Afghanistan failed to probe sexual harassments, says HRW

KABUL (AT News): The Human Rights Watch accuses the government of Afghanistan of not doing enough in fighting sexual harassments, saying it had failed to probe cases in this regard.

The New York-based international human rights watchdog mentioned to the two recent sexual abuse cases (school children abuse in Logar province and female footballers in Kabul) as uninvestigated.

Patricia Gossman, Associate Asia Director for Human Rights Watch, said Saturday in a report that the government of Afghanistan had failed to probe seriously the cases of sexual abuse of girl footballers as well as of school children in Logar province.

She said that civil society activists who unveiled the sexual abuse of school children, faced life threats.

“It has been difficult to legally investigate sexual violence in Afghanistan from a long time, but it would be more difficult when the culprits are powerful individuals,” she said.

“These two cases (school children in Logar and the female footballers in the Afghan football federation) is a test for the government of Afghanistan to illustrate it is serious in putting an end to the impunity of sexual harassments.”

Keramuddin Karim, former head of football federation who is charged for sexually abusing of women footballers has not gone for trial after about one year and a half of reports in this regard.

Human Rights activists say that the government politically treats the cases of sexual harassments and sexual abuses.