Rights & Democracy, a Canada-based human rights organization supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), has launched both an ongoing debate as well as activities on women's rights and family law reform in Afghanistan.

The Rights in Practice - Women’s Rights and Family Law Reform initiative’s three main objectives are to:

• Support Afghan civil society to advocate for family law’s progressive reform, and the implementation and usage of a new national marriage contract.
• Promote greater respect for women’s rights at the community level.
• Assist Afghan civil society organizations to become effective women’s rights defenders.

To attain these objectives, the initiative will:

• Mobilize opinion leaders, advocates, and public authorities in both rural and urban areas to take action on women’s rights and family law issues.
• Encourage Afghan men and women with legal expertise, and political and religious influence, to participate in international meetings.
• Enable these participants to learn from international experience in promoting women’s rights and advocating for family law reform throughout the Muslim world.
• Better equip participants to stimulate public debate around women’s issues in Afghanistan.

The Rights in Practice - Women’s Rights and Family Law Reform initiative has achieved significant results to date:

• The project launched the publication of a book titled “A Woman’s Place: Perspectives on Afghanistan’s Evolving Legal Framework” in Ottawa on February 15, 2011.
• R&D also played a role to define gender priorities which needed to be addressed at the June 2010 Afghan Peace Jirga, and the July 2010 Kabul Conference.
• The Family Law Drafting Committee (DC) finalized the first draft recommendations for family law reform in September 2009 and the final draft of the Family Law was sent to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) around April 2010.
• A Steering Committee has been set up to lead the campaign to support the reform of the Family Law.
• A Family Law Campaign Manual has been developed which continues to be used as a capacity building tool to support advocacy for the reform of the Sunni Family Law.
• Afghan human rights organizations, under the leadership of Rights & Democracy (R&D), were able to positively influence the Shiite Personal Status Law’s (SPSL) revision. The revised SPSL incorporated approximately 60 percent of the modifications proposed by the DC.
• The project has been active in the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for the successful drafting of the Elimination of Violence Against Women Law (EVAW).
• The project has held three successful annual international seminars to help Afghans learn from experiences in promoting women’s rights in other Muslim countries.
• One hundred and eighty community trainers from six provinces received instruction. Most have conducted replication training and have engaged their communities in a dialogue on the topics of women’s rights, family law and marriage contract use.
• Monthly radio shows about women’s issues have been produced and broadcasted through seven radio stations in Afghanistan. These shows were uploaded to R&D Afghanistan project’s website (www.dd-rd.af), and were distributed to R&D’s partners to be used as awareness-raising materials in training sessions.
• Six legal aid clinics in Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Jalalabad, Balkh and Kunduz have been funded by R&D.
• Eighty-eight mullahs received training on the importance of marriage registration and its process in May 2009 in Nangarhar and in June 2009 in Kabul.
• Legal research on women’s rights advocacy tools has been conducted. Training modules were delivered and shared with partner organizations.
• Workshops were conducted for Afghan civil society organizations as well as women’s rights advocates, so that they could develop their advocacy skills. These workshops involved more than 200 participants in 2009 alone, from a number of non-governmental and other organizations, working on women’s rights.
• Through the project’s Women’s Fund, 35 civil society organizations delivered 48 projects that supported the promotion of women’s issues.

• Rights & Democracy