Last year, the extremist Islamic Taliban in power in Afghanistan severely and in many ways made the position of women miserable.
The restrictions imposed on women by the Taliban are the worst gender oppression that has been committed in the world in recent years.
– Women’s living space has been reduced to a minimum. The Taliban movement is trying to completely wipe women and girls out of society, says Amnesty’s legal expert following Afghanistan Pargol Miraftabi To .
When coming to power in August 2021, the Taliban promised to allow women to study and work within the framework of Islamic Sharia law. The Taliban has not kept its promise, and in one of its last actions in the past year, the extremist movement banned women from studying at universities.
– It was like a dot on top of the i. Women no longer have a place in Afghan society.
The Taliban has already largely forced women to stay in their homes. The position of women is beginning to be as bad as it was during the previous infamous reign of the extremist movement in 1996-2001.
In this article, we compiled the repressive measures against women by the Taliban regime last year.
March:
At the very beginning of the school year, the Taliban denied girls all secondary education. The decision deprived approximately 3.5 million teenage girls of the opportunity to study. Girls are only allowed to attend school until the sixth grade.
Most secondary schools were closed to girls shortly after the Taliban movement came to power in September 2021. Schooling was supposed to resume last March, but the Taliban broke its promise.
The representatives of the Taliban regime have said that the ban is temporary and they have justified it with various excuses. Among other things, the fundamentalists have claimed that the funds for changing the curricula to Islamists have run out.
April:
The Taliban fired thousands of women who worked for the government. Dismissed women were ordered to stay at home.
– As far as I understand, all women have been dismissed from the service of the administration. At least women have been removed from all the highest positions and the agencies that handled women’s affairs have been abolished. As far as I understand, the Taliban administration has not hired any women, says Amnesty’s Pargol Miraftabi.
Before the Taliban came to power, women made up a fifth of the Afghan workforce. Since then, women’s employment has collapsed.
– Women’s right to work has been significantly limited. Opportunities to work outside the home are very limited.
The Taliban has prevented women from participating in political decision-making. Almost all female members of parliament have fled the country.
In April, women were also banned from entering flights at the airport in the capital Kabul without a male escort.
The Taliban already banned long car journeys for women without a male relative accompanying them last December. A male apron must be carried if the journey is more than 72 kilometers long.
Women can also no longer enter health centers and hospitals without a male escort.
– The escort cannot be any male relative, but usually a father, brother or spouse. Women are not able to move freely in any way. Freedom of movement has been completely denied, Miraftabi states.
May:
In May, the top leader of the Taliban movement Haibatullah Akhunzada ordered women to cover their faces and bodies completely in public.
In practice, the order means the compulsion to wear a burka or a niqap face veil. This is considered one of the harshest regulations on women.
It was the burqa that became the symbol of the previous Taliban regime in the world.
The Taliban also threatens to punish the father or closest male relative of any woman who violates the order.
The order to cover the face has especially affected the lives of urban women. In the areas controlled by the Taliban, coercion was in effect even before the extremist movement came to power in the whole of Afghanistan.
In May, human rights organizations warned of a sharp rise in the number of child marriages in Afghanistan.
According to the Taliban’s rules, even a 13-year-old girl child can be forced to marry a man of any age. Members of the Taliban have forced women and girls into marriage.
Miraftabi estimates that the number of child marriages will increase due to the humanitarian crisis.
– For many families, forced marriages are the only way to secure even some sort of future for girls.
August:
Taliban fighters assaulted female protesters at a rally in Kabul ahead of the anniversary of the rise to power.
At that time, about 40 women marched in front of the Ministry of Education. In their slogans, the women demanded “bread, work and freedom”.
– The Taliban administration has broken up demonstrations violently and women have been arrested. Detainees have been abused and tortured. Activists who defended women’s rights have disappeared, says Miraftabi.
October:
The Taliban restricted women’s opportunities to study at universities in October. Women were forbidden from pursuing at least engineering studies, economics, journalism, veterinary medicine, agricultural science and geology in the annual entrance exams.
November:
Afghan women were denied access to parks, sports centers and women’s spas. In Kabul, women can only visit public parks on certain days when men are not allowed in them.
December:
At the end of the year, the Ministry of Education of the Taliban regime announced that female students would no longer be admitted to universities.
The minister responsible for higher education Neda Mohammad Nadeem in a letter sent to public and private universities signed, women’s studies were ordered to be suspended immediately. After the ban, female students demonstrated.
– The ban seems quite permanent, Miraftabi estimates.
Before Christmas, the Taliban also banned women from participating in the work of aid organizations. After that, several international aid organizations suspended their programs in Afghanistan because they cannot function without female aid workers.
Without female workers, organizations cannot get help to the women and children of Afghanistan.
– At least it becomes very difficult.
“Women’s position is inconsolable”
Amnesty’s Pargol Miraftabi says there are almost no rights left for Afghan women.
– The position of women in Afghanistan is inconsolable. The situation is getting worse all the time. In practice, the right to work, study and move has been taken away from women.
Does the international community have ways to influence the extremist Taliban so that the status of women in Afghanistan would improve?
– I would like to believe that it is. It is important not to forget the situation in Afghanistan. The international community must be active and create pressure in the direction of the Taliban. It would be important to cooperate with local organizations.
Sources used:
More on the topic:
The Taliban’s decision to prevent women from working in organizations could be disastrous for Afghanistan, the US Secretary of State warns
The Taliban prohibits women from working in non-governmental organizations – the ban is a continuation of actions that restrict women’s rights
The Taliban movement closes universities to women – in the future, girls will only be able to go to primary school, if at all
Finns and other western soldiers are not remembered well – visited the villages in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has brought relief to many