Support Imprisoned Children & Women in Afghanistan

Project Report | Jan 15, 2021
Project Update - January 2021

By Oliver Gilbert | Project Contributor

Dear Supporter,

We are pleased to share an update on our programme supporting children and women in conflict with the law in Balkh and Kabul Provinces of Afghanistan.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created significant challenges with increased restrictions upon access to detention facilities. Despite these challenges in delivery, our team have been able to maintain support for vulnerable children and women in in a number of key areas – diversion of cases to avoid unnecessary detention of children and women; rehabilitation to support the education and wellbeing of incarcerated children and women, and reintegration support for children and women into their families, schools and communities.

We have progressed in promoting diversion of cases - promoting more proportionate sentencing and avoiding the involvement of children and women in the punitive justice system altogether. Our interventions been directly effective towards increased diversion of cases, but also our capacity strengthening measures have built the ability of justice sector actors to promote diversion of cases in the long-term. Specifically, our team has achieved the following:

Facilitated the diversion of children in conflict with the law from incarceration through promotion of alternatives to detention – a total of 63 cases in the past year

Provided legal advice sessions to women and girls in female detention facilities – 232 women and girls in past year

Delivered advocacy and training for community members, correctional facility and police station staff, government and other key stakeholders to change attitudes, policies and procedures to better protect the rights of vulnerable children and women – 42 police officers, 24 social workers and 21 prison staff were trained in the past year

Carried out a research study evaluating alternative to detention methods. The report will be made available to justice sector stakeholders and the wider community to advocate for community service sentencing as a viable and much-needed alternative to detention

We have also progressed in offering rehabilitation support to incarcerated women and children. Our interventions have improved education and employability skills, the health and emotional well-being of incarcerated children and women; the long-term effects of can reduce rates of recidivism (reoffending). In particular, we have:

Delivered education and vocational training programmes to children and women including basic literacy and numeracy classes, as well as specific classes in computing, English and arts. 192 children and 89 women participated in education and vocational programmes in the past year

Provided psychosocial counselling support and support group sessions to address stress and mental traumas faced by incarcerated children and women. 47 children and 506 women received psychosocial support through individual and group sessions in the past year

Offered gender-responsive rights awareness courses to incarcerated women and girls. 93 women and girls in female detention facilities participated in the course in the past year

Finally, we have supported the reintegration of children and women upon release. Our reintegration support tackles a strong negative bias towards children and women offenders that prevents acceptance by families and communities, therefore reducing the likelihood of recidivism upon release. In particular, we have:

Supported incarcerated children with reintegration prior to release by facilitating family visits, and post-release through monitoring visits by programme social workers – 340 children received reintegration support in the past year

Provided reintegration support for former detainees women’s detention facilities post-release through social work support via telephone – 70 women received post-release social work support in the past year

We thank you for your continued support. We look forward to sharing further updates with you.

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Sep 17, 2020
Project Update - September 2020

By Sarah Moorhouse | Project Contributor

Dear Supporters,

Thank you for your continued support of women and children in conflict with the law in Afghanistan. We are delighted to share an update with you.

Women and children in Afghanistan continue to be arrested for crimes which would not be recognised under international standards. This means children are punished for petty crimes that would not lead to an arrest elsewhere. Nationwide, the number of children detained in juvenile detention centres has risen sharply over the past ten years, despite Afghanistan’s 2010 Juvenile Code stating explicitly that the detention of children should be used ‘only as a last resort’. Children and women arrested by the police face harassment, neglectful treatment in police stations and long and difficult periods of imprisonment.

The overall objective of our work is to support vulnerable children and women in conflict with the law in 3 key areas:

Diversion - to avoid involvement with the justice system altogether.
Rehabilitation - to create improved conditions within detention centres to support the emotional and physical wellbeing of women and children and to prepare them for a safe and more productive return to society.
Reintegration - to overcome the stigma they face following arrest and imprisonment, and to overcome the circumstances which led to their initial arrest.

We are addressing these issues through the following activities:

A day release open centre for children in Balkh Province. The centre offers children an education, vocational training and social work services.
Counselling and psychological-social support for children and women in conflict with the law who are either waiting for their trial or post-trial.
The placement of social work mentors in police stations in the Balkh and the Northern Region to advise and train existing social workers.
Educating and informing police and prison workers on the legal and human rights and needs of children and women.
Advocacy – working with other NGOs and the Afghan Government to lobby for alternatives to detention for women and children.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began the restrictions have prevented us from undertaking many of our planned activities. These delays make an already desperate situation even worse. Lockdowns have impacted access to the juvenile rehabilitation centres; educational activities have had to be halted; vital training for social workers and police has been postponed and vocational trainers have not had access to the women’s prison.

