Women have been the major sufferers under any subjugation. The scenario is the same even today. Since the establishment of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, a question about the “fragility of women’s rights under the Taliban government” has become persistent in concerned minds. “As the fighting increases day by day, it’s a concern that we’ll go back in time”, said a 15-year-old girl from Afghanistan.
Though, the Taliban fictitiously acts to be inclusive of women’s rights, their freedom, and education; they haven’t changed much. When they wanted to seem presentable to the international community during negotiations in Doha, their rhetoric about women’s rights shifted. They purportedly promised to let girls study and women work- but usually with an inconspicuous restriction along the lines of “as permitted by Islam”.
The negotiation talks between Taliban representatives and the US Peace Envoy took place in Doha in 2019, with Afghan opposition leaders excluding Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani. According to Mary Akrami Sahak, Director of the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN), “it’s the absence of the Afghan civil society and women, in particular, that undermine the outcome of the talks. For me, these are not peace talks as such, but preparatory talks at the most. None of the negotiations so far included women. None of the high-level participants had thoroughly concurred with the people they represent, the Afghan people, before going to the talks.” Distressingly, not only the Taliban but important segments of Afghan society appear to be growing more conservative, embracing doctrinaire versions of sharia that call for reducing women’s rights and freedoms.
Mary Akrami, in her interview, stated about how she had to flee with her family members from Afghanistan after the advent of the Taliban in Kabul. The Taliban broke into her office and home. They were searching for people who might be working with the government. While news outlets mostly focus on deadly attacks, rising insecurity, and increasing Taliban control, Mary Akrami wishes to highlight the positive transformation her country went through after the Taliban regime was foiled in 2001. What she fears is the erosion of the gains of post-2001 transformations if the man-only negotiations with the Taliban continue.
The situation is nothing less than a revolution for Afghan women. They find themselves in the untenable position of looking for help from the “international community.” There is a lot at stake. The international community’s tool kit is limited, and their political will is questionable. Even when Taliban leaders offered somewhat gentler rhetoric on women’s rights, there was still a major disconnect between what they said in TV interviews and what they did on the ground. Their commanders can be seen enforcing harsh rules at odds with the assurances by their leaders. The whole world witnessed what they did during their reign from 1996 to 2001 when they banned almost all education for women and girls, thus closing schools for girls entirely. They denied them access to almost all employment and confined them to their house unless escorted by a male family member.
In Taliban-controlled areas, bitter memories have again become realities. The Taliban leaders continue to make misted promises amid the forced closing of school doors for girls. They finally have pulled off their masks revealing their true source and agenda. Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have set up a ministry for the “propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice” in the building that once housed the Women’s Affairs Ministry, escorting out World Bank staffers on 18 September as part of the forced move. The staff of the World Bank’s $100m Women’s Economic Empowerment and Rural Development Project, which was carried out in the Women’s Affairs Ministry, were escorted off the grounds on Saturday, said project member Sharif Akhtar, who was among those being removed. Meanwhile, the Taliban-run Ministry of Education asked boys from grades 7 to 12 back to school on Saturday along with their male teachers, but there was no mention of girls in those grades returning to school. This is how realism and reality are placed as an oxymoron in the terror politics of Afghanistan.
The continuous protest in Kabul and Herat has brought Afghan women out of their houses demanding their rights. The Taliban has said that women can be involved in government, but not hold ministerial positions. Thus, women have come to the streets to ask for rights, justice and equal participation as the Taliban has asked women to stop coming to office. They have education and want to play a role at all decision-making levels. Several methods have been deployed by the Taliban to abort these protests, often dispersing the groups with the use of tear gas and pepper spray. But, their audacity and persistence remain unchallenged.
The Foundation urges the countries to at least support the women in their unending struggle and find tools to dismantle the Taliban government from Afghanistan. The SehMat Foundation believes that the rights they are demanding are neither their privileges nor do they need to be ordained by the Taliban. These rights are theirs. These are fundamental to them, not an ordinance to be given by an authority.
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Editorial- SehMat 