful action, specifically addressing women’s recruitment into the security sector.

5. The UK should reflect principles developed in its Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative in all relevant operations and, as such, review doctrine and training for its own security forces and also "training and support provided to the forces of other states" on UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.

6. The UK, as a member of NATO/ISAF, must fully investigate all allegations of civilian casualties and harm resulting from operations and deliver effective remedies.

7. The UK should accelerate efforts in assisting the Afghan government in creating a mechanism to monitor and investigate civilian casualties and injuries.

8. The UK should ensure Afghan women are able to meaningfully contribute to all peace process negotiations, and that women’s rights are a prerequisite for any peace negotiations or agreements. In particular the UK should urge and support the Afghan authorities in implementing a UN Security Council Resolution 1325 National Action Plan

9. The UK should push for Pakistan and other key allies to advocate strongly for the inclusion of women and women’s rights in all peace discussions.

Amnesty International UK

10. Amnesty International UK (AIUK) is a national section of a global movement of over three million supporters, members and activists. We represent more than 230,000 supporters in the United Kingdom. Collectively, our vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments. Our mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of these rights. We are independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion.

Introduction

11. AIUK welcomes this opportunity to contribute to the work of the Defence Select Committee (the committee) in its assessment of the security situation in Afghanistan.

12. Promotion of a stable, secure and peaceful Afghanistan remains a priority for the UK government throughout its operations in the country. For all Afghans to experience stability and security, human rights and – particularly – women’s rights must be ensured.

13. In recent months there has been a spate of attacks against high profile Afghan women. Two female parliamentarians – Fariba Kakar and Rooh Gul – survived separate attacks, but Ms Gul’s daughter was tragically killed. The last two most senior female police officers – Islam Bibi and Leutenant Negar – have been murdered since July and a well-known author – Sushmita Banerjee, who wrote about life under the Taliban – was dragged out of her home and shot 15 times. These are just a few examples of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) failing to provide security for Afghan women.

14. Given the recent increase in attacks on women, the important long standing role the UK will play in supporting and training the ANSF and the essential role Afghan women must play in creating a stable and secure Afghanistan, this submission focuses primarily on how the UK government can improve security for Afghan women.

15. As outlined in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security (UNSCR 1325), the participation of women at all levels of decision-making during and following conflict is essential in order to achieve sustainable peace. This participation should include: in national, regional and international institutions; in mechanisms for the prevention, management and resolution of conflict; in peace negotiations; and in peace operations, as soldiers, police and civilians.

16. The importance of the inclusion of women is rooted in the premise that their presence, participation and perspectives will improve the chances of attaining viable and sustainable peace. It is also based on the knowledge that if half the population faces discrimination and violence there can be no peace.

17. Recognising the lack of progress in ensuring women’s meaningful participation in negotiations for peace and security, governments recently renewed commitments and effort to address this through a further UN Security Council Resolution number 2122. Unanimously adopted on 18 October 2013, this most recent resolution puts in place measures for a more systematic approach to the implementation of commitments on women, peace and security, highlighting the critical importance of gender equality and women’s empowerment to international peace and security,

18. Rebuilding after conflict provides a window of opportunity to transform the status quo. For peace and security to be sustainable in Afghanistan, women must be meaningfully represented in all peace processes, including in planning for and implementing the transfer of responsibility for security to ANSF.

19. If Afghan people are to have confidence that ANSF are able to respond to their security needs, the ANSF must be accountable. ANSF personnel, especially candidates for senior posts, should be fully vetted for their human rights record and engagement in any violations of human rights or humanitarian law. The ANSF must be held accountable for any civilian casualties.

The transfer of responsibility for security in Afghanistan to Afghan Forces

Ensuring ANSF is able to respond to the security needs of Afghan women

20. Amnesty International is concerned that security responsibility is being transferred to the ANSF without the necessary measures and resources to ensure that protection of the human rights of women and girls is integrated into the process. In 2012, the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN) conducted a consultation with over 300 women leaders across eight provinces. AWN found that a majority of women felt they had no meaningful participation in planning for the transition; that the ANSF are not responsive to women’s needs, fail to uphold human rights standards and lack the capacity and expertise to address the security needs of Afghan citizens, particularly women and children; and that little attention was given to building the capacity of the ANSF to improve civilians’ adherence to existing laws.

