VOA News | July 19, 2018: The Afghan Female Tactical Platoon, an attachment to the elite unit of the Afghan special forces, was established less than a year ago by the Afghan Ministry of Defense with the help of the NATO-Resolute Support Mission. Afghan defense officials describe the platoon as a key part of the country’s
Tolo News: Afghan filmmaker Roya Sadat has won this year’s Interfilm Academy’s One Future Prize at the 36th international Munich Film Festival (Filmfest Munchen) for her movie “A Letter to the President”. The award ceremony was held on Saturday in Munich. Click here to read more (external link).
The Guardian (UK): New policy will stop clinics and hospitals from performing examinations that lead to imprisonment and exclusion – Condemned by the World Health Organization as degrading, discriminatory and unscientific, the practice of virginity testing has been widely used to ascertain whether a woman has committed adultery or had sex before marriage. Click here to read
BBC News: About 3,000 Afghans attempt to take their own lives every year, according to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). Herat province accounts for more than half of all cases nationwide. Globally, there are more male suicides than female suicides – but in Afghanistan it is estimated that 80% of suicide attempts are made by
Institute for War & Peace Reporting (UK): Afghan officials have hit back at a UN report that criticised their government for allowing mediation to replace formal justice proceedings in cases of violence against women. Rights activists, however, argue that the study highlights key problems with the legal approach to gender abuse. Click here to read more
VOA News | June 29, 2018: Since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, women in Afghanistan have broken many taboos in the ultra-conservative, male dominated society. Sport is just one of the fields in which women are now actively participating. VOA’s Hedayatullah Noori recently spoke with the country’s first female paraglider [Lida Hozori] and
DAWN (Pakistan): According to a report released by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Afghan women still have minimal access to justice, often fail to get redress and honour crimes, even when reported, are rarely punished. In particular, the report details how mechanisms such as ‘mediation’ and pressure not to file actual cases end
Reuters: A Thomson Reuters Foundation survey of about 550 experts on women’s issues ranked war-torn Afghanistan and Syria in second and third place, with Somalia and Saudi Arabia next. Click here to read more (external link).
Foruzan Faghiri Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Golnaz Esfandiari June 12, 2018 Foruzan Faghiri was 3 years old when her family fled war in Afghanistan for neighboring Iran. The Faghiris found shelter and education while at the same time coping with the discrimination and restrictions that Afghan refugees routinely face in Iran. Yet Faghiri persevered, becoming
CoinDesk: Young women coders in Afghanistan are getting a chance to use ethereum’s cryptocurrency. Revealed exclusively to CoinDesk, Code to Inspire (CTI), a non-profit for teaching women in Afghanistan to write code, has partnered with the Bounties Network to allow students to accept ether (ETH) for fixing vulnerabilities for businesses or projects posting bounties. And according to Fereshteh