Afghan women in UK at risk of domestic violence: Rights charity

Female Afghan evacuees to the UK are facing heightened risks of domestic violence. (File/AFP)
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Updated 12 May 2022
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Afghan women in UK at risk of domestic violence: Rights charity

  • Human Rights Watch has urged the Home Office to step up efforts to house refugees, with 12,000 of the 18,000 evacuated from Afghanistan still in temporary accommodation
  • Having written to the home secretary, minister for refugees, and other relevant UK authorities in April to raise these concerns, HRW said it was still waiting on a response

LONDON: Female Afghan evacuees to the UK are facing heightened risks of domestic violence due to Home Office failures to find permanent accommodation for refugees eight months after Britain’s exit from Afghanistan, a rights charity said on Thursday.

Human Rights Watch has urged the Home Office to step up efforts to house refugees, with 12,000 of the 18,000 evacuated from Afghanistan still in temporary accommodation.

Assistant women’s rights researcher at HRW, Sahar Fetrat, said of five women interviewed by the charity, all, while grateful for being evacuated, were facing increased domestic violence, surveillance, and constraints on their movement while they remained in temporary housing.

“They dealt with a huge amount of trauma before and during their flight and are now dealing with conditions affecting their mental health and keeping them from integrating.

“The women I spoke with are resilient and eager to move ahead in beginning new lives in the UK, but they feel stuck right now, in environments that are often dangerous for women. They need more support from the UK government to rebuild their and their families’ lives,” Fetrat added.

Having written to the home secretary, minister for refugees, and other relevant UK authorities in April to raise these concerns, HRW said it was still waiting on a response.

The women said that the lack of personal space in temporary accommodation had increased levels of distress, while pressure from the evacuated community members had “intimidated” those women facing domestic violence from reporting it.

HRW reported that one woman said: “A woman was battered by her husband in our hotel. When she tried to report it, the community in the hotel stopped her by intimidating her over the consequences.”

Another woman said: “Several times, I have heard a couple fighting next door. The husband shouts and leaves, slamming the door, and the wife cries loudly. She has spent seven months in a hotel room and hasn’t seen anything but the hotel premises.”

The women said traditional gender roles meant some of the women would have faced limited freedom in Afghanistan, but the strains would be offset by the privacy of their own space.

Women from less traditional backgrounds were facing microaggressions and sexist comments from some men, with one woman describing having returned from a run to be confronted by a man who said, “I see you have integrated too soon, haven’t you?”

Young, single women were reportedly receiving harsher judgements, with the environment being described as “getting more toxic and intolerable day by day.”

Four of the women interviewed said they had been evacuated because they had worked outside the home, in some cases in prominent jobs, with the fifth woman evacuated due to her husband’s role in the previous Afghan government.

One of the women said: “The sense of constantly being watched for every action I take, everywhere I go, getting judged for not wearing a hijab, is restricting me. It is tiresome.”

HRW said the government must take the needs and preference of women into account, with special attention to concerns that single women or women-headed households may face, as it addresses the worsening refugee crisis.

“The government should have clear and effective policies to deal with domestic violence in temporary housing, including posted and outreach materials in Afghan languages.

“Staff in these facilities should be trained to recognize and respond to gender-based violence, should be made aware of and sensitive to the residents’ diverse backgrounds, and should treat all residents with respect,” it added.


India foreign minister lands in arch-rival Pakistan for rare visit

Updated 3 sec ago
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India foreign minister lands in arch-rival Pakistan for rare visit

  • Jaishankar’s plane lands just before 3:30 p.m. at an air base near the capital Islamabad
  • Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan are bitter adversaries with longstanding political tensions

ISLAMABAD: Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday for a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, the first top Delhi diplomat to visit their arch-rival neighbor in nearly a decade.

Jaishankar’s plane landed just before 3:30 p.m. (1030 GMT) at an air base near the capital Islamabad, a foreign office official said, as state TV showed him receiving a bouquet of flowers from a host delegation that did not include any senior ministers.

Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan are bitter adversaries with longstanding political tensions, having fought three wars and numerous smaller skirmishes since they were carved out of the subcontinent’s partition in 1947.

Relations have been particularly sour since 2019, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked the limited autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir.

The Himalayan region is divided between India and Pakistan but claimed by both in full, with each accusing the other of stoking militancy there.

Modi’s 2019 move was celebrated across India but led Pakistan to suspend bilateral trade and downgrade diplomatic ties with New Delhi.

