Tradition and Culture 2.0 : Afghanistan
"I find that there was little evidence provided to support that the respondent knowingly observed and performed virginity tests for the purpose of having women convicted of zina."
Immigration and Refugee Board Appeal Division, Canada
"The authorities wanted us to check her virginity and also to find
out if there were any signs of sexual intercourse. This is not an
uncommon occurrence in Afghanistan."
“In
Islamic law and tradition, a woman is forbidden from having any sexual
relationship before marriage."
"Both the law and the public punishes women
for such ‘sins’ and it is called zina."
Refugee claim, Saida Ahmadi Afghan M.D., refugee claimant
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A young girl holds a rose during an event marking the International
Women’s Day in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, March 8, 2020. (AP
Photo/Rahmat Gul) |
In Afghanistan the criminal code lists a crime called "zina". This describes a societal criminal sin that only women can be guilty of. And it is a sin that ostracizes women, criminalizes them, and ruins their lives after imprisoning them. Zina is the crime of pre-marriage sex. And to identify women who are guilty of this crime, female doctors are tasked with conducting "virginity tests". A virginity test is incontestably a humiliating ritual of shaming a woman whose behaviour deserves that she be degraded with a digital probe of the vagina to ensure that the hymen is intact.
Before arriving in Canada to make a refugee clain in 2017, Saida Ahmadi, an Afghan female medical doctor, worked at a hospital in northern Afghanistan. There, virginity tests become court evidence used by prosecuters charging women and girls of having engaged in sexual relations before marriage, the crime of zina. "Virginity exams were part of her duties, though they were not routine", Dr.Ahmadi explained to Canadian immigration officials.
She conducted manual inspections of female genitalia to determine whether the hymen had "broken". A 'broken' hymen would also have the effect on the Afghan marriage market of marking any woman designated as having committed zina, as unmarriagable. No self-respecting Afghan man would take for a wife any woman or girl who had comported herself so unforgivably disgracefully, insulting Islamic precepts and compromising Afghan culture.
Canadian government officials are now attempting to remove Dr.Ahmadi from Canada as undesirable, accusing her of performing virginity tests at the "request of the state", and testifying on her results, identifying women as zina criminals in courts of law. Aiding prosecutions in Afghanistan geared toward criminalizing women's freedom to use their body as they wished despite the cultural disapproval is not looked upon kindly in Canada, and is, in fact, defined as a human rights assault.
Dr.Ahmadi claims that she was under the impression that the tests she performed were done with the willing consent of the women involved. She would not have undertaken the tests, she claims, had she known they were done under duress. As to say that she, an educated Afghan woman, a medical doctor, had no idea of the repercussions that accrue to any women or girl with the audacity to defy convention where a woman's sexuality is the business of the state, and where men can rape with impunity but require their wives to be virgins.
Dr.Ahmadi came to Canada to claim refugee status after having examined a woman named Soraya in August of 2016 who had been accused of zina. After the examination Dr.Ahmadi signed a report attesting to her opinion that Soraya was definitely not virginal. And then she went on to testify in court of the woman's lapse in Afghan morality. All of which was most useful to the prosecution which led to Soraya's being sentenced to seven years in jail.
When threatening calls arrived from Soraya's family, Dr.Ahmadi felt it was time for her to find a new residence, and Canada was her choice. The Immigration and Refugee Board ruled although the tests were "part of the systematic oppression of women in Afghanistan", they were not a crime against humanity and its Appeal Division ruled that Dr.Ahmadi made no significant contribution to "the systems in Afghanistan which oppress women".
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| Women wait for a polling station to open in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019.
(AP Photo/Ebrahim Nooroozi) |
Labels: Afghanistan, Canada, Culture, Female Subjugation, Immigration, Refugee Status
Yet Another Proud Moment for the United Nations
"At present we are dealing with allegations, not findings."
"UNRWA is awaiting the outcome of the investigation and will not
hesitate to take firm corrective measures or other management actions as
may be required."
UNRWA spokeswoman Tamara Alrifai
"[The document describes] credible and corroborated [allegations of abuses at the top of the organization, including] sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and other abuses of authority, for personal gain, to suppress legitimate dissent, and to otherwise achieve their personal objectives."
