Shelters in Afghanistan: Helping or Depriving?
Violence against women and girls is considered one of the most systematic and widespread human rights violations. In countries like Mexico, Qatar, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, around 736 million women have been subjected to physical or sexual violence at least once. This issue is severe in Afghanistan, where the country's cultural background permits violence against women. According to a study, 87 percent of Afghan women experience at least one form of domestic violence (physical, sexual, or psychological), and 62 percent experience multiple forms of violence. Before the 1970s, women in Afghanistan had gained limited success in fighting for their rights, along with purdah (gendered separation) abolished in the 1950s and a new constitution that rendered women political participation. However, when the Taliban gained power in the 1990s, full-body burqas replaced miniskirts, and abuse against women resurged. Although the Taliban’s rule ended soon in 2001, violence against women did not cease. In 2021, the Taliban regained its power in Afghanistan and started a new round of suppression of women. The dire situation concerns all women who live in Afghanistan whose screams need to be heard by all.

What Do Afghan Women Face?
Like many other regions with fundamentalist Islamic belief, there is long-held patriarchal terrorism in Afghanistan, which support the ideology that men have ownership of their women. Such a sense of ownership gives men the power and impetus to claim their control and domination over women. Domestic violence is a usual resort to keep women in subordination. In Afghanistan, marital and statutory rape are not considered crimes, allowing sexual abuse against women to take place in the name of legality. Moreover, in this extremely patriarchal culture, any act of disobeying, like resisting or escaping by women, would be perceived as a "morality crime" and a betrayal of the family that deserves punishment from husbands. Additionally, upon reclaiming its power, the Taliban government brought many restrictive rules and policies for women that further impair their rights, such as blocking women’s access to jobs and education and banning the protest by women’s rights activists. These rules and policies that restrict women’s rights and hinder their ways to independence make it even harder for women to seek help from official sources, thus keeping them trapped in domestic violence. Women in Afghanistan, suffering from severe domestic violence and depleted of ways to resist or get help from governments, desperately need protective shelters to stay away from the abusive
environment.

How Can Shelters Help?
In Afghanistan, shelters protect women who experienced physical, sexual or mental abuse. In these shelters, various types of supports are provided to women regarding housing, information, counseling, and mental health service, regardless of their origin, residential or financial status. Once women escaped their abusive environment, they could claim their personal safety. Moreover, the government recently required shelters to meet minimum food and heating standards, ensuring the living standards of internally displaced women. The regulation also required shelters to provide education and literacy services, guaranteeing the development of these women. Even though women’s basic needs are satisfied in the shelter, the root cause of their tragedy still lacks a solution. Women living in the shelter are temporarily safe since they are away from their abusers, but shelter is not a permanent solution. Besides, shelters may not be sustainable since they heavily depend on external funding. Since 2004, Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of Afghanistan (HAWCA), a UN-supported organization, has provided financial support for Afghanistan’s shelters. However, in 2017, HAWCA launched an emergency appeal funding because the United Nations might withdraw its support. When the dwindling funding eventually vanishes, those internally displacedwomen would have to start a vagrant life or return to their abusive families.

Deprivation Creeps In
There are also emerging problems in the shelters. Although the shelter could stop domestic violence, violence against women remains. For mixed-gender shelters, gender-based violence prevails. As for male perpetrators, gender-based violence can be triggered by psychological distress, and thus violence is a habitual way for those men to reduce their feelings of helplessness. Besides, the lack of funding leads to the lack of security workers, relevant regulations, and external organizations that help refugees, contributing to violence against women. In addition, being in a culture obsessed with virginity and under the threat of perpetrators living in the same environment, women found reporting such violence less desirable, inadvertently allowing the abusive behaviors to continue. In 2011, the Afghan government took over all existing shelters. On the surface, they set up higher standards and better regulations for shelters as their claimed intention was to protect internally displaced persons and fuel the development of shelters. Instead, they implement abusive regulations on women, such as the humiliating and meaningless "virginity tests." Even worse, the real agenda may be the complete shutdown of shelters. The government is increasingly dominated by hard-line conservatives who are hostile to the idea of shelters because shelters render women some autonomy in this patriarchal culture. Now, the Taliban government has shut down almost all women's shelters in Afghanistan, leaving women in a completely helpless situation.

If Shelter Is Not The Best Way, Then What?
Shelters are established out of good intentions but end up causing even more suffering for women due to the inherited cultural and social attitude towards shelters. However, the alternative way the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) proposed is worth noticing. UNHCR urges establishing a community that enables homeless people to live lawfully and peacefully. In such a community, homeless people can exercise their rights and pursue freedom without cultural constraints or harassment. Unfortunately, women’s rights in this kind of community still depend on many factors, such as sustainable and reliable sources of funding and security preparations against potential violence. On the other hand, donors of such a community should withstand political pressure, promise concrete commitments to protecting women's rights, and ensure that the Taliban’s obligation to secure gender equality is fully implemented.
In addition, an appropriate security system could prevent further gender-based violence. Relevant policies and laws should also be established for such violence. Furthermore, since gender-based violence occurs in shelters where males present, all-women shelters may be a proper alternative. In that case, women can live peacefully with each other without suffering from possible abuse or violence from males. However, whether this solution is practical depends on whether the government supports all-women shelters and whether sufficient and continuous funding is available. Given that the emergence of shelters and related improvements and policies could effectively guard women's rights to some extent, they could only cure the symptom, not the disease. Only when the deep-rooted cultural ideology and bias toward women were eradicated could all the women in Afghanistan live a respected and peaceful life in their homes.