A/HRC/4/98* page 6 17. Initiatives undertaken to address the needs of women in the justice sector have moved forward slowly. A law on family violence has been drafted and submitted to the Ministry of Justice for review, and is expected to be presented to Parliament for approval in 2007. Internationally supported legal aid programmes have been extended to different parts of the country, and a small number of NGOs are providing a legal defence for female defendants. While these programmes are having a positive impact and are welcome, legal representation for the majority of women outside Kabul and a select number of provinces remains out of reach. B. Violence against women 18. Awareness campaigns and the registration of cases of violence against women are being undertaken by a variety of United Nations agencies, international and local NGOs, and government bodies. A number of commissions have also been set up to eliminate tolerance of violence against women, but the crime remains pervasive. Underreporting is common as most women do not report violence, particularly domestic violence, for a variety of reasons: fear of reprisals, lack of support and services for victims of violence; failure to prosecute perpetrators; and intolerance on the part of the community. Moreover, reporting family violence can further jeopardize the safety of females as police officers often return the victim to the offender. As more women are becoming aware of their rights and with the presence of human rights and women’s NGOs, more cases are being reported. However, poverty, tradition and insecurity are compounding the difficulties. 19. AIHRC registered 1,545 cases of violence against women from January to November 2006, including self-immolation, exchange of girls in the context of dispute settlement, forced marriages and sexual violence. Forced marriage, with 200 complaints, was the largest category. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) recorded more than 500 cases of violence against women, including 197 cases of self-immolation in Herat Province alone. In almost all cases, the perpetrators of violence were male family members. Shelters and services to support victims are located mainly in Kabul, but most provincial authorities have been reluctant to support the removal of victims to safe locations outside the province, resulting in a continuing lack of protection. 20. Afghan laws put the legal age of marriage at 16 years of age. This is routinely violated, as girls as young as 10 are married. Two cases documented by UNAMA are emblematic of the situation: the case of a 10-year-old girl in Kunar Province whom the local authorities claimed is legally married to a 65-year-old man (following pressure from UNAMA, the Kunar provincial court detained the husband but refused to prosecute him); and in Kunduz Province, a 10-year-old girl was kidnapped, forcibly married to an adult male and taken to Pakistan (the district and provincial authorities have taken little action to locate the girl or investigate persons suspected of abducting her). 21. A number of women and girls continue to be murdered by family members through the practice of “honour killings”. Reasons for the killings include the victim having been raped, or marrying a man of her own choice rather than someone chosen by her family. The State still rarely prosecutes perpetrators of such crimes. The belief is prevalent among communities that