With the re-establishment of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the women of this country once again faced difficult days of human rights violations, millions of girls and women in Afghanistan were deprived of their human rights, female students above the sixth grade in many provinces were deprived of going to school. And the female employees in the majority of government and non-government offices were also reprimanded for coming to work, the women’s demonstrations rose for their rights, but the protestors were repeatedly met with violence by the Islamic Emirate forces. The Taliban forces beat the women during the demonstrations or shot them in the air and sent many of them to prison.
Concerned about the current situation, Amnesty International published a report under the title “Gradual death of women in Afghanistan” and wrote that women and girls under the rule of the Taliban were destroyed in one year, and the international community, especially the member states of the United Nations and the Security Council of this organization, needs to take action. Take a coordinated and strong strategy to put pressure on the Taliban because the Taliban have taken the right to work, study, and travel from women. Agnes Calamar; The head of Amnesty International said: “The Taliban deliberately deprive millions of women and girls of their human rights and subject them to systematic discrimination. If the international community does not act, women and girls in Afghanistan will be left to their own devices, which violates human rights.” It weakens everywhere”. He added: “In less than a year after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, their strict policies have deprived millions of women and girls of the right to have a safe, free and productive life, and those who were the breadwinners of their families are living in bad living conditions.
The Taliban have repeatedly announced that women will be allowed to attend and continue working and studying in Afghanistan. Even though 312 days have passed since the closure of girls’ schools in the country, there is still no news about the reopening of schools for girls above the sixth grade, which has caused great concern for families and students. Mari, a 45-year-old woman resident of Taimani, Kabul city, expressed her concern about the fact that schools are not opened for girls and told the Roidadha News Agency “My daughter is in the 11th grade, during the first eleven years, she was trying to study day and night so that in the future she would be a The doctor deserves to serve the people and his country in this way, but now that girls’ schools are closed, he closes the gate of his room every day and cries loudly. Mari says that I am suffering from the bad condition of many girls and I am afraid that the girls will have mental problems.
According to Mari, not opening school gates for girls is not acceptable for any family and the Taliban should not prevent girls from studying. Mari said: “We don’t know if the Taliban will finally allow our girls to go to school or not? Our request to the Taliban is to start school classes for girls as soon as possible and stop worrying the families, and we want that Afghan girls be like other Muslim girls of world with knowledge and education. She added: “Today is the age of progress and development, so that Afghan girls can study like in other countries.” This resident of Kabul claims that the daughters of the Taliban leaders are studying abroad, while the daughters of this land were deprived of education by the same Taliban leaders, which is a great injustice to the girls of this country. Due to the international pressure on the Taliban, girls’ schools above the sixth grade in Afghanistan are still closed and there is no way to reopen these schools, and female students say they suffer from psychological pressure. Farida, a 10th grade student at Rabia Balkhi High School, says, “Although the Taliban have promised many times to reopen girls’ schools, they have not fulfilled this promise. According to her, the academic year is coming to an end and girls’ schools are still open from the 6th grade to 12th is closed to female students. Farida is saying that she always dreams of going to school, but there is no school in practice. She said: “My hope is completely cut off and the future is completely gone. I always argue with my father, mother and other family members at home. I am fed up with blood.” I don’t even want to talk to anyone properly, I miss my teacher’s school, I am under a lot of pressure, and I even want to commit suicide. However, the Political Office of the United Nations or UNAMA published a report on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan on Wednesday, July 20, 2022. Education for all is not only a basic human right, but also the key to the progress and development of a nation. Farima 45-year-old a pseudonym, worked in supreme court, but she is unemployed after the Taliban came to power. She says that she takes care of six members of her family. Farima lost her husband in one of the suicide attacks. She says: “It is very difficult to find the living expenses of myself and my children in this situation. The Taliban, who prevented our work, will pay me at least a living wage”.
