This New York Times article, written by Matthew Rosenburg, details the horribly invasive search procedures that are being employed against women attempting to visit their family members inside the Afghan prison of Pul-e-Charki. It is unclear if the abuse is localized or rampant, but the United States has cut off funding to Pul-e-Charki in a diplomatic effort to halt the searches. Males entering the facility generally have to undergo a simple pat down, but women are being forced to undergo invasive vaginal searches. The prison officials do not even need reasonable suspicion, and the article indicates that, at least at this prison, the procedure is used on nearly every woman entering the prison. Clearly, the women in this situation feel violated and are fell this is an abuse of state power. However, prison officials contend that the practice is necessary to ensure that contraband materials, such as narcotics and cell phones, do not enter the prison facility.
According to the article, the mistreatment of women is on the rise as Afghan officials try to unite a country in advance of the U.S. troop withdrawals. The country's leaders are reaching out to hard line elements within the country (to include the Taliban), to the determent of both human and women's rights.
Invasive searchers of female, law abiding citizens is an outrageous human rights abuse. The gender disparity is present in the fact that men are not facing anal cavity searches, which appears to me to be just as capable of transporting narcotics and other items into the prison. However, women's rights are human rights issues because the sanctity of every individual's body should be protected by the law. Gender is an immutable characteristics, determined by an accident of birth. It makes absolutely no sense that women should be treated like second-class citizens simply by an accidental trait of birth. That seems, to me at least, to be at the heart of the human rights issue. People should not be able to be categorically mistreated by an accident of birth. In a democracy, people would be in an uproar about the arbitrary treatment of these women, because democratic societies respect the sanctity of the individual body. This treatment should not be allowed to continue without reasonable suspicion as a minimum standard for invasive body cavity searches of either sex.
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