It’s certainly not the first time women’s issues in Afghanistan have been curtailed since the Taliban took power last year.
Basic rights for women steadily advanced during the mid-20th century, but this was abruptly put to an end in 1996 when the Taliban initially seized power. This situation persisted until the US and its allies began Operation Enduring Freedom.
The Details
Mona Tajali, an associate professor of International Interactions and Women’s Studies at Agnes Scott College and a member of the executive deck for Women LEAD, provides insight into this.
Women of Afghanistan have been able to take advantage of the opportunities provided to them in earlier decades, especially during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
This also included comprehensive gender equality regulations, like women’s greater access to higher education.
So, when President Trump started talks with the Taliban in 2019 and 2020, women both inside and outside of Afghanistan expressed their worries.
I don’t respect you for leaving our border wide open allowing an invasion & deadly drugs in daily, arming the Taliban, wrecking our economy, killing our energy independence, & supporting killing the unborn & genital mutilation of children.
Go to hell Joe.
pic.twitter.com/MHqdnYIQdS— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) August 26, 2022
However, Tajali stated, “women’s concerns went unheeded.”
“The Biden administration carried out the Trump government’s plan of the military withdrawal; although neither government achieved any guarantees on human rights, peace, safety, or even girls’ schooling.”
Since the U.S. administration used resolving their rights as the reason for the invasion in 2001, only to completely neglect them in 2021, many Afghan women activists and leadership feel deceived by the country.
While Afghan women and others demonstrated their rights throughout the past year, the Taliban repressed free speech by carrying out extrajudicial executions and imprisoning activists.
According to a study released this month by Amnesty International, the Taliban’s Government Media and Information Core issued a decree in September 2021, prohibiting journalists from publishing a story “opposite to Islam” or “insulting to national figures.”
This resulted in the detention and torture of more than 80 reporters over the course of the previous year.
The Heroes
The Afghan parent who voiced concern for the future of his kids also claimed the Taliban severely restricted his capacity to speak about the problems facing his nation.
“I could discuss the state of politics, the economy, and the nation through my writing and speaking. I no longer have access to any of those rights or advantages,” he explained.
“There is no one questioning the Taliban; therefore, they are free to detain, torture, or even kill me at any time.”
How daily life in war-torn Afghanistan has changed since the Taliban’s takeover https://t.co/Dni1FVB8tQ
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 28, 2022
Zuhra Bahman, the Afghanistan Coordinator of Search for