However, during these challenging times we have still been able to achieve positive outcomes and continue to support the women and children we work with:

Social workers have been able to undertake family visits to support juvenile rehabilitation inmates who were released as a result of a presidential decree due to COVID-19
Defence lawyers have continued to provide critical legal advice to vulnerable people and represent the inmates during the lockdown.
3 advocacy meetings have been held with officials from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA), looking at what they can do to provide support and alternatives to incarceration for women and children.
We have prepared, packaged and distributed information packages including essential information adapted for a low-literacy, low-resource environment and translated into local languages and dialects;
We have prepared, packaged and distributed essential supplies including soap and sanitiser, masks and health and hygiene materials – this is particularly important in correctional facilities where overcrowding and congestion limits social separation or isolation; improved health and hygiene practices are essential to reduce risk of infection and critical illness; and
We have provided psychosocial support and increased awareness of protection risks and recognition, response and reporting strategies.

Moving forward as fragile, crisis and conflict-affected countries face challenging choices on how to flatten the curve in their contexts, correctional facilities have emerged as an extreme risk in Afghanistan. Incarcerated females are suffering from separation and isolation as families are prevented or prohibited from meeting them. They remain extremely vulnerable and the threat of COVID-19 as unsafe and unsanitary facilities mean there is a risk of rapid transmission should there be an outbreak. As such it is essential we are able to resume our work which is critical to support women and children, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, to continue to build on our achievements to date.

Thank you again for your support of this crucial work and Street Child!

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May 20, 2020
Update on our support for Women and Children

By Ariella Fish | Project Leader

Dear Supporters,

Thank you for your continued support of women and children in conflict with the law in Afghanistan. We are delighted to share an update from the first few months of 2020.

Women and children in Afghanistan continue to be arrested for crimes which would not be recognised under international standards. This means children are punished for petty crimes that would not lead to an arrest elsewhere. Nationwide, the number of children and women detained in juvenile detention centres has risen sharply over the past ten years, despite Afghanistan’s 2010 Juvenile Code stating explicitly that the detention of children should be used ‘only as a last resort’. Children and women arrested by the police face harassment, neglectful treatment in police stations and long and difficult periods of imprisonment. Innocent or not, they are wrenched from their families and school for long periods before trial. This situation further perpetuates financial and social inequality in Afghanistan, and without any intervention, they face a bleak future.

The overall objective of our work is to support vulnerable children and women in conflict with the law in 3 key areas:

Diversion - to avoid involvement with the justice system altogether.
Rehabilitation - to create improved conditions within detention centres to support the emotional and physical wellbeing of women and children and to prepare them for a safe and more productive return to society.
Reintegration - to overcome the stigma they face following arrest and imprisonment, and to overcome the circumstances which led to their initial arrest.

We are addressing these issues through the following activities:

A day release open centre for children in Balkh Province. The centre offers children an education, vocational training and social work services.
Counselling and psychological-social support for children and women in conflict with the law who are either waiting for their trial or post-trial.
The placement of social work mentors in police stations in the Balkh and the Northern Region to advise and train existing social workers.
Educating and informing police and prison workers on the legal and human rights and needs of children and women.
Advocacy – working with other NGOs and the Afghan Government to lobby for alternatives to detention for women and children.

In Mid-March, due to COVID-19 outbreak in Afghanistan all activities were suspended but after close consultation, we swiftly continued the activities we could, with new protocols and regulations imposed due to the pandemic. Our education and vocational classes were equipped with the necessary hygiene kits to make our beneficiaries safe. However, in the last few weeks, due to a positive case of COVID-19 in the prison we work in, these classes are now being conducting remotely by sending and collecting assessment papers once and week and conducting sessions over the phone. Our counselling and psychological-social support sessions are being done remotely. Other activities were also unfortunately affected and from March onward our social workers and lawyers have had to stop workshops and group legal awareness sessions.

Despite these challenges, Street Child has achieved positives outcomes in this period. The highlights were:

33 women were reintegrated with their family
44 women released from prison
3 group therapy sessions took place
148 individual therapy session took place
34 women and children graduated from our education class
65 women were provided with legal advice

In addition, in this period 3 advocacy meetings were held with officials from Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA), looking at what they can do to provide support and alternatives to incarceration for women and children.

Case study:

Shakira* was only 14 when she fled her parents’ house to escape an arranged marriage to the 50-year-old man she was promised to. Her ‘secret’ 15-year-old boyfriend would not let this happen and they left in the middle of the night, knowing they could get caught by the police, or worse. They faced the very real prospect of being executed at the request of their own families for bringing shame upon them by running away together. Such punishments are still traditionally seen as a way of restoring family honour.

Shakira and her boyfriend did not get very far before being picked up by the police. Luckily for them, the police officer and the station immediately called a social worker, trained by Street Child, to act as an advocate and mediate between the children and the two families.

* Name changed for child protection purposes

Moving forward, we hope that we can continue our work and that the COVID-19 pandemic does not hinder our progress in the next few months. We will continue to leverage our advocacy efforts to promote alternatives to incarceration and quality legal support for children and women and promote their rights in the judicial system and communities in Afghanistan.

Thank you again for your support of this crucial work and Street Child is looking forward to sharing with you even more news and progress from our work in 2020!

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