Human rights situation in Afghanistan has lost ground in key areas during first six month of 2014, increasing uncertainty about the country's future, especially after the international troops pull out by the end of this year. The deadline for the withdrawal of NATO and US forces and continued debate over the presence of US troops beyond 2014 have negatively affected the Afghan government's policies on human rights in the country.
Anar Gul, 16, wept as she waited outside the Afghan ministry of women's affairs in Kabul with her parents. Swathed in a blue burka, she told the painful story of her marriage two months earlier in her home province of Bamian in central Afghanistan. Soon after the wedding, her husband began inviting other men to the house and charged them money to have sex with her.
We awoke one morning in Kabul to the sound of not-too-distant explosions, marking the start to the fighting season. But bombs were not the foremost takeaway from our Mother's Day trip to Afghanistan -- the women fighting to stop the bombs left a more lasting impression.
Zahra said a neighbor raped her in her home on Friday. It was the most humiliating event in her unremittingly painful life, and the next day she begged her husband, Najibullah, to move their family so the man could not attack her again. He refused.
On Sunday afternoon, she poured kerosene over Najibullah and lit him on fire.
Osama bin Laden, Al-Zarqawi, Mullah Omar: we know these names because they were on a kill list, a targeted roster the United States uses to pursue and kill people who are a threat to our national security.
For more than 30 years, Afghans have been living in a state of war and yearn for stability and peace. With the presidential elections on 5th April, the number of attacks on government institutions has increased. After calling for a boycott of the elections, the Taliban have warned that they would do anything to prevent them from being carried out and block the arrival of international observers.
