KABUL, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- A 16-day campaign has been launched in Afghanistan to eliminate violence against women and fulfill their rights in the post-Taliban country, a UN official said on Monday.

    "This is a global campaign. It is run from Nov. 25, which is the international day for the elimination of violence against women, to Dec. 10, which is the international human rights day," Norah Niland, Chief Human Rights Officer of United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told a weekly press briefing.

    The campaign is an opportunity for stakeholders to challenge the routine human rights violation and the related violence faced by women in Afghanistan, she added.

    "And it is important to remind people that, of course, the woman rights are human rights," Niland said. "We found that violence targeted at women and girls is widespread and deeply rooted in Afghan social and cultural norms."

    Such violence is not adequately challenged or condemned by society or by government institutions in Afghanistan, the human rights officer added.

    "The space for women in public life is shrinking," she added. "The trend is negative."

    "No real peace and national development are possible without the elimination of violence against women," Zia Moballegh, acting country director for the International Center for Human Rights and Democratic Development, said at the same press conference.

    "Elimination of violence against women will not be possible without a national will and also the determinations of men," he added.

    Elimination of violence against women requires efforts by all stakeholders including the government, Moballegh added.

    He called on the Afghan government to fulfill the obligation under the international criteria and respect the convention of elimination of violence against women in all forms.

    "The justice sector should assist women by recruiting female judges, police and prosecutors as well as female barristers to enjoy their rights," he said.

    In the conservative Afghan society where tribalism and tradition is dominant particularly in rural areas, women have been facing enormous problems including forced marriage and deprivation of education.

    Some 100 women in attempt to get rid of miseries mostly due to domestic violence, according to media reports have committed self-immolation over the past one year in Afghanistan.