Indian government spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said this month the agenda of Jaishankar’s visit would strictly follow the SCO schedule, which is due to discuss trade, humanitarian and social issues.

“The Indian foreign minister has not requested a bilateral meeting, nor have we extended an invitation to them,” Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on Sunday.

Islamabad is keen to project an image of stability and security during the conference after a rash of civic unrest in the capital and militant attacks elsewhere across Pakistan in recent weeks.

Former Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj was the last to visit Pakistan in 2015, arriving for a summit on Afghanistan.

Modi also made a surprise visit to Pakistan that year, shortly after taking office for his first term, sparking short-lived hopes of a thaw in relations.

The SCO is a block of 10 nations established by China and Russia, which have used the alliance to deepen their ties with Central Asian states and vie for influence in the region.

However, they have recently pitched the organization as a competitor to the West.

The bloc claims to represent 40 percent of the world’s population and about 30 percent of its GDP, but its members have diverse political systems and even open disagreements with one another.

Pakistan’s former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was in Goa last year — also a rare visit — for an SCO meeting where he and Jaishankar were involved in a verbal spat.

It was the first official visit by a senior Pakistani official to their eastern neighbor since 2016, but the two foreign ministers did not hold a one-on-one meeting.


Russian man survives two months adrift on dinghy

Updated 29 min 1 sec ago
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Russian man survives two months adrift on dinghy

  • The dinghy was found in the Sea of Okhotsk, around 1,000 kilometers from its starting point
  • Russian rescuers had mounted a search using helicopters and a plane for the men a few days after they disappeared

MOSCOW: A Russian man was found alive after drifting for two months on an inflatable boat while another man and a teenage boy died, prosecutors said Tuesday.
The two men and a 15-year-old set off to the Island of Sakhalin from the far eastern Khabarovsk region on August 9, transport prosecutors said.
“After a time, communication with them was lost, their boat’s location remained unknown,” they said.
“On October 14 around 10:00 pm, the boat was discovered as it passed a fishing boat... Two people died, one remained alive, he is receiving medical help,” prosecutors said.
The dinghy was found in the Sea of Okhotsk, around 1,000 kilometers from its starting point.
Prosecutors published a video showing the bearded survivor in a life jacket shouting at the fishermen: “I don’t have much strength” but managing to catch a rope.
The survivor was named by RIA Novosti news agency as Mikhail Pichugin, while his brother Sergei, 49, and nephew Ilya, 15, died. Their bodies were on the boat.
Russian rescuers had mounted a search using helicopters and a plane for the men a few days after they disappeared, suspecting the boat had been carried by currents toward Kamchatka.
Alexei Arykov, the owner of the fishing boat that found the survivor said he was “in a serious condition, thin, but conscious,” RIA Novosti reported.
The boat docked around 0830 GMT in the far eastern city of Magadan and the survivor was carried off on a stretcher, the news agency reported.
The survivor’s wife Yekaterina told RIA Novosti: “It’s a kind of miracle,” adding that the men had taken enough food and water to last only two weeks.
She said her husband’s weight could have helped save him, as “he weighed around 100 kilograms” (220 pounds). Russian television reported he lost 50 kilograms.
The brothers were from Ulan-Ude in Siberia but Mikhail Pichugin was working on Sakhalin as a driver.
He had invited his brother and nephew to visit and they planned a sea trip to see whales, Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid reported, citing relatives.
An expert questioned by RIA Novosti recalled that in 1960, four Soviet soldiers survived 49 days adrift on a small boat in the Pacific Ocean that was found by the US aircraft carrier Keersarge.


Italy demands security guarantees for its troops in Lebanon

Updated 15 October 2024
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Italy demands security guarantees for its troops in Lebanon

  • There are over 1,000 Italian troops in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon

ROME: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni demanded security guarantees on Tuesday for all her country’s troops deployed in Lebanon, where UN peacekeepers have come under fire during the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Italy has troops deployed in the UN peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL and in a separate mission known as MIBIL which trains local armed forces. There are over 1,000 Italian troops in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.
The UN Security Council expressed concern on Monday after several UN peacekeeping positions came under fire in southern Lebanon and urged all parties — without naming them — to respect the safety and security of UNIFIL personnel and premises.
“We believe that the attitude of the Israeli forces is completely unjustified,” Meloni said, describing it as a “blatant violation” a UN resolution on ending hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.
In an address to Italy’s Senate, she said Israel’s actions were not acceptable and that she had expressed this position to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Asked whether she was considering a trip to Lebanon, Meloni told reporters: “Yes.”
Netanyahu has denied Israeli troops deliberately targeted UNIFIL peacekeepers in Lebanon and wants the peacekeepers withdrawn from combat zones.
Italy has protested to Israel and joined allies in condemning the attacks on the peacekeepers.
Meloni said Hezbollah had also violated the UN resolution and sought “to militarise the area under UNIFIL’s jurisdiction,” adding that Italy wanted to strengthen the capabilities of UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces.
She also said Rome had not forgotten the attack by Hamas militants on Israeli communities on Oct. 7 last year that sparked the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, and that Italy’s thoughts were with the more than 100 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.


