- An Exchange of Notes (E/N) concerning a general grant amounting to 232 million JPY in aid for “the Project for Strengthening the Capacity of Afghanistan’s National Police Force and Other Legal Actors towards Combating Violence against Women and Girls” was signed on 12 March 2014 in Kabul, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, between Mr. Miou Maeda, Chargé d’Affaires ad interim of the Embassy of Japan to Afghanistan and Dr. Wilfred Ochan, Deputy Representative, UNFPA Country Office for Afghanistan.
- In Afghanistan, the political, social and economic activities of women are extremely limited both by local traditions and by the continuous and ever deteriorating devastation and general poverty of the country since 1979. In such a climate, it has proven significantly difficult to enforce and appropriately prosecute violators of Afghanistan’s “law towards combating violence against women and girls”. It is crucially important, therefore, to strengthen the capacity of the country’s National Police Force and other legal actors who are expected to suppress violence against women and girls based on this law as well as to protect and respond appropriately to victims of violence in order to promote their efforts to combat violence against women and girls in Afghanistan.
- This assistance aims to promote the enforcement and appropriate prosecution of violators of the “law toward combating violence against women and girls” by instructing Afghani police officers and other legal actors, including relevant governmental officials, in 7 provinces (4 western provinces: Herāt, Ghowr, Badghīs and Farāh and 3 northern provinces: Balkh, Jowzjān and Fāryāb) of Afghanistan through UNFPA. This assistance will be used to train up to 145 police officers and the other legal actors as master trainers, and the master trainers would then be enabled to provide lessons to another 2,000 police officers and other legal actors, and thereby synergistically combat violence against women and girls thereafter by promoting awareness among both the people of Afghanistan who are supposed to observe the law and the police officers and the other legal actors who are to enforce the law.
(Reference) The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan covers a land area of 652,000 square kilometers (about 1.7 times of that of Japan) and has a population of approximately 29.82 million people (World Bank, 2012).
(*This is a provisional translation. The above date denotes the date of the issue of the original press release in Japanese.)
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