by CASC co-founder Lauryn Oates

(AFGHANISTAN) Case binders lining the shelves of women’s shelters and incident reports at the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission have documented it for years. But a historic study on domestic assault in Afghanistan has made it official: The country has one of the highest recorded levels of violence against women and girls in the world. In many parts of the country, a majority of women report being assaulted by their husbands.

Global Rights, a Washington, D.C.-based human rights organization, surveyed 5,700 households in 16 of the country’s 32 provinces. Fully 87.2 percent of respondents reported they had experienced at least one form of abuse, which included psychological, physical and sexual acts of violence as well as forced marriages. Fifty-two percent of respondents reported physical violence; many described being regularly punched, kicked, hit with sticks, cut with sharp objects, or having their hair pulled and clothes torn. . .

 Read it all in Herizons Magazine, here.