21. The UK should ensure that a gender analysis is included in the assessment of the transition of security responsibility to the ANSF.

22. A key step to improving the accountability of the ANSF and its responsiveness to the rights of Afghan women and girls is to increase the proportion of female personnel (particularly in the national police). Many policing tasks are culturally unacceptable for male officers to conduct with women: in many parts of Afghanistan it is considered improper for women to speak to a man who is not a male relative, let alone discuss personal matters such as rape or other forms of violence.

23. Implementation of the Elimination of Violence Against Women law is poor in Afghanistan, with low reporting and registration of cases of violence against women, partly because of a lack of empowered female police to investigate cases of violence against women. Only 1 per cent of all police officers in Afghanistan are female (approximately 1,370) and 84 per cent of women police officers are based in just four major cities. The Afghan Ministry of Interior aims to recruit 5,000 women police officers by 2014, but significant obstacles prevent the attainment of this goal. Not least that many women police officers are themselves at risk of gender based violence, including sexual violence.

24. Barriers to women’s recruitment for women to the ANSF (both police and army) include cultural values, insecurity for women, sexual harassment at work, and lack of training and understanding of the value of women members of the security forces. Many families do not permit women to work and policing is seen as a particularly unacceptable profession. Women officers frequently endure death threats and allegations that they are prostitutes – a serious accusation in a conservative country like Afghanistan.

25. The UK should assist the Afghan government, through resources and providing expertise, to increase the proportion of female recruitment at all levels of the ANSF, in particular the Afghan National Police. This should include investing in gender sensitive training, ensuring gender appropriate facilities are available, establishing an effective complaints mechanism, and facilitating the development of a long-term strategy to enhance women’s recruitment into the ANSF.

26. The handful of women who have reached high rank in the police or army say they don’t receive an equivalent salary to their male counterparts, new armored cars, body armor or bodyguards. In recent months the last two senior women police officers in Helmand province, Islam Bibi and Lieutenant Nigara, have both been murdered. When senior women police are targeted because of their work and perpetrators are not brought to justice, it sends a clear message of impunity to those who wish to prevent women from full and meaningful participation in Afghanistan’s future and Afghanistan’s security.

27. The UK should press strongly for the Afghan authorities to investigate cases of attacks against women and hold perpetrators accountable.

28. The Afghan government and donors have attempted to increase women’s recruitment into the police, but these efforts have been inconsistent and ad-hoc. The NATO Training Mission for Afghanistan carries out the majority of training of the ANSF, alongside the UNDP/Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan (LOFTA) and EUPOL. The UK government’s support for ANSF does not include ring-fenced funding for increasing women’s recruitment, unlike that of other countries such as the Netherlands.

29. In line with the Chicago Summit agreements, the UK will contribute £70 million from 2015 to 2017 to the Afghan army and police. The Chicago Summit emphasised the importance of the full participation of all Afghan women in the reconstruction, political, peace and reconciliation processes in Afghanistan and reaffirmed the commitment to USCR 1325.

30. The UK must ensure the commitments made in the Chicago Summit communiqué relating to the participation of Afghan women are translated into funding and meaningful action, specifically addressing women’s recruitment into the security sector.

31. Moreover the UK, as a LOTFA steering group member, should seek to ensure gender is prioritised in the Fund’s next phase, which is being developed in 2013.

32. The development of an Afghan National Action Plan on UNSCR 1325 and the development of a new UK National Action Plan with an Afghanistan bilateral section, provides an opportunity to link the Plans and ensure that measures to support women’s recruitment into the security sector are mutually reinforcing, with adequate budgets attached. Failing to bring more women into ANSF could undermine the important gains that women have made over the last 11 years and make it more difficult to fully transform the police into a civilian force.

33. Given the UK’s role in supporting the Afghan National Army Officer Academy (ANAOA) through providing 90 mentors for Afghan trainers, it is in a good position to ensure that all graduates are aware of international and national legal instruments relating to women’s rights; and that female cadets are supported and protected.

