There are new indications Afghanistan is moving to ensure the rights of women, but signs of progress are being met with skepticism.

Human Rights Watch this week applauded three government ministers, including Justice Minister Habibullah Ghalib, for publicly stating it is not a crime for a woman to run away from home.

Human Rights Watch Afghanistan researcher Heather Barr tells VOA's Dari Radio that the Afghan government must now back up the talk with action.

“They need to take the next step, which is to actually release the women who are in prison for this act and stop police from arresting women, prosecutors from prosecuting women and judges from convicting women for running away.”

Human Rights Watch says the comments by Ghalib, Women's Affairs Minister Hassan Banoo Ghazanfar and Deputy Interior Minister Baz Mohammad Yarmand sends an important message. The group wants to see what impact the statements will have on the hundreds of women already imprisoned for fleeing their homes.

Barr says the number is considerable.

“It is difficult to really figure out what the number is that are there for running away and what the number is for zinnah because in the file rooms at the prisons often they just record these cases as moral crimes. They do not distinguish between these two. So I think that the government needs to do a careful review of all of these cases to identify which of these women are there only because they've been accused of running away and then make sure to release them.”

A Human Rights Watch report issued this past March says as many as 70 percent of the approximately 700 female prisoners in Afghanistan – about 400 to 500 women – were put behind bars for fleeing forced marriages or domestic violence.

The rights group say responsibility for releasing the prisoners and for making changes to the system falls on Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Yet that is likely no easy task. Just three months ago , one of the same ministers who this week said women should not be imprisoned or prosecuted for running away from home criticized shelters, so-called Peace Houses, set up to house victims of domestic violence, calling them nothing more than brothels.

Justice Minister Habibullah Ghalib said at the time, “we saw and investigated the Peace Houses. There is not any immoral activity that is not present there. That is what you call a Peace House?”

Rights groups immediately hit back, accusing Ghalib and others like him of making false allegations to undermine the country's shelters, often because they are opposed to the idea that women can leave their homes on their own.

Currently, there are only 14 shelters across Afghanistan for victims of domestic violence, all run by non-governmental organizations. But according to recent statistics, the need is great. Through just the first six months of this year, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission recorded more than 3,100 incidents of violence against women.

Opponents to women's rights are doing more than voicing their opposition. This past July a bomb blast killed Hanifa Safi, the director of women's affairs in eastern Laghman province.

The only Afghan woman to compete in the 2012 Olympic games last month in London has also reported constant discrimination.

Twenty-three-year-old sprinter Tahmina Kohistani told VOA's Urdu Service she was constantly heckled by onlookers when she trained at the stadium in the Afghan capital, Kabul, with many saying she should stay at home. She said a taxi driver even refused to take her to the stadium, telling her “go out from my taxi, I do not need to get you there, because it is not good for me, you are not a good girl.”

There is also another obstacle – some women want to remain behind bars.

The head of a female detention center for southern Kandahar province's police department told VOA's Dari Radio earlier this year many women feel safer in prison than they do at home.

“We either have to keep them in our detention center or have to return them to their families against their will,” she said.

Sometimes, actually leaving police custody can be deadly.

Roqia Achakzai, who heads Kandahar's provincial department of women's affairs, says that just days after one young woman was sent back to her family, officials discovered her grave. Exactly how she died remains a mystery – police never launched an investigation.

Achakzai says the country's Women's Affairs Ministry had proposed building a safe house, setting aside money three years ago.

“We do not have budget problems but some bodies have blocked the construction of a safe house for women,” she told VOA's Dari Radio. “They say the safe house would encourage more girls and women to escape from home. They do not care where these victim women have to go for protection. They do not care if women go to jails for no crime.”

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AUDIO saved as “OCN AFGHANISTAN WOMEN – Barr 2 acts” in House Shared Wednesday

1. Human Rights Watch Afghanistan researcher Heather Barr tells VOA:

“We are really happy to see that the government, really for the first time, publicly acknowledging that running away from home is not in Afghan law as a crime. But what we are saying now is, now that the government has decided this they need to take the next step, which is to actually release the women who are in prison for this act and stop police from arresting women, prosecutors from prosecuting women and judges from convicting women for running away now that it is clear that under Afghan law this is not a crime.”

2. HRW Afghanistan researcher Heather Barr tells VOA:

“We know there are about 400 women and girls who are in prison for either the accusation of running away or zinnah (adultery), or sometimes both. And, you know, it is difficult to really figure out what the number is that are there for running away and what the number is for zinnah because in the file rooms at the prisons often they just record these cases as moral crimes. They do not distinguish between these two. So I think that the government needs to do a careful review of all of these cases to identify which of these women are there only because they have been accused of running away and then make sure to release them.”