Hundreds of Afghan ex-special forces set for UK relocation

Updated 15 October 2024
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Hundreds of Afghan ex-special forces set for UK relocation

  • Ministry of Defense review overturns position of previous British government
  • Many operatives and their families were forced into hiding after Western withdrawal

LONDON: Hundreds of former members of Afghanistan’s special forces and their families will be resettled in the UK after ministers overturned a decision by the previous government, The Independent reported.

Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard on Monday said 2,000 applicants for relocation, previously rejected by the UK, will have their paperwork reviewed once more following a Ministry of Defense review.

Many of the former special forces operatives and their families were placed at great risk of Taliban reprisal following the Western withdrawal from Afghanistan, with many forced into hiding.

About 25 percent of the 2,000 applications are expected to be overturned amid the release of new evidence demonstrating direct payments from the UK government to Afghan special forces units.

Pollard told the House of Commons: “Officials have now confirmed that there’s evidence of payments from the UK government to members of Afghan specialist units … and for some individuals this demonstrates a direct employment relationship.

“This is evidence that goes beyond previously identified top-up payments and reimbursements for operational expenses, which don’t demonstrate such an employment relationship in themselves.

“This is, of course, contrary to the position reported to Parliament by the previous government that no such evidence of direct employment existed.”

Pollard said the previous government’s position was not a “conscious effort to mislead,” but was part of a “failure to access and share the right digital records … across departmental lines.”

Some former Afghan soldiers who demonstrated ties to the UK in the wake of the Taliban takeover have been housed for years in military bases across Britain. Ministers have said they will soon be moved to appropriate accommodation.


Indonesia’s Prabowo courts largest party for coalition, meets candidates for govt posts

Updated 15 October 2024
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Indonesia’s Prabowo courts largest party for coalition, meets candidates for govt posts

  • The absence of any opposition in the parliament would mean that an eight-party alliance could ensure smooth passage of Prabowo’s legislative agenda

JAKARTA: Indonesia’s incoming president Prabowo Subianto met candidates for senior government posts for a second day on Tuesday, as he seeks to bring the country’s biggest political party into his already dominant parliamentary coalition.
If Prabowo can reach a deal with Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) there would be no opposition parties in parliament, an unprecedented situation since Indonesia began holding direct presidential elections in 2004.
Prabowo, who will be sworn in as president on Oct. 20, summoned over 40 people on Monday who said they had been asked to join the next government, including current finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati.
On Tuesday, Prabowo summoned dozens of potential deputy ministers, his top aide Sufmi Dasco Ahmad said.
While no lawmakers from the PDI-P had arrived at his house by early afternoon, Prabowo’s party officials have said that he plans to meet PDI-P chief Megawati Sukarnoputri to discuss a possible political alliance.
The timing of a meeting is unclear.
The absence of any opposition in the parliament would mean that an eight-party alliance could ensure smooth passage of Prabowo’s legislative agenda, but it would likely heighten fears about a lack of meaningful checks on Prabowo’s power in a country with a history of authoritarian rule.
Seven of the eight parties in parliament have already joined Prabowo’s coalition, securing him a parliamentary majority.
PDI-P, which won the most seats in the February election, had nominated Prabowo’s predecessor, President Joko Widodo, for president in 2014. But the relationship soured over Widodo’s tacit support for the president-elect during his campaign run.
Widodo’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, is the incoming vice president.
In his second five-year term, Widodo was also supported by most parties in parliament, with only two opposing parties.
Widodo leaves office facing criticism he has tried to change laws to benefit his family, and co-opt state bodies to control his opponents. He denies any impropriety, and has said democracy was thriving and he respects the country’s institutions.
Analysts say they fear what they see as that democratic backsliding may continue under Prabowo, a member of the old elite that previously ruled Indonesia. Prabowo is an ex-special forces commander who was dismissed from the military amid speculation of human rights abuses, assertions he has denied.
In March, Prabowo described democracy as tiring, costly and messy, and said there was room for improvement.