The latest restrictions by Taliban have curbed Afghan women’s Right to Freedom and their Right to Education. On Sunday, Taliban government’s Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Promotion of Vice banned the women of the country to visit Band-e-Amir National Park as they “failed to cover up”. In addition to this, women who were granted scholarships by a Dubai based conglomerate were prevented from boarding the flight to Dubai, preventing them from pursuing higher education.
The Background
The Taliban took over power in 2021 after the withdrawal of US Troops from the region. While the socio-economic development of the country floundered, the oppressive ideological regime’s impact was felt the most by the women of the country.
In 2022, the Taliban imposed reinterpreted Sharia which reversed the progression of the Afghan women and took away their basic humanitarian rights.
While the Taliban had promised women’s right to education and public work, it successfully curbed these very rights, limiting these women to the private sphere and compelling them to survive under dependency.
The Status of Afghan Women since the Takeover
Today, there are no women in the cabinet. The Ministry of Women Affairs has been abolished. Education for girls is only allowed till grade 6th and moving out of the house is permitted only in situations of absolute necessity. There has been a rampant increase in forced marriages throughout the country. In addition to this, beauty salons have been shut down which has drastically affected the female economy.
The Taliban has decreed that women must cover their faces in public and must not step out from their houses without a male chaperone, especially while travelling long distances. Women are constantly under surveillance which has worsened their mental health as they constantly live in fear and anxiety. They have also been denied rights to continue to work with international organisations and NGOs that earlier provided for aid in the region.
The socio-economic losses have also impacted the women indirectly as it has lead to an increase in the cases of domestic violence at home and regression in their standard of living. This absence of individual liberty and freedom has trapped the women inside their homes. They have no way out of it, despite their skills and education.
Loss of Rights and Denial of Identity
The Taliban is an Islamic fundamentalist group whose members belong to the Pashtun tribe. The legal system which they have designed is then a combination of the customary Pashtun codes and the Sharia law.
It is interesting to note here that no where in Islam does it prohibit the right to female education. The Prophet Muhammad encouraged all men and women to perform their religious duty of pursuing education and this also finds mention in the Quran.
However, religious doctrines mostly have been in favour of men and have always situated women in a position of disadvantage. The Taliban regime has added to this existing oppressive nature by creating additional obstructions for women. It has put women in a position of double oppression as today they remain oppressed not just by their religion, but also by the state. While all these forces are themselves patriarchal in nature, their absolute control in the hands of men has denied the Afghan women any space to breath.
The very nature of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan has come to define itself in terms of stereotypical masculine narratives of violence and aggression. The women in Afghanistan today find themselves entrapped within the rigid borders of patriarchal setup, chained by ideologies that have deprived them of their very existence as individuals.
Now two years since the Taliban takeover, what started as loss of political rights and economic rights, has now escalated into denial of civil and social rights as well.
Rights are what have historically defined the relationship between an individual and the state. This absolute denial of rights of the Afghan women has then taken away the very link that guaranteed an identity in the country. The women of Afghanistan have thus been rendered invisible.
