AFGHANISTAN: Afghanistan's Women are at the Sharp End of War

Afghan women face a bleak future unless women's rights are included as a non-negotiable element of any future political settlement, a report warned on Wednesday.

Minority Rights Group International drew attention to the status of women in Afghanistan at a time of mounting war fatigue in the west. David Cameron has announced that the UK will withdraw another 500 troops from Afghanistan next year, as armed forces begin to transfer combat duties to the Afghan security forces.

The decision comes a fortnight after President Barack Obama said he intended to withdraw 33,000 US troops by the end of next autumn.

"One of the most disappointing things about Afghanistan is that women's rights have not substantially improved in many parts of the country," said Mark Lattimer, the group's executive director. "The future for women in Afghanistan looks incredibly bleak."

In 2010, violence against women attributed to or alleged to have been perperated directly or indirectly by the Taliban continued, the report said, affecting women at every level in society and from all ethnic and religious groups. The report highlighted the resurgence in the use of "night letters" to intimidate women who operate in public life.

"These 'night letters' are written threats delivered at night to a home or mosque, addressed to individuals... they are followed up with real violence, and in some cases murder," said the report, adding that the government's lack of action in identifying and prosecuting the killers of several prominent women undermined any confidence in its commitment to ensuring accountability for crimes carried out.

Another phenomenon is episodes of suspected poisoning in girls' schools, including an incident in April 2010 when more than 100 girls and women teachers fell ill in Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan.

"While these attacks appear to target women and girls in the public sphere, irrespective of ethnicity, they do of course affect those who belong to minorities," said the report.

The state of the world's minorities and indigenous people's report this year focused on women's rights, documenting cases worldwide showing how women from minority and indigenous communities often face disproportionately higher levels of violence and are targeted for attack both in situations of conflict and in times of peace.

"Discrimination against minorities worldwide is time and again experienced by women as physical violence," said Lattimer. "In war and in peacetime, minority women are singled out for rape because they are less protected and less able to complain."

The report cites cases from situations of armed conflicts, including Iraq, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sri Lanka and Kyrgyzstan, where women from minority and indigenous communities have suffered systematic sexual and other violence specifically because of their ethnic, religious, tribal or indigenous identity.

Women and minorites are also targeted where there is no conflict. In India, for instance, Dalit women face death, rape and custodial torture on a daily basis, because of their caste, the report said. In Uganda, in a study conducted by Minority Rights Group last year, 100% of women from the Batwa community said they had experienced physical violence.

"Much has been achieved over the last decade to highlight the scourge of violence against women around the world," said Lattimer. "But development agencies, governments and human rights activists need to realise that not all women face the same obstacles, and that violence against women often has a particular ethnic or religious dimension."

The minorities report coincides with the publication of UN Women's report that highlighted the lack of legal protection afforded to women across the globe.