Inside Herat’s Female Prison (NATO in Afghanistan)

Posted by Admin on May 8, 2015 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

After three decades of war, Afghanistan’s women still face a number of challenges. Violence, sexual assault and lack of enforcement of Afghan laws that protect them are faced by many women every day, many of whom are unaware of their own rights, as protected in the Afghan constitution.

Herat is one of the more secure provinces in Afghanistan, but, like other areas, it has a number of vulnerable women. The city’s female prison holds 140 inmates. Their children often live alongside them. According to prison officials, they’re accused of various crimes, ranging from drug trafficking and murder to running away from home.

“The majority of women who are sentenced to prison are accused of killings, kidnappings and unfortunately we also have 96 cases of moral crimes,” say’s Major General Shah Mir Mirpoor
Some prisoners say they’ve been dealt bad justice, as their sentences are unfairly long.
“I’ve been a prisoner for 10 months. At the first court, they sentenced me to six years in prison. But at the secondary court, the judge himself said six years was a lot for a woman.”

Lailuma Muradi is accused of killing her husband. She claims she’s innocent, but the court disagreed and sentenced her to 18 years in prison.
“I am accused of my husband’s murder. It’s been a year and two months I’ve been in here. I have been sentenced to prison for 18 years, but I did not kill my husband. Someone else killed him and fled. Then the government arrested me.”

Sometimes, women who have run away from home end up in prison. Although often presented as a crime in Afghanistan, if a couple run away together, present themselves at court and apply to get married with the agreement of their families, they will both be pardoned. This woman says she ran away because she wanted to marry the man that she loved.
“My crime was fleeing from home, we loved each other, but our families wouldn’t let us get married through the legal way, so we decided to run away from home, but after two days we were arrested by police.”

Suraiya Sobrang is a women’s rights activist. She says this year in Afghanistan violence against women shows a 37 per cent increase. However, this may be because more women are coming forward to report cases of violence. According to her organization, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, during a seven month period, four thousand cases of violence against women were registered with them. She says 90 per cent of these cases were rape victims, where the majority of the victims were below 18.

“The reason that they flee from home is Violence against women can be forced marriages, preventing women from education and from meeting their relatives or not letting them work for their society. So because of these restrictions their daughter flees from their home. And the reason that they run away is because their families do not let them do what they love,” says Suraiya Sobrang.

Back in Herat, the commander of the prison says, the government has provided facilities to the prisoners inside the prison to help female inmates improve themselves, including sports and literacy programs.

“Our goal is to educate them inside the prison. We hope they will learn a profession and when they are released from prison they can find a good job to support themselves.”
While the prisoners widely appreciate improved facilities, there’s no substitute for missing their families.

“We have good facilities inside the prison but it is really hard to be away from my family.”
This is Ruth Owen in Afghanistan, for the NATO Channel.