Situation of Widows in Afghanistan
Author and Researcher in Original Language: Nasrin Torkmani
Translated by: Basir Bita
2010
Preface
There are a great number of widows in Afghanistan, but in recent years this number has been multiplied remarkably. Taking into consideration there has not been a census in recent last years, it is estimated that there are two million widows in our country.
According to few researches done in relation to the widows, the situation of Afghan widows has always been inappropriate and they have had problems. Based on a research done by the JICA regarding vulnerable Afghan women, the situation of Afghan widows has been assessed terrible encountering limitations in having access to economic opportunities.
A report from UNIFEM in 2006 indicates that 65% of the widows living in Kabul have tried to commit suicide. Another report says that the widows are two more times in danger than other women and their children are five times more in danger of malnutrition than others women’s. Such reports point out that the widows have serious problems so that applicable plans and strategies must be taken into consideration.
Any specific supporting plan is intangible in the constitution of Afghanistan. Only based on article 53 the government is responsible for protecting the vulnerable people such as the widows. In practice, such protection was weak and trivial. For example, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and the Ministry of Martyrs and Disables had a supporting program from 2006 to 2008. In this program over 10500 orphans were being covered and nurtured in orphanages, the children had short time educational classes, winter aides and temporary pecuniary aids were included as well. In addition, the Ministry of Women, away from temporary aids, has no specific and long-term plan in betterment of the situation of widows of Afghanistan.
Even in the plans of second presidential term there is no support for the widows of Afghanistan and the articles of international treaties have been forgotten. Based on a report, the government could not provide social support for the widows.
The unpleasant situation of Afghan widows has made the Human Rights Independent Commission to step forward for finding new solutions and build new strategies for betterment of the situation of the widows. And here we have prepared a research in order to get our goal {which is to represent the situation of Afghan widows}.
Chapter One
Methodology
Type of Research and Data Collecting Method
This research is a descriptive and analytic one focusing on the situation of the widows of Afghanistan. The data have been collected by direct interviews through a questionnaire from 1000 widows. To complete the research, 55 experts in women affairs were interviewed and 15 group discussions were held in seven provinces as well. And finally, the data were analyzed in SPSS program.
Basic Questions of Research
The goal of our research is to have a deep cognition of widows and their problems to offer suggestions by which the government and other organizations make proper and needed strategies for the recovery of the situation of the widows.
The basic questions of research are as following:
1. What are the problems of the widows in personal freedom, economic independency, marriage, taking tutelage of their children and education?
2. What are the reasons of mentioned problems?
3. What are the most important needs of the widows?
4. What have been done for vulnerable widows based on the Afghanistan Agreement so far?
Hypothesis of Research
· The widows have limitations in having access to their human rights such as cultural, family, social and economic limitations.
· The problems of the widows most root from financial issues, beliefs and traditional customs.
· The most important things which Afghan widows need are betterment in their financial situation, welfare in their lives and eradication of wrong social beliefs.
· There has not been done any remarkable work in the recovery of widows’ lives.
Places the Research Covered
In the research, seven provinces of Kabul, Kapisa, Balkh, Faryab, Nangarhar, Bamiyan and Herat were in coverage. The selection of seven provinces was based on the reports of Labor and Social Affairs Department and Martyrs and Disables Department in the provinces. Despite diversified culture in Afghanistan, seven provinces were selected for their cultural diversity. In each province, in addition to the center of province, also a district was selected in random.
Static Population
The widows are the women whose husbands are dead, martyr, killed or divorced. There is no exact census in widows of Afghanistan, but the UN says that they are around two million people.
Sample Method and Number of Sample Population
Sampling in the research is multistage and all the stages for selecting the people were random as much as possible. The number of sample population in confidence is 95% and 3% in precision. In the research 1000 questionnaires were filled, but 18 of them were discarded due to technical problems.
The portion of questionnaires was based on the population of the widows in every province that for Kabul 180 questionnaires, at climax, and for Kapisa 100 questionnaires, in bottom point. 50% of questionnaires were filled in urban areas and other 50% in rural areas.
| Chart 1. Provinces under Coverage of Research | ||
| Percentage | Number of Filled Questionnaires | Name of Province |
| 10.1 | 99 | Kapisa |
| 17.2 | 169 | Kabul |
| 14.4 | 141 | Nangarhar |
| 16.7 | 164 | Herat |
| 16.7 | 164 | Balkh |
| 13 | 128 | Bamiyan |
| 11.9 | 117 | Faryab |
| 100 | 982 | Total |
Besides individual interviews with the widows, 5 to 10 experts in women affairs have been interviewed in each province. The experts were from Women Affairs Departments, Martyrs and Disables Departments, HRIC offices, domestic and international organizations. 15 group discussions were held among which some widows and authorities were invited.
The obstacles during gathering the information
The main problem was that there is no exact statistics concerning the number of widows. Afghan Center for Population Census has no statistics, but based on UN estimated census there are around two million widows in Afghanistan. The number which Ministry of Martyr and Disables says is very lower than UN’s. Nevertheless, NU believes that there are 50000 widows only in Kabul, while abovementioned ministry has identified 10719 disables and people related to martyrs people in Kabul.
Lack of books, investigative reports, documents and studies on Afghan widows has made our research much harder. Insecurity in different spots during gathering information was forcing us to switch off some places, that is, we had to find an alternative, a place very similar to chosen spot.
One of the other problems was that our interviewees have mostly no specific place for settling. In order to tackle this problem, we talked to the Women Affairs Organizations and Congregations because they have more essential information about widows’ jobs and homes’. In many cases, the widows were not ready to answer the questions correctly and, in order to bring our problem down; we explained the whole process of interview and our goals for our research to the women.
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