Position of Women
102
Table 10.2 Females 10 years and over with self-generated income, by primary decision maker on spending the income, and by a age, b marital status in percentages
Selected variables Decision maker
Woman herself With spouse
With family Spouse decides
Family decides
a. Age
10--19 10
5 49
1 35
20-29 18
41 26
6 9
30-39 23
51 13
9 3
40-49 29
47 15
8 2
50-59 32
34 21
7 6
60-69 34
26 27
5 7
70-79 51
12 28
9
b. Marital status
Married 21
52 16
9 3
Divorced, separated 64
26 11
Widow 58
34 8
Never married, but engaged 18
52 30
Never married, not engaged 11
51 37
Total 20
33 28
6 14
10.2.2 Community decision making
Shuras and Community Development Councils CDCs are two types of representative bodies existing in Afghan
communities. Table 10.3 indicates that representation of
women in these bodies is far less widespread than that of men. Direct representation of women is nationally only
established in 20 percent of the communities through Shuras and in 36 percent through CDCs, compared to 56
and 60 percent for male representation. The CDCs are much more common in the rural communities, whereas the
presence of Shuras is only modestly larger in rural areas than in urban ones.
If there are no female decision-making committees in the community, in some 40 percent of the cases the male
committees take women’s views into consideration; 35 percent do this usually and 5 percent do this sometimes
only. The followed procedure to represent women is usually to have their concerns voiced by their husbands. Only in around one-quarter of the situations direct representation or
personal attendance to meetings by women is realized. Altogether, this means that female representation at community level is still exception rather than rule.
Shuras and Community Development Councils
The Shura, or local council, has traditionally been the institution around which people mobilize. It is an informal body for decision-
making and dispute resolution on a range of economic, political and sometimes social issues. Like most traditional Afghan institutions,
it is usually comprised of male elders and landowners. However, female and mixed Shuras also exist.
Community Development
Councils CDCs
are village
organizations, relatively recently established within the framework of the National Solidarity Programme NSP under the auspices of
the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development MRRD. It is a country-wide initiative that provides block grants to communities
to enable them to plan, prioritize, implement and finance their own development projects.
Position of Women
103
Table 10.3 Percentage of communities having representative bodies, by residence, and by type of body
Representative body Residence
Urban Rural
Kuchi National
Male shura 49
54 67
53 Female shura
19 17
11 17
Male and female shura 1
3 1
3 Male NSP CDC
16 51
22 46
Female NSP CDC 8
25 11
22 Male and female NSP CDC
3 16
5 14
10.3 Women in Afghan society
Several development indicators covered by the NRVA have an important value for the assessment of women’s and girls’ living conditions, but have a general bearing rather than one specifically for women. Thus, housing characteristics –
such as water and sanitation facilities and tenure arrangements, or household access to land – do not empower women above and beyond the general population, and will not be addressed here. This section only recaptures the information
of previous chapters as far as the information is inherently relevant for women and girls – such as maternal health issues – or where gender differentiation adds to the understanding of their situation. In this respect,
Table 10.4 provides a selection of development indicators by sex and adds a gender gap indicator to assess the depth of the disadvantages
that women face in Afghan society.
1
10.3.1 The face of women in population and marriage
Even with improved coverage of the female population in NRVA 20078, the number of males continues to exceed that of women at an average of 105 males per 100 females see Section 3.2.1. This figure provokes serious thinking as
to what are the explanations of this. Doubtless, an important factor still remains under-enumeration of women. Among other things, this notion finds support in the a-typically high sex ratio in the age group 10-19, in which girls tend to be
highly protected. Whatever the reason for underreporting women and girls, it is worrisome, as without being visible in the statistics, policies and programmes cannot take them sufficiently into account. Although the NRVA is not providing
information on maternal mortality, reproductive health complications are another likely suspect of sex imbalances in the population due to excess female deaths. Especially the declining share of women beyond age 50 may point in this
direction. From a women’s and health perspective, accurate information about maternal mortality is urgently needed for policy making and priority setting in Afghanistan.
_________________________________________________________ 1
The gap indicator is calculated as the ratio between the female and male development indicators.
Position of Women
104
Table 10.4 Selected development indicators, by sex, residence and related gender gap
a
Indicator Sex, residence
Female Male
Gender gap Urban
Rural Kuchi
National Urban
Rural Kuchi
National Urban
Rural Kuchi
National
a. Labour force indicators
Labour force participation rate 19
54 64
47 79
87 92
86 24
61 70
54 Employment-to-population ratio
16 50
61 43
72 82
88 80
22 61
70 54
Unemployment rate 18
7 5
7 9
7 4
7 201
100 106
108 Share in wage employment in the
non-agricultural sector 13
5 4
8 87
95 96
92 15
6 4
9 Proportion of own-account and
contributing family workers in total employment 70
97 98
95 57
69 84
67 123
142 117
141 Share of working children among all children
aged 6-17 4
17 27
15 13
29 44
26 34
60 62
57 Share of child labour among all children
aged 6-17 3
10 19
9 9
18 31
17 30
58 59
54
b. Education indicators
Literacy rate of population 15 years and older 33
7 3
12 62
35 14
39 54
20 19
32 Literacy rate of 15-24 year-olds
52 15
6 24
74 49
16 53
71 31
39 45
Net enrolment ratio in primary education 68
38 12
42 77
60 22
60 88
64 55
70 Ratio of girls to boys in primary education
n.a. n.a.
n.a. n.a.
n.a. n.a.
n.a. n.a.
88 63
53 69
Ratio of girls to boys in secondary education n.a.
n.a. n.a.
n.a. n.a.
n.a. n.a.
n.a. 71
32 58
49
c. Indicators of community representation
Percentage of communities with representatation in Shuras
20 20
12 20
50 57
68 56
40 35
17 35
Percentage of communities with representatation in CDCs
11 41
16 37
19 68
27 61
57 61
61 60
a
The gender gap is calculated as the ratio between the female and male indicator multiplied by 100.
Generally, early marriage and associated early births have been a major cause of rapid population growth, high maternal mortality, inability of girls to finish education, additional constraints to women’s mobility and participation, and escalation
of demands for public investments on social services. Fortunately, very early marriage appears to decline, as the percentage of women who were married before age 15 declined from 11 percent among women who are now 30-34
years old to 3 percent for the currently 15-20 year olds Section 3.3.2. A somewhat smaller decline is suggested for the share of those who were married before age 18.
The average spousal age gap has also narrowed down to five years among younger couples, compared to eight years among older couples. The large age gap between spouses and male casualties during the three decades of war contribute
to a greater number of women than men that have become widowed at age 40-64 3 percent for men and 19 percent for women and beyond 64 years 17 and 61 percent, respectively. There are over half a million widows, who can largely
be classified as being in vulnerable position, along with 70 thousand female heads of households. Sharp focus on these groups of women and their families is needed in implementing the PRSP.
Women are much less predisposed to migration, as men represent the large majority migrants Section 3.5.1. This especially applies to international migration. Women tend to migrate relatively more from rural to rural areas, probably
due to marriage rather than to employment. Overall, female migrants are more likely to be economically inactive. These data indicate persistent cultural restrictions to women’s mobility and highlight the dearth of economic opportunities for
women in the country. Given, however, that youth represents a huge percentage of the country’s population and that migration appears to be especially attractive among them, programmes for the youth, especially female youth, may be
implemented to promote trainingjob-related migration as a group. As unstable security situations may be reinforcing female constraints to migration, the identification of ‘peace zones’ that could be classified as safe locations for women’s
in-country migration, may also be explored.
