EU and Afghanistan: Mission Accomplished, Women Abandoned? --- UK Prime Minister David Cameron may feel that his country’s Afghanistan mission is “accomplished,” but Afghan women paint a much bleaker picture. -- Despite 12 years of armed conflict, investment and capacity-building by foreign governments in Afghanistan, including by European Union governments and the EU itself, women's rights remain in peril. -- Violence against women and forced marriage are rife, while high-profile female government officials and civil society activists face threats and attacks by the resilient Taliban insurgency. -- All too often, the government appears unable or unwilling to bring to justice the perpetrators of these crimes. Worse, in the last year Afghan government officials have themselves attacked some of the most basic legal safeguards for women. -- On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on 25 November, news broke that Afghan government officials had participated in preparing a draft law that would have reinstated the Taliban-era punishment of execution by stoning for adultery. -- This is only the latest example in a recent string of serious setbacks or attempts by government officials and parliamentarians to roll back women's rights. -- These attacks threaten to unravel the fragile but important advances in women’s rights in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. -- Those gains are real and deserve recognition, particularly in the areas of education, health care, and the role of women in government and politics. But delivering long-term, sustainable improvement in the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan is still a distant goal: literacy and female school attendance remain low while maternal and infant mortality remain high. --- The threats to women’s rights in Afghanistan demand meaningful EU action. -- On 20 January, EU foreign affairs ministers have an opportunity to take concrete steps to address the threat to Afghan women’s rights when they meet in Brussels to discuss the EU's Afghanistan strategy. -- This matters because the EU institutions, together with the 28 EU member states, have significant influence in Afghanistan, both politically and financially. -- As we told ministers in a recent letter, at this crucial time the EU and its member states need to make it absolutely clear that women’s rights are a non-negotiable, core aspect of the EU's relationship with Afghanistan. -- The EU has committed itself to women's rights often enough. -- High Representative Catherine Ashton and other officials have stressed that a country cannot be safe and secure unless its women are, and that “women are essential to democracy.” -- Now is the time to put those words into action. - More, Gauri Van Gulik and Heather Barr, Human Rights Watch, at: http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/01/20/eu-and-afghanistan-mission-accomplished-women-abandoned