Afghanistan

Afghanistan has a population of 28.1 million (UN, 2009) with an area of 652,225 sq km (251,773 sq miles). The capital is Kabul. The major languages are Pashto and Dari (Persian).

Since the fall of the Taliban administration in 2001, adherents of the hard-line Islamic movement have re-grouped. It is now a resurgent force, particularly in the south and east, and the Afghan government has struggled to extend its authority beyond the capital and to forge national unity.

Sexual violence against women and girls, including abduction, rape and trafficking, is widespread in Afghanistan. Women human right defenders face attack and intimidation because of their role in addressing sexual violence in the country. In areas under the Taliban’s influence, it is all but impossible for women human rights defenders to continue their work, as several high profile women have been attacked and killed. Yet there are many brave and committed women who continue to challenge the status of women in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan ratified The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on March 5, 2003
Afghanistan does not have a National Action Plan on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325)
Afghanistan has a UN peacekeeping mandate in operation since 2002: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)

Sources:BBC; Amnesty International; UNIFEM

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May 20, 2012 (Christian Science Monitor)
AFGHANISTAN: At NATO Summit on Afghanistan, Few Women's Voices Heard With the US and NATO planning the departure of their forces from Afghanistan by December 2014, some Afghan women and international rights advocates are growing increasingly concerned that a decade-long focus on expanding Afghan women's rights will go with them.
May 18, 2012 (Washington Post)
AFGHANISTAN: Opinion: Don't Abandon Afghan Women As the United States convenes the NATO summit in Chicago this weekend, the fate of Afghanistan's women is on my mind. This spring marks the 10th anniversary of the return of Afghanistan's girls to the classroom. During the Taliban era, women were denied education. Women could not work, even when they were the sole providers for their families. Under the Taliban dictatorship, it was decreed that women should be neither seen nor heard.
April 24, 2012 (The Washington Post)
AFGHANISTAN: In Afghanistan, Underground Girls School Defies Taliban Edict, Threats Every morning in this mountain village in eastern Afghanistan, four dozen girls sneak through a square opening in a mud-baked wall, defying a Taliban edict.
April 18, 2012 (CNN)
AFGHANISTAN: Extremists Poisoned Schoolgirls' Water, Officials Say At least 140 Afghan schoolgirls and female teachers were admitted to a local hospital Tuesday after drinking poisoned water, said local health officials, who blamed the act on extremists opposed to women's education.
April 14, 2012 (The Guardian)
AFGHANISTAN: Afghans March in Kabul to Demand Justice for Women Young Afghans braved fears of violence to join a rare march on parliament to demand justice for the women who have been killed, beaten and abused this year – including one they said was beheaded by her own husband.