Article 22 violation a key barrier to peace: People

KABUL (Pajhwok): Many Afghans believe that discrimination and granting privileges to specific groups of people has created problems and it remains a barrier to the peace process.

The Article 22 of the Constitution states, “Any kind of discrimination and distinction between citizens of Afghanistan shall be forbidden. The citizens of Afghanistan, men and women, have equal rights and duties before the law.”

Pajhwok talked with a number of people about the implementation or non-implementation of this article of the constitution.

People say the government discriminates against different citizens of the country as some are granted privileges while others ignored something that has paved way for conflicts.

Zabihullah, a resident of Nangarhar province, told Pajhwok Afghan News that the article 22 of the constitution remained unimplemented and discrimination was common even among provinces.

“Categorizing provinces on first and second grades by the government is discrimination, some people are given more privileges while others are completely ignored, it too is discrimination,” he said.

He said that only a few ethnic groups in the government were given jobs while others were ignored, which he called an obvious discrimination.

Hamid, a resident of capital Kabul, said that discrimination and inequality in the country had paved way for a long-running conflict.

Men’s supremacy over women is due to ignorance and war and men do not give women their rights which Islam has given to them, he said.

He also said that the government provided more services to one group of people while ignored others which became a barrier for peace.

“Government officials do not implement the article 22 of the constitution on themselves, so how ordinary people would follow it,” he said.

Sonika Aryan, another resident of Kabul, said that the article 22 was mostly violated by the government as it did not provide the rights of women.

She said that women and men should have given equal rights based on the article but the government did not do so in the peace process and many other areas.

Bilal Badlun, a law lecturer in Nangarhar University, said that the article 22 pointed to discrimination and equality of people before the law.

However, he said, “Employments in many government organs are based on language, region and ethnicity, in some cases, the government has given more privileges to women over men, these all are violation of the article.”

He said that discrimination created many problems in the country besides it remained a barrier to peace.

“When someone is not given his rights, he may take any action which causes anarchy and obstacles to peace,” he said.

Samira Khairkhwa, a women’s rights activist, said that women were still subject to violence by men in remote areas of the country.

She said that discrimination created wars and poverty besides other problems in the society.

Najla Rahil, head of Defense Lawyers Association, told Pajhwok that there was obvious discrimination between men and women in the country.

“Some families do not allow their girls to go to schools, most government positions are occupied by men, it is a violation of the article 22 of the constitution,” she said.

Abdul Salam Mutawakil, head of Islamic Scholars Union in Kabul’s sixth police district, said that Islam has prohibited any discrimination among people.

“Both Quran and the teachings of prophet Mohammad (PBUH) state that all the humans are created from one man and one woman, so no one has superiority over another,” he said.

Qazi Mohammad Arif, secretary of Independent Commission for overseeing the implementation of the Constitution (ICOIC) also said that the article 22 of the constitution was not implemented in action.

“Some people in the government organs are given special privileges, employments are in violation to national partnership, corruption cases of some people are not responded and there are other issues that violated this article,” he said.

Many other people held similar views and said that discrimination had created various problems in the society as some people even forced to take weapons and become a barrier to peace.

They say that the government should not treat people discriminately and should equally provide them with their rights.

Besides the article 22, many other articles of the constitution are also violated by powerful individuals and government officials