Violence Against Afghan Women on the Rise (22% since last year)
KABUL, Dec 5 2012 (IPS) - Afghan women are no strangers to gender-based violence. For decades now, violent crimes against women have been heading for epic proportions, as young girls are forced into marriage, wives and daughters are abused, and women are dealt harsh punishments for ‘moral crimes’.
Now, officials and rights groups have noticed an alarming surge in these incidents, with crimes against women becoming more frequent – and more savage.
The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) estimates a 22 percent increase in cases of violence against women during the last six months of 2012 compared to the same period the previous year.
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Last month newspapers reported the release of a woman, also named Kulsoom, who had been forcibly detained in a “family jail” – a makeshift holding cell in part of an old stable – in Kasho Village in the Teshkan district of Afghanistan’s northeastern Badakhshan province.
Kulsoom said her husband, who was already married, was a very cruel man who kept her imprisoned; she was sexually abused and tortured.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/12/violence-against-afghan-women-on-the-rise/