Amnesty International Reports Increased Human Rights Abuses in Afghanistan

Amnesty International has released a new report expressing deep concerns about the state of human rights in Afghanistan. The report indicates that not only were no improvements made in Afghanistan's human rights arena last year, but that violations actually increased around the country.

According to the international human rights watchdog, the deteriorating picture of human rights in Afghanistan is a result of a number of factors. The failure to implement the violence against women bill in Parliament, increased cases of sexual abuse against women, rising rates of child marriage, reduced representation for women on Provincial Councils and the undermining of women's role in the peace negotiation process between the Afghan government and the Taliban were all factors cited.

The Amnesty International report asserts that the security situation has worsened in Afghanistan as the drawdown of foreign troops has pushed on, in part causing the spike in human rights violations. A number of independent organizations, in addition to Amnesty, have confirmed that 2014 was the most deadly year for Afghan civilian casualties.

Meanwhile, Sim Samar, the Chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), responded to the report by trying to defend Afghanistan's human rights record has relatively better than its neighbors. "Undoubtedly, human rights violations have increased in Afghanistan, but I think this doesn't mean Afghanistan is the worst, because, if you compare Afghanistan with its neighboring countries, we find that the human rights situations are worse in those countries than in Afghanistan," Samar told TOLOnews.

Nevertheless, Samar acknowledged that a pervasive culture of impunity for men and government officials in particular perpetuated Afghanistan's human rights violations. As well, lack of rule of law in many parts of the country was cited as a enabling factor for the rise in violence.

MP Fawzi Kofi, also a member of Parliament's Women's Affairs Commission, responded to the Amnesty report by calling on the government to take concrete steps to curb violence and other violations of human rights. "The government must adopt more coherent steps and undertake clear a strategy in combating violence and bring the people of Afghanistan out of the current situation," Kofi said.

Amnesty International's report covers 160 countires of the world for the year 2014. The report includes Afghanistan as part of the group of countries where Amnesty concluded little action had been taken to curb human rights abuses.