She added: “It is enough. What we have to do? What kind of life is it? What kind of justice is it? and this is an oath of fairness to us for women. I will spend my life without any income. The Taliban announced on Sunday, December 26, in a recommendation that women who want to travel long distances They must be accompanied by a relative of a male family member. In this recommendation, which was published by the Taliban government’s Ministry of Promoting Virtue and Prohibition of Evil and circulated on social networks, and also asked from drivers that only let women wearing Islamic Hijab to their vehicles. Sadiq Akif Muhajid, the spokesperson of the Taliban Ministry of Promoting Virtue and Prohibition of Evil told AFP: “Women who want to travel more than 72 kilometers must be accompanied by a male member of their family, otherwise they will not allowed to do this trip.” Since coming to power in mid-August, the Taliban has imposed numerous restrictions, especially on education and work for women and girls. However, this is the first time that this ministry is trying to change the way women travel, like the previous period of its government between 1996 and 2001. Maryam Alemi is a photojournalist who traveled to most of the provinces of the country and was able to introduce dozens of Afghan girls to the art of photography and taking video, and she always tried to improve the living conditions of women, but when the Ministry of Promoting Virtue and Prohibition of Evil decreed that girls are not allowed to travel without accompanying of her male family member, she was forced to leave the country because she could no longer travel to the province alone and teach art photography to girls. Now that she is living in United States of America, she says that she left Afghanistan with a fardel of pain and suffering. She said: “I worked with different media for 20 years, and during this time I taught hundreds of girls art photography, but today all our hopes were dashed.” Maryam, who was one of the bravest women in the field of media work and a teacher in the field of teaching the art of photography in Afghanistan, who worked heroically for women, was able to introduce dozens of Afghan girls to the art of photography and film-making, and she always tried to improve the living conditions of women. She says: “I am still interested to return to Afghanistan, and if the Taliban allows her to travel to the provinces, I will serve the suffered women and girls of this land again so that the world will no longer witness the illiteracy and deprivation of women in Afghanistan, but alas, all dreams are gone.” It went away overnight and this day will not come again”. At the same time, a civil activist who did not want to be named told Roidadha News: “In the last 20 years, the Taliban were responsible for the war, and they made thousands of women homeless and took their fathers from them. Based on which Islamic law, this group published a declaration.” They say that women cannot travel without male family member? There are women who are the breadwinners of their families and whose husbands have been killed in wars, and what rules and regulations do they have for them? The Taliban are trying to exclude women from social life with these restrictions. The Taliban changed the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to the Ministry of Promoting Virtue and Prohibition of Evil, and although they do not provide a specific reason for the removal of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs; But they say that they are considering working on an alternative plan, but they did not provide more details in this case. However now that a year has passed, the ministry still did not open for the employees of this ministry and there is no news about the plan due to this ministry.
Roya Dadres, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs of the former government, who lives in one of the European countries, said: “On August 15, 2021, we heard that the Taliban captured Kabul. We could not believe that Kabul would fall to the hands of the Taliban so easily, and even we didn’t aware about Ashraf Ghani’s deal with the Taliban.” She says, “When we had a meeting inside the ministry on August 15, 2021 suddenly the news came that the Taliban entered the city of Kabul. We women, who were waiting for an important meeting, we all left the ministry crying and shouting. It was almost ten o’clock that day because we were afraid of documents and ID cards. We left our women on the road so that the Taliban wouldn’t see the ministry’s documents with us and wouldn’t recognize us as employees of the Ministry of Women.” She says: “When we sat down after a few days, when the Ministry of Women was removed, I was very disappointed and I had no hope of life left for me, so I left the country, but believe me, life in European countries has no meaning, everything has to be started all over again.” She said: “If the Taliban’s view about women is changed and the Taliban changed their strict view of women, I would never leave my homeland.”
One of the largest sectors that included the presence of women was the Afghan media. All the visual, audio and print media in Afghanistan had female reporters and employees, but as soon as the Taliban entered Kabul, the number of female employees in the media decreased and many of them left the country in the first days when the Taliban captured Kabul. After the rule of the Taliban, a large number of female journalists lost their jobs. Hundreds of female journalists left the country and those who continue to work in these conditions face restrictions and violence. Meena Habib is one of the successful women of the country who has worked in the media for more than a decade and did not leave her country because of her love for her people and profession. She was the only female reporter who, after the political revolution in the early days of Taliban rule, when many women did not go out of the house, she was, going out of the house was a world of fear, fear and panic, but she did not sit at home and worked on investigative reports about the situation of women. Mrs. Habib on the first day of the Taliban rule, when she was interviewing one of the protestors from the women’s demonstration in the third security zone of Kabul, she was whipped by several Taliban forces and her camera was broken in front of her eyes. In the continuation of the series of harshness against this lady, on the August 13, 2022, on the eve of one year of Taliban rule, she was wounded in the leg once during the coverage of demonstrations, but now, after one year of Taliban rule, she is still with dozens of limitations and Threats continue to informing. Maryam Arvin, an activist for women’s rights, says, “Today, women have been deprived of their most basic human right, and there has been no change in the policy and decision of the Taliban.” Maryam said: “The situation of women and people has worsened with the