34. For the Afghan National Army to be capable of respecting and responding to Afghan women and their security needs, it is important that its leaders are aware of relevant domestic legislation and international instruments. Given that UNSCR 1325 calls on states to ensure that women meaningfully participate in conflict resolution, peace and security processes, it is particularly important for ANA Officers to have knowledge of this if Afghan women's voices and experiences of security and the transition process are to be heard.

35. The importance of promoting women’s active and equal political participation including "in all conflict prevention, conflict resolution, transitional justice and security sector reform processes" is clearly recognised by the UK government in the G8 Declaration on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict (PSVI), which it championed. This principle is particularly relevant in Afghanistan given the UK’s role in supporting and facilitating peace negotiations and supporting/training ANSF. The UK must ensure that key principles and expertise developed through the PSVI are reflected throughout relevant operations.

36. As stated in the PSVI Declaration, the UK government should review doctrine and training for its own security forces on UNSCR 1325 and also "training and support provided to the forces of other states"; in Afghanistan the UK should press for ANA Officers to receive training on UNSCR 1325 and Afghanistan’s Elimination of Violence Against Women law.

 Improving the accountability of the Afghan and international security forces

37. International forces, as well as the ANSF, are obliged under international law to ensure accountability for their actions and to provide remedy for civilian casualties of military action. International and Afghan forces must respond to incidents of injury to civilians with serious, credible, and impartial investigations. AIUK recognises that NATO/ISAF has made efforts to reduce civilian casualties, including through tactical directives and operational guidance. However, the ISAF Civilian Casualties Tracking Team is still not fully resourced and needs to be, as well as expanded to cover all "government agencies", including various intelligence agencies and private contractors.

38. All NATO/ISAF contributing states, including the UK, must fully investigate all allegations of civilian casualties and harm resulting from operations involving their countries and deliver effective remedies, including compensation before troop withdrawal in 2014 to avoid a legacy of unresolved claims. ISAF states should ensure that their own national laws allow all victims to seek redress through civil actions.

39. The ISAF mandate specifically recognises the need for "continuing cooperation with the ANSF towards the further institutionalization of protection of civilians." In view of this, and before completion of the transition process

40. The UK should accelerate efforts in assisting the Afghan government in creating a mechanism to monitor and investigate civilian casualties and injuries, and destruction of civilian objects, attributed to the ANSF, and to ensure timely and effective remedies when such acts do occur. Greater investment should be focused on international human rights and humanitarian law training, and gender-sensitivity training, for all relevant ANSF personnel, including the Afghan Local Police.

Pakistan’s role in reconciliation and peace-building, including mediation with the Taliban

41. The UK has identified Pakistan as playing an important role in the Afghan peace and reconciliation process through initiating ‘trilateral discussions’ between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the UK. The UK aims to promote regional peace and stability and ‘to encourage ideas, identify areas of agreement and provide a forum for open dialogue.’ The Prime Minister has stated that the trilateral discussions send a clear message to the Taliban that now is the time for everyone to participate in a peaceful political process in Afghanistan.

42. Given the Taliban’s record on women’s rights and Afghan women’s well-documented and well-founded fear that negotiation with Taliban and other insurgent groups could result in women’s rights being ‘traded away’, it is absolutely essential that Afghan women are meaningfully represented in all peace process negotiations and women’s rights are protected in any agreements (in line with UNSCR 1325).

43. The Trilateral meeting in February 2013 brought together officials from the three countries as well as politicians; it is not clear whether the UK raised the importance of women’s rights in these discussions or whether any Afghan women were present.

44. Only nine women have been appointed to the 70-member Afghan High Peace Council, and even these women have been side lined in peace negotiations. Gender parity should be sought in all negotiating teams, including peace jirgas (tribal councils) and provisional councils and, at the very least, in line with the Afghan constitutional guarantee for representation of women in parliament, a 25% quota for women should be set. The inclusion of women in the peace talks must be genuine and meaningful and their priority concerns fully reflected.

45. As instigator of the Trilateral discussions, a key member of NATO and supporter of a peaceful political solution to the conflict in Afghanistan, the UK should ensure Afghan women are able to meaningfully contribute to all peace process negotiations and should raise the importance of women’s rights at every stage and related assemblies of the process, including at future Trilateral discussions.

46. The UK should also push for Pakistan and other key allies to advocate strongly for the inclusion of women and women’s rights in all discussions.

October 2013