The Taliban government in Afghanistan is imposing more and more restrictions on women and girls. Women have been degraded to soulless servants of imperfect men. Men who lack the intellectual capacity and physical development to get anywhere in life without the power of arms. The women of Afghanistan are suffering, and it is a great shame that the world turns its back on them.
KABUL JUNE 16: The Taliban government in Afghanistan is imposing more and more restrictions on women and girls. Since the Taliban took over the country from the democratically-elected Government in August 2021, women and girls have been systemically excluded from equal participation in society.
UNAMA, whose mandate includes monitoring human rights, also reported public floggings, shrinking civic space, and brutal attacks on former government officials.
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have followed through on decrees aimed at erasing women from public life in the country and restricting their freedom of movement, the UN mission to the country (UNAMA) said in its human rights report
Officials have reportedly shut down beauty salons run by women in their homes and women’s radio stations in various provinces and banned women from accessing gyms and parks.
In the province of Kandahar, de facto inspectors asked shopkeepers in a market to report women unaccompanied by a guardian (mahram) and deny them entry into their shops. At one hospital, authorities ordered staff not to provide care to unaccompanied female patients.
In 2022, Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s reclusive leader, rejected international criticism and pleas for easing human rights restrictions, refusing any negotiations or compromises on the Taliban’s “Islamic system” of governance. The Taliban extended the school education ban for women to university education for women and barred them from working in NGOs.
According to the United Nations (UN), the treatment of women by Taliban may amount to gender apartheid.
Featured Image: Brian Ferguson