passing of a year. Girls’ schools have been closed for 333 days. The schools have not been opened for girls.” Mrs. Arvin said: “The Taliban must understand that today’s society is not the society of 20 years ago, and women will not remain silent against the violation of their human rights, because the international community is also responsible for the children of this country, to make the Taliban understand that education is the right of every girl in this country.” This civil activist accused the international community of a double treatment against women and said: “Unfortunately, the international community works only for their own benefit until it is not their benefits. They don’t think about the Afghan people and women, that’s why they chose silence today. Rina Amiri, the US special representative for Afghan women’s affairs, has also said that “now we know that today’s decision to prevent the return of girls above the sixth grade was not accidental, it was taken by the Taliban leadership and this is a betrayal of Afghan families”. Ms. Amiri added that the ban on girls’ education has no Islamic aspect, to understand this issue, you only need to look at other countries with a Muslim majority. After the Taliban seized power, daily life in Afghan cities is slowly returning to normal, but the reality is that life has changed dramatically for women. The restrictions imposed on women have raised many concerns and reactions. Why are women not included in the cabinet of the Taliban? Why are women prohibited from working in government offices? The type of clothing of the women who gathered in support of the Taliban, the removal of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs from the caretaker cabinet, and the unemployment of women who were the breadwinners of their families. Mohammad Yunus Siddiqi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, does not have the figures of the women working in the Taliban government, but he says that more than half of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs are women, which is a high figure compared to other ministries. He said that we did not exclude any of the women in this ministry and their salaries are paid to them on time. Western countries and international organizations, including nations, have expressed concern about the deteriorating human rights situation in Afghanistan and have specifically condemned the Taliban’s strict restrictions on women and girls. During one year of the Taliban, dozens of female protesters and political activists who protested against the Taliban’s actions in the past 11 months were arrested and imprisoned by members of this group. Nadia is the pseudonym of one of the women imprisoned by the Taliban group. The Taliban just released her. She says: “The Taliban beat us on our chests and between our legs, they did this to us so that we could not show it to the world.” Nazia is the pseudonym of a woman who used to work as a reporter with a radio station and was also an employee of a department of a government agency. Nazia says: “On September 4, I raised the voice of our demand for justice and we went to the streets. The four-month-old baby was in my womb when the Taliban beat one of the protestors named Narges, and blood flowed from her head. At the same time, the Taliban also used tear gas. They ran away, I was trampled and I was in a bad condition, and when I regained consciousness, I was in the hospital and the doctors told me that you lost your child.
This lady says that later the Taliban came behind my house and I ran away from my house and I am still homeless, my children are together and I myself am wandering in people’s houses, but despite all the problems, until the Taliban does not give us our rights, we will seek justice. I will continue. At the same time, the women’s rights activist Munsa said, “One year under the rule of the Taliban was a bitter year full of events and the worst year for women in Afghanistan. During one year of the rule of the Taliban, women lost their social and political presence. Schools were closed for girls. The most severe restrictions were imposed on women, freedom of speech was stifled, and women lived as slaves for a year because the Taliban is not expected to get along with women, because the Taliban’s school of thought is misogynistic and against the presence of women in society. She added: “The Taliban have a problem with women both in terms of Islamic law and culturally and politically. The Taliban only wanted to use women as a tool for their political interests, but fortunately, the Taliban did not achieve this goal because the voices of women’s protests were not recognized.” They were criticized all over the world, and in every negotiation and international meeting, the Taliban were questioned for violating women’s human rights. However, Amir Khan Motaqi, acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of the country, said on the July 26, 2022 this year: “We do not have any political prisoners in Afghanistan, and we have not had any female prisoners in Afghanistan and we do not have any women who have been punished and tortured.” He made this claim while Abdul Nafe Takour, the spokesman of the Taliban’s Ministry of Interior, confirmed in an interview with the Independent Farsi in early January that women’s prisons are active in Afghanistan and women prisoners are kept in them.But Mrs. Mubariz says: the prisons of the Taliban group are full of imprisoned women, and the imprisoned women do not have any type of defense lawyer, no laws are applied in the case of imprisoned women, the Taliban even imprison women prisoners with their families and children. Mrs. Mubariz adds: “The protesting women were also imprisoned with their sisters and their families, whose number reached 90 people in prison, but there are no figures for the protesting women of Mazar, Herat, because it is not known where they were imprisoned.
However, a religious scholar who did not want to be named says: “Women, girls, and the female class have the right to education and studying, and this right has been given to them by the Islam religion and the Islamic Law, but it has been imposed on them that they should acquire knowledge and religious matters.” They should understand the rulings, obligations of worship, Islamic financial dealings, and social affairs so that they can raise their children and their families according to Islamic guidelines. Bilal Karimi, Deputy Spokesman of the Taliban government said: “Islamic Emirate is committed to the rights of all its countrymen, including men and women. Their right to work, right to education and other rights are protected and reach them within the framework of Islamic Law. Bilal Karimi said: “Currently, women are working in these offices, just as policewomen were employed during the massive operation that was launched in Kabul and its surroundings. Now women are also working at the airport.”
Meena Habib Roidadha News
