The reality under the Islamist rule: A year has passed since the Taliban entered Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, and took control of the country – and over the past 12 months, human rights violations against women have steadily increased.
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This, despite the organization’s initial promises that women would be allowed to exercise their rights within the framework of Sharia law – including the right to work and study. But, as mentioned, these promises were just empty words and the women and girls began to disappear from the public square.
The first right that was violated for women in the country was the right to education when immediately after the Taliban took over, in August 2021, gender segregation began in universities, and girls were forbidden to study in schools above the sixth grade.
In the professional aspect, women are forbidden to work in most professions outside the home. According to a restriction imposed at the end of 2021, only women whose jobs men could not perform were allowed to come to work – for example, education, health and some policing jobs. According to the law, the only jobs they were allowed to work for in the government were cleaning bathrooms.
Life in Kabul, Afghanistan under Taliban rule (Photo: Reuters)
Indeed, to this day, women do not hold cabinet positions in the de facto government, or in any other positions of power. The administration abolished the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and thus ultimately removed women from political participation. Women judges and lawyers, for example, fled the country or were fired and replaced by Taliban fighters without any legal training.
The restrictions on the female sex did not stop there, and last May the Taliban determined that women must cover their faces in public and ordered them to stay in their homes. Also, women are forbidden to travel more than 70 kilometers without a relative.
According to an Amnesty International report published at the end of last July, “the Taliban destroyed the rights of women and children in Afghanistan.” The report also stated that “they violated the rights of women and girls to education, work and free movement; they destroyed the support system for women and girls who escaped domestic violence; they arrested women and girls arbitrarily for violations of the Taliban’s discriminatory rules; and they contributed to the increase in the rates of child, early and forced marriages.” .
Even during its first rule in Afghanistan, between 1996 and 2001, the Taliban became internationally infamous for its hatred and violence against women. Even then, women were enslaved to wear a burqa at all times, were not allowed to work, study after the age of 8, were not allowed to receive medical treatment by a man, and faced public flogging and execution under Taliban laws.
Monsa Mubarez, who was one of many women who won freedom under the Taliban regime, told the Reuters news agency this week about the internal struggle of Afghan women. “We are fighting for our freedom, for our rights and status – this is our country, our homeland and we have the right to live here.”
Despite the risk of being beaten and arrested by the Taliban members who patrolled the streets after the coup d’état, Mubaraz, who served for 31 years as director of policy oversight at the Ministry of Finance, participated in a number of demonstrations that broke out in an attempt to protect the rights of women in the country.
Women in Afghanistan protest against the Taliban (Photo: Reuters)However, under the terror of the Taliban regime, these demonstrations died down. Now, women mostly gather in their homes, discuss women’s rights and encourage others to join the fight for the cause. The UN Women’s Country Representative in Afghanistan, Alison Davidian, said stories like Mubarez’s are being repeated across the country.
“For many women around the world, walking outside the front door of your home is a normal part of everyday life,” she said. “For many Afghan women, this is unusual. It is an act of defiance.”
At the same time, the Taliban’s treatment of girls and women is one of the main reasons why the international community refuses to recognize Afghanistan’s new rulers, while cutting billions of dollars in aid in a worsening economic crisis.