Rape a "huge problem" in Afghanistan, U.N. says

By Golnar Motevalli

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan law does not protect rape victims and for too long communities have turned to traditional forms of justice which tend to criminalise victims of a profound problem, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

"This is an issue that is under-reported and to a significant extent concealed, but it is a huge problem in Afghanistan," Norah Niland, the United Nations' human rights representative in Afghanistan, told a panel of Afghan women.

A U.N. report, the full version of which is yet to be published, described rape as an everyday occurence.

A summary of the report said that in northern Afghanistan, for example, more than a third of cases analysed showed rapists were directly linked to local leaders who are immune from arrest.

Those likely to commit rape are close family members, men who work in prisons or orphanages and men in powerful positions either in state-run institutions or in armed groups and criminal gangs, it said.

In many communities, shame is attached to a victim of rape rather than the criminal, the report said.

Families will often resort to the traditional and religious practices of "baad" and "zina" to save face, either by insisting the victim marry the rapist or prosecuting her for sexual relations outside of marriage.

Afghanistan's penal code does not explicitly address the crime of rape or define it, something which the government must address urgently, the report said.