The Pitfalls of Protection

Since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, violence against women has emerged as the single most important issue for Afghan gender politics. The Pitfalls of Protection, based on research conducted in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2015, locates the struggles over gender violence in local and global power configurations. Torunn Wimpelmann finds that aid flows and geopolitics have served as both opportunities for and obstacles to feminist politics in Afghanistan. Showing why Afghan activists often chose to use the leverage of Western powers instead of entering into either protracted negotiations with powerful national actors or broad political mobilization, this book examines both the achievements and the limits of this strategy

The price of protection: gender, violence and power in Afghanistan

This thesis examines contestations over gender violence as points of entry into an analysis of gender, politics and sovereign power in contemporary Afghanistan. It explores the evolving parameters of what ‘counts’ as violence against women in Afghanistan, articulated in legal frameworks and practices, in public and media debates and in the interventions of political leaders, diplomats and aid workers. The thesis asks whether violence against women has become a governance issue in Afghanistan and what this means for the position of women and for broader relations of power. These questions are investigated through an examination of the origins and fate of a new law on violence against women, a series of controversies over women’s shelters, attempts to bestow recognition on informal justice processes and the trajectories of individual episodes of violence as they travelled through different and sometimes competing legal forums. I show how the outcome of these struggles have the potential to redraw boundaries between government and family domains, and to subordinate women to kinship power, or alternatively, constitute them as independent legal persons. The thesis further analyses negotiations over and interventions into violence against women as revealing of shifting domains and claims of sovereignty, of projects of power and of political technologies. The processes detailed in the thesis illuminate a landscape of plural and competing legal regimes that in specific times and places presided over individual episodes of gender violence The thesis also shows that far from operating as a singular bloc, Western forays in Afghanistan produced multiple and contradictory effects on women’s security and protection

The Pitfalls of Protection

Since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, violence against women has emerged as the single most important issue for Afghan gender politics. The Pitfalls of Protection, based on research conducted in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2015, locates the struggles over gender violence in local and global power configurations. Torunn Wimpelmann finds that aid flows and geopolitics have served as both opportunities for and obstacles to feminist politics in Afghanistan. Showing why Afghan activists often chose to use the leverage of Western powers instead of entering into either protracted negotiations with powerful national actors or broad political mobilization, this book examines both the achievements and the limits of this strategy

The Aid Agencies and the Fragile States Agenda

In recent years, a consensus appears to have emerged that a variety of problems can be understood in terms of state failure. This paper reviews one aspect of this trend, the concept of fragile states that has recently been adopted by development agencies. The term is used by donors to refer to states that are failing to adopt policies and institutions believed necessary for development. According to donors, not only does such failure affect development outcomes, fragile states are also associated with violent conflicts and related security threats. The paper argues the fragile state concept must be critically reconsidered on both accounts. First, whether the concept can be said to capture the dynamics and policies associated with so-called developmental states is doubtful. Second, equating a states ability to promote development with its capacity to prevent and reduce violent conflict, while a drawing upon a common conflation within the so-called securitydevelopment nexus, is not supported by historical evidence

The Pitfalls of Protection: Gender, Violence, and Power in Afghanistan

Since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, violence against women has emerged as the single most important issue for Afghan gender politics. The Pitfalls of Protection, based on research conducted in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2015, locates the struggles over gender violence in local and global power configurations. Torunn Wimpelmann finds that aid flows and geopolitics have served as both opportunities for and obstacles to feminist politics in Afghanistan. Showing why Afghan activists often chose to use the leverage of Western powers instead of entering into either protracted negotiations with powerful national actors or broad political mobilization, this book examines both the achievements and the limits of this strategy

Missing from the picture: Men imprisoned for ‘moral crimes’ in Afghanistan

Recent years have seen sustained focus on the prosecution of Afghan women and girls for ‘moral crimes’ such as adultery and ‘running away’. However, many Afghan men are also charged with and convicted for moral crimes. This paper examines how Afghan law penalizes men for consensual heterosexual acts, and presents statistics suggesting that hundreds of men are currently imprisoned for such ‘moral crimes’ in the country. It argues that although women are particularly vulnerable to prosecution for moral crimes in Afghanistan, debates and advocacy over this issue must include men’s experiences too. This research is part of the project New Afghan Men? Marriage, Masculinities and Sexual Politics in Contemporary Afghanistan, funded by the Research Council of Norway and carried out by Peace Training and Research Organization (PTRO) and Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI)

Missing from the picture: Men imprisoned for ‘moral crimes’ in Afghanistan

Recent years have seen sustained focus on the prosecution of Afghan women and girls for ‘moral crimes’ such as adultery and ‘running away’. However, many Afghan men are also charged with and convicted for moral crimes. This paper examines how Afghan law penalizes men for consensual heterosexual acts, and presents statistics suggesting that hundreds of men are currently imprisoned for such ‘moral crimes’ in the country. It argues that although women are particularly vulnerable to prosecution for moral crimes in Afghanistan, debates and advocacy over this issue must include men’s experiences too. This research is part of the project New Afghan Men? Marriage, Masculinities and Sexual Politics in Contemporary Afghanistan, funded by the Research Council of Norway and carried out by Peace Training and Research Organization (PTRO) and Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI)

Return in Dignity, Return to What? Review of the Voluntary Return Programme to Afghanistan

This report was commissioned by the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration, Utlendingsdirektoratet (UDI), to assess the programme for voluntary return to Afghanistan. The programme is open to Afghan nationals whose asylum applications in Norway are pending or have been rejected, or Afghans who have been granted the right to stay in Norway but wish to return to Afghanistan. The report focuses on the return programme established in 2006 by the Norwegian government in cooperation with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and Norwegian NGOs. The programme includes information and counselling in Norway, as well as cash payments and reintegration assistance upon return to Afghanistan