Agence France-Presse
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| A closed section of the UNRWA Hebron Boys School in the West Bank city of Hebron, on May 26, 2019. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser) |
"… The responsibility for the protracted nature of the Palestine
refugee-hood, the growing number of refugees and the growth in needs,
lies squarely with the parties and in the international community’s lack
of will or utter inability to bring about a negotiated and peaceful
resolution of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The attempt to
make UNRWA somehow responsible for perpetuating the crisis is
disingenuous at best. … Our commitment to accountability, strict and
sound financial discipline, to setting priorities and acting decisively
when the Agency’s neutrality is challenged, are matters of public
record. In 2018, UNRWA introduced stringent management measures as its
own necessary contribution to overcoming the financial crisis."
“Open Letter to Palestine Refugees and UNRWA”, UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl
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Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency Pierre Krähenbühl
APAImages/REX
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Back in December, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres received a report issued by the ethics office of the UN Relief and Works Agency
(UNRWA). The confidential report recently came into the hands of
The Associated Press, claiming the top management of UNRWA, Commissioner General Pierre Krahenbuhl in particular,
"have
engaged in sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and
other abuses of authority." Interestingly enough,
AP wasn't the first to reveal the presence of the report and its details,
Al Jazeera was.
Now, the United Nations has taken it upon itself to investigate its own agency. An agency that in fact, should long ago have been disbanded. It is the only refugee relief agency that was ever created for a singular purpose which has continued existence and its original purpose for generations. Of the original 750,000 Palestinian 'refugees' that left Israel when statehood was declared and the combined Arab armies marched on the new state to uproot it and failed for the first time, only to repeat the aggression time and again, UNRWA now supports the originals
and their descendants, numbering over six million.
At the same time that Palestinians streamed out of Israel with the intention of returning as soon as Israel was destroyed as promised by its Arab neighbours, 800,000 Jews were expelled by those same Arab neighbours, to find desperate haven in Israel, deprived of their property and personal belongings, all of which had been confiscated by the Arab state governments. No compensation, nor official recognition of the plight of these refugees has ever been suggested by the United Nations.
UNRWA employed the local populations of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, giving much-needed employment to a population whose leaders felt no need to build vital infrastructure for the state they claimed they aspired toward, and where unemployment is rife. Many Palestinians worked in Israel and continue to find employment there. UNRWA, like the Arab nations surrounding Israel, worked hard to ensure that the refugee status of Palestinians would endure. The Arab nations by refusing Palestinians in Lebanon, Syria and Egypt citizenship.
And the United Nations by continuing to view them as refugees, soliciting international donations in support of UNRWA operations and to be distributed directly to the Palestinian authorities. Who themselves have been notoriously corrupt, enriching themselves at the expense of the ordinary Palestinians. UNRWA has been complicit in supporting Hamas and Fatah in their violent conflict with Israel, and under its auspices school curricula for Palestinian children have incited hatred toward Jews and Israel as 'occupiers' of Palestinian land.
The role of 'occupier' was foisted on Israel as a result of the Palestinian culture of 'resistance' and avoidance of 'normalization' of the recognition of Israel whose presence is legitimate and a reflection of a need for restoration of the Jewish homeland for a people whose historical, forced diaspora had continued to suffer vicious discrimination and the violence of ongoing pogroms wherever they settled, eventually leading to the Holocaust.
Corruption within the United Nations, the world body whose ostensible purpose is to promote peace, security and equality has led to groups like the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Non-Aligned Group isolating and slandering Israel without end. All too many of the United Nations' extended programs have become dysfunctional parodies of what they are meant to represent. UNRWA is just another of them, riven with corruption and political malice.
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| Palestinian men pile bags of flour outside an aid distribution center
run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in the central Gaza
Strip refugee camp of Dair Al Balah, on Wednesday. Photo by Ismael
Mohamad/UPI |
"The government of China supported UNRWA's work for many years."
"This year, with regard to the
financial difficulty UNRWA faces, China continues to support UNRWA and
its work [to the tune of $1 million]."
China's
Ambassador to Palestine Guo Wei
The U.S. administration decided last year to discontinue its annual funding of UNRWA of $350 million. UNRWA appealed to other nations to take up the slack in its funding to enable it to continue providing the necessities of life to Palestinians, which its own Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza has proven incapable of, including the opportunity for employment in thriving communities which would exist if they refused to expend energy, time and funding to attempts to destroy Israel.
Labels: Corruption, Palestinians, Refugee Status, United Nations, UNRWA
