Uprooted by violence, Afghan women held like prisoners in camps: report

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Afghan women and girls uprooted by violence and living in camps in major cities are most vulnerable to abuse by male family members, who treat them like prisoners and sell them "like animals" into marriage, aid agencies said on Monday.

Living in makeshift settlements, they face hunger and psychological trauma, and are denied access to education and healthcare, said a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and The Liaison Office, an Afghanistan-based peace organization.

Compared with other Afghans, those displaced are more likely to be non-literate, hungry, and unemployed, while women and girls are particularly vulnerable, the report found.

Afghanistan continues to be beset by violence from the Taliban and other militants, which has left more than 800,000 people homeless within the country, according to NRC.
A growing number of those displaced head to cities, where they live in ramshackle dwellings in huge informal settlements.

"Our rights are ignored; we are often sold to widowers, blind men, disabled or old men and we have no choice to refuse marrying them," the 23-year-old said.

"We miss the outside world so much, and feel like prisoners here," another woman told NRC.

Concern is growing that many of the gains in Afghan women's rights since the 2001 U.S.-led ouster of the Taliban are at risk.

An Oxfam report last November said almost 4 million girls were in school, the highest number in Afghanistan's history, yet seven in 10 displaced women and girls told NRC they had never attended school.

The findings should act as "a sober reminder of the need to go further in order to meet the needs of women and girls living in appalling conditions in Afghanistan's cities", NRC'sAfghanistan country director Prasant Naik said in a statement.  Read More at NRC  

Uprooted by violence, Afghan women held like prisoners in camps -report

Displaced women and girls trapped in Afghanistan’s cities - NRC