Khaama Press: The family of a gang-rape victim has called on President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani to ensure the perpetrators are tried as they face death threats from the armed gang. The woman was gang-raped a group of eight men in northeastern Badakhshan province of Afghanistan five years ago, Tolo News reported on Monday.      Full news...

PAN: The Ministry of Information and Culture on Monday asked all TV channels to avoid running commercial advertisements featuring female models. In a statement, the ministry said women’s position and status was being misused in such ads aimed at enticing costumers. All media outlets were asked to avoid airing commercials that featured women.      Full news...

IWPR: Rights groups in central Afghanistan have raised concerns about a rising tide of violence against women in this part of the country. About 100 people, mainly women, met in the town of Bamyan on September 28 to quiz local officials and rights organisations on what action they were taking against a rising tide of violence against women in this part of Afghanistan.      Full news...

Khaama Press: An Afghan woman named Zahra ran away with a young man after her father forced her to marry a 65-year-old villager. She and her lover were caught after almost two years and both were jailed for adultery. Adultery is prohibited in Islam and Afghanistan is a country with 99% people.      Full news...

The Killid Group: A non-governmental group, New Afghanistan Women Association (NAWA), says crimes against women and children have increased because of continued official indifference and a law enforcement system that looks the other way to help the perpetrators. NAWA’s new research in six provinces – Kunduz, Jowzjan, Herat, Balkh, Takhar and Sar-i-Pul – shows a 30 percent increase in rape cases. Shafiqa Habibi, director of the non-governmental women’s group, says in most cases the abusers were “powerful individuals, commanders and irresponsible gunmen” or the relatives of the victims. “They don’t fear punishment.”      Full news...

NPR: No country grows as many opium poppies or produces as much illicit opium as Afghanistan. In 2013, opium production soared to a record high of 5,500 tons, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. A study published last week adds to a growing body of research showing that Afghanistan also has a high rate of drug usage — about 5.1 percent, or 1 in 20 people. Opioids and cannabis were the most popular.      Full news...

Human Rights Watch: An Afghan court’s conviction of seven men for a gang rape was wholly undermined by numerous due process violations and political interference, Human Rights Watch said today. The court of appeals should competently, impartially, and independently conduct judicial review of the September 6, 2014 trial and the resulting death sentences.      Full news...

The Wall Street Journal: News of a gang rape rattled the Afghan capital, stirring fears of a return to lawlessness amid a prolonged political crisis that is threatening to plunge the country into civil war. Afghan police said this week they arrested six men in connection with the rape, which took place in the early-morning hours of Aug. 23.      Full news...

Khaama Press: At least six women were killed in single day in western Afghanistan as violence as against women soars. Local officials in Herat province have said at least five of women were killed in this province by relatives and unknown gunmen.      Full news...

PAN: A man stoned his wife to death on Saturday in the western Herat province for having an alleged extramarital affair, an official said. Col. Abdul Rauf Ahmadi, spokesman for the provincial police, told Pajhwok Afghan News the incident took place this noon in the Nawak area of Kohistan district.      Full news...

The New York Times: It was bad enough that the alleged rape took place in the sanctity of a mosque, and that the accused man was a mullah who invoked the familiar defense that it had been consensual sex. But the victim was only 10 years old. And there was more: The authorities said her family members openly planned to carry out an “honor killing” in the case — against the young girl. The mullah offered to marry his victim instead.      Full news...

PAN: In a tragic tale, tribal law lessens the emotional blow to a family selling its daughters out of financial desperation. Yet the sanctioned sale of girls in traditional communities highlights how girls and women are still regarded as commodities in Afghanistan.      Full news...

Human Rights Watch: The government of Afghanistan should adopt recommendations from United Nations member countries to abolish prosecution of women for so-called “moral crimes.” Afghanistan rejected the recommendations in its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Outcome Report issued on June 16, 2014 at the UN Human Rights Council. Other issues addressed include the death penalty, anti-gay discrimination, and impunity.      Full news...

PAN: A woman was beaten to death by her spouse in western Herat province and another was gunned down by unidentified assailants in northern Faryab province, officials said on Wednesday. The murder in Herat took place in Safarabad area of Karkh district on Wednesday, the governor’s spokesman, Ihsanullah Hayat, told Pajhwok Afghan News.      Full news...

PAN: A large number of weeping women on Wednesday staged a protest rally in northern Faryab province, accusing a local commander of sexually abusing and murdering young girls and children during a bloody clash with civilians. Nearly 100 women, accompanied by children, from Pashtun Kot district arrived in Maimana, the provincial capital, and assembled in front of the governor’s house.      Full news...

PAN: A young woman has been shot dead by unidentified gunmen after she eloped in northern Baghlan province, an official said Sunday. Amina 21 was eloped as she was unhappy with her husband. Unidentified gunmen forced her into the car and shot her dead in Kotal-i-Shahidan locality on the outskirts of Talau Barfak district last night, the district chief said.      Full news...

