Women in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan aren’t allowed to conduct the most ordinary activities today. Studying, working, going to a salon or gym, let alone speaking and praying in public are officially forbidden activities for them.
The steadily increasing diktats on Afghanistan’s 50 million women, imposed by the hardline Islamist regime which initially vouched for a progressive society, have been officially condemned as gender apartheid.
In Afghanistan, a female cat has more rights than a woman, as Meryl Streep declared in September, speaking at an event on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “A cat can go sit on her front stoop and feel the sun on her face.
She can chase a squirrel into the park. A squirrel has more rights than any girl in Afghanistan today since the public parks have been closed to women and girls by the Taliban.” Streep declared, shining a light on the depleted rights of Afghan women.
When the Taliban were last in power from 1996-2001, girls weren’t allowed to attend school, and women were banned as well from work and education.
Their rule today, decades later, imitates the grim reality of their previous regime, as Zahra Joya, the founder of the Afghan news website Rukhshana, explained.
Education
Within a month of taking control of Kabul, the Taliban’s education ministry banned girls and women from schools. But they still announced the reopening of schools for all male teachers and students, which led to condemnation from the rest of the world.
The Taliban leaders also declared that girls are barred from studying beyond the sixth grade. Then, the ban was extended to colleges and universities in December 2022.
Some of the female students were rejected from the doorstep of their universities at gunpoint by Taliban fighters in their attempt to return to the classrooms.
Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is the only country in the world with terrible restrictions on female education. Many local and senior officials, including chief spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid, stated that the Taliban authorities could reopen the schools inevitably with adherence to Islamic Sharia laws, but haven’t announced yet any steps to invite girls and women back to education establishments.
Work
The Taliban banned women from government and private jobs, including working with NGOs, affecting international aid work. Women workers under the Nato-led administration in Afghanistan were also asked to go back to their homes in Kabul in September 2021.
This marked the first unofficial ban on women’s work. A senior Taliban leader declared to Reuters that women wouldn’t be allowed to work alongside men in government ministries.
Also, the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue Ministry, which replaced the Women’s Ministry, ordered two years ago that women are forced to stay in their homes unless they have mandatory work outside their houses. It also required them to travel in the company of Mehram, a male chaperone.
Travel
The Taliban law that dictates how a woman should be covered from head to toe when stepping outside of her house also mentions how she needs to be guarded by a male chaperone.
Needless to say, this has severely curtailed women’s freedom. The diktat asks any woman travelling over 75 km (46 miles) or leaving the country to be accompanied by a mahram.
If women break the dress code restrictions, the male relatives face the punishment. Taxi drivers would also be punished if they agreed to drive a woman without a suitable male escort, according to the new set of rules.
Sports
The Taliban banned all sports for girls and women but also intimidated former female athletes into silence after taking over control. In November 2022, the Taliban officially forbade women from entering gymnasiums and parks.
Before they seized control, women’s sports faced plenty of opposition in Afghanistan’s deeply conservative society, which viewed it as a violation of women’s modesty and of their role in society.
But sports weren’t banned at the time, and Afghan women athletes trained in the country and competed in various international championships. The majority of them are now part of refugee teams and training in exile.
Cultural activities
Afghan women aren’t allowed to visit national parks and public parks anymore. In November 2022, Taliban spokesperson Mohammed Akef Mohajer declared that the group “tried its best” not to shut down parks and gyms for Afghan women, so they came up with the idea of allocating separate days of the week for male and female access.
Later on, they claimed the Taliban’s hardline rules were flouted, and Taliban authorities ultimately ordered a full shutdown of parks. But guess what? The rule only applied to women.
In August 2023, the Taliban government banned women from visiting the Band-e-Amir National Park in Bamiyan province, mentioning improperly worn hijab or head covering by women visitors.
Afghanistan’s acting minister of virtue and vice, Mohammad Khaled Hanafi, declared that going to the park for sightseeing “isn’t mandatory.” In August this year, clothes shops in Kabul were ordered to hide the faces of mannequins by order of the Taliban.
Personal care
In July 2023, the Taliban banned women’s salons and parlors, shutting down the last places of recreation and relaxation they had left.
The Taliban said beauty salons had to be closed because they offered services forbidden by Islam, inflicting economic hardship on the grooms’ families in wedding festivities. For many days, the Taliban fighters closely monitored the shutdown of salon and beauty parlor services on the streets.
Clothing restrictions
Afghan women are forced to completely veil their bodies, including their faces, in thick clothing in public spaces to prevent men from committing vice, according to the new “vice and virtue” laws by the Taliban.
This is another extension of the Taliban’s previous ban from May 2022, when they ordered all women TV news anchors in Afghanistan to wear face coverings while being on air.
Women’s voices
Afghan women are also banned from reading, singing, and speaking in public by the Taliban, in a so-called bid to discourage vice and promote virtue.
Women’s voices are deemed to be a source of temptation, according to the Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia law. If a woman is heard singing, even from within her own home, she will be punished for violating the law.
How to help Afghan women: be an advocate for refugees in your community
Challenge your friends, family, and colleagues who have anti-refugee beliefs. Thousands across the country suffer from a serious risk of reprisals from the Taliban for speaking and acting freely as citizens over the past 20 years.
This also includes women human rights defenders, academics, journalists, and those who aided time and time again the US and allies in peace-building efforts.
There are only a handful of opportunities to escape Afghanistan or seek asylum. Do your best to help others understand this and why emergency measures need to be taken.
Write to your local government representative about your concerns for the rights of Afghan girls and women
Ask your government to be inclusive and welcoming to those who are fleeing the country. This could also include expanding the list of refugees who are eligible for resettlement in your country.
It can also involve removing the barriers that refugees face in securing visas, flights, and financial support. You can simply ask your government to stop any forced returns of Afghan asylum seekers to Afghanistan during these times of uncertainty.
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