Secret shelters which protect women from murder, forced marriages and ritual mutilation will be turned into "virtual prisons" that make women less safe, under Afghan government plans to wrest control of them from local charities, women's activists warned yesterday.
The exact whereabouts of the safe houses and the identities of the women who hide there are carefully guarded secrets, but proposals seen by The Scotsman would put government staff in charge and force them to inform police of anyone who goes inside.

Campaigners said the draft legislation was pandering to conservative male prejudices that shelters harbour prostitutes, and they warned it would roll back years of hard-won progress towards improving women's rights.

"We are outraged by this bill, which is a patent effort of the Afghan government to stop the work of non-governmental organisations on behalf of women's rights," said Manizha Naderi, executive director of Women for Afghan Women (WAW). "Clients who have suffered heinous abuses, whose lives are in danger, or who have nowhere else to go live in WAW's secret shelters while counsellors and lawyers help them find justice."