PAN: A woman has been found stabbed to death multiple-times and her body’s parts, including lips, cut off allegedly by a brother-in-law in northwestern Jawzjan province, police said on Thursday. The victim, a 23-year-old mother of two children, was mercilessly killed on Wednesday night in Shiberghan, the provincial capital, police chief Col. Syed Zamanuddin Hussaini told Pajhwok Afghan News.      Full news...

PBS NewsHour: A young Afghan woman named Soheila ran away with a man after her father forced her to marry a 70-year-old. She and her lover were caught after three years and both were jailed for adultery. Soheila tells her story in the documentary “To Kill a Sparrow,” produced by the Center for Investigative Reporting. The PBS NewsHour will air an excerpt on Friday.      Full news...

Global Research: Afghanistan has been called “the worst place in the world to be a woman,”1 because not only is the poverty pervasive and the lifespan short, but while they are alive many women live like serfs. Afghan students at the private school for girls where I work in Kabul recently produced a series of essays in which they describe the social norms for women in their country.      Full news...

The Guardian: President Hamid Karzai’s government has let down Afghan women, according to the new EU ambassador to Kabul, who singled out the failure to end prosecution of rape victims and other abused women for “moral crimes” as a particular “disgrace”.      Full news...

Slate Magazine (blog): A few years ago, award-winning journalist and poet Eliza Griswold learned the story of Zarmina, a young girl in Afghanistan who had regularly phoned a radio hotline for women who wanted to share poems called “landays.” Landays are couplets expressing laments, jokes, and frustrations; they are forbidden to many Afghan women because they imply dishonor and free will.      Full news...

PAN: A woman was gunned down by her in-laws in Jawzjan, taking the number of women killed in the northern province this solar year to 32, police said on Sunday. Provincial police chief Brig. Gen. Faqir Mohammad Jawzjani told Pajhwok Afghan News the 21-year-old married woman had been shot to death with a hunting rifle in Shiberghan, the provincial capital.      Full news...

PAN: A number of people in some districts of the central Baghlan province complained about dramatic surge in mother-child mortality rate because of lack of female nurses and doctors. The Jolga district of the province had no female doctor but Borka, Pul-i-Hesar, Talah-o-Barfak and Guzargah-i-Noor districts had one or two female nurses and doctors who used to discharge their duties only day time.      Full news...

The Daily Beast: Nelosar was 15 years old when she was married off to a man more than twice her age. When she told her father she did not want to marry and wanted to continue her education instead, he replied that he would kill her if she didn’t comply. She entered into the marriage, but was ruthlessly beaten by her in-laws and her husband. “I never loved him, but I had to stay,” Nelosar (not her real name) says.      Full news...

RAWA News: Bulbul Bismillah, who lived in Bangi in Takhar province, was killed by her husband on January 30, 2014. Her sister gave the details of her death and marriage, “She was 25 years old and had been married for two years. She had one child. We had not been in contact with her for a while because her husband did not allow anyone to visit them. We bought them gifts and cloths but her husband returned them...      Full news...

The Guardian: A new Afghan law will allow men to attack their wives, children and sisters without fear of judicial punishment, undoing years of slow progress in tackling violence in a country blighted by so-called “honour” killings, forced marriage and vicious domestic abuse. The small but significant change to Afghanistan’s criminal prosecution code bans relatives of an accused person from testifying against them.      Full news...

PAN: Unidentified gunmen shot dead a woman and a girl in Kunduz while a bride was found hanged in central Daikundi province, officials said on Tuesday. Armed men stormed a house last night, leaving a woman and a girl dead in the Chehl Dukhtaran area on the outskirts of Kunduz City, police said.      Full news...

NBC News: Women’s rights in Afghanistan have regressed in the past year, increasing worry about what the future holds, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Thursday. As the country faces a large-scale troop withdrawal by the end of 2014, the organization expressed concern that, “with international interest in Afghanistan rapidly waning, opponents of women’s rights seized the opportunity to begin rolling back the progress made since the end of Taliban rule.”      Full news...

PAN: An outraged husband axed his wife to death and injured four others in northern Takhar province, officials said Thursday. Abdul Khalil Aseer, provincial police spokesman, told Pajhwok Afghan News Habibullah killed his wife Naz Bibi last evening who had an exchange marriage. He said the sister of Habibullah was killed by her husband five years ago, which prompted Habibullah to kill his own wife.      Full news...

Sott.net: As an Afghan woman, I find the propaganda line used by the Yankees and the Brits that they must stay in Afghanistan to “protect the wimmins” to be particularly breathtaking in its pathological audacity. We know they’re really there for the oil and gas pipelines, the rare-earth minerals and the opium, so please, spare us this BS!      Full news...