Afghans are losing hope in the future of their country as security deteriorates and women's rights erode, a member of Afghanistan's human rights commission warned MPs Tuesday.
Soraya Sobhrang, speaking by teleconference link from Kabul, said respect for the rights of women is regressing in her country and conditions are coming to resemble life under the Taliban, whose extremist regime was toppled in 2001.
Ms. Sobhrang has been an outspoken critic of the Kabul government's adoption of a law in March that legalized marital rape. After pressure from Canada and other countries, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has vowed to change it.
"We are going back to [something]like the Taliban situation in Afghanistan," Ms. Sobhrang, a commissioner focusing on women's rights, told the House of Commons special committee on Afghanistan.
Canada funds about 30 per cent of the budget of Afghanistan's human rights commission, the mandate of which comes from the Afghan constitution. Ms. Sobhrang reminded Canada that when the United States and NATO arrived in Afghanistan, defending women's rights was high on their list.
Canada has been fighting the Taliban and other anti-government insurgents in Afghanistan for nearly a decade and its efforts have been focused on the deadly province of Kandahar for more than three years.
Ms. Sobhrang said mothers are increasingly fearful about sending their girls to school, even kindergarten classes, as the Taliban and their sympathizers burn schools.
"We are worried when we send our girls to school. We don't know whether they are coming back or not."
Ms. Sobhrang said the mood of people she has talked to in Kandahar province is growing bleak.
"Really now [there is]no security in Kandahar," Ms. Sobhrang said.
"They [people]are losing their hope for the future … their future is looking very, very dark," she said.
"This is very, very dangerous for a population when they lose their hope."
The Canadian government, while acknowledging there has been an erosion of security in Kandahar, has said it is confident that an influx of U.S. troops into Afghanistan will help stabilize the region. Canadian soldiers are expected to focus their efforts in and around Kandahar city as the Americans beef up security elsewhere.
Ms. Sobhrang said she is heartened that Afghanistan now has a constitution that recognizes equal rights for men and women and she is glad that the government set up the human rights commission to ensure those rights are respected.
She praised Canadian efforts to train Afghan police and soldiers, but warned she fears for the justice system and the future of women's education in her country.
Ms. Sobhrang noted that the Afghan supreme court is composed entirely of male judges and said her country's justice system doesn't "believe in women's rights."
For instance, a woman who petitions a court for a divorce on the grounds of physical abuse is told to return to her husband. "They say you are a woman and you must go back [to your husband]"
She said the schools established for women are useless unless Afghans feel safe sending their girls there. "If we have lots of girls schools but no security how can they go to school?"
Ms. Sobhrang said she is also concerned about the lack of advanced education for women, noting that finishing Grade 6 will not prepare a woman for a position of power. "If we want women to participate in high political life, they need higher education," she said. "They need to go to university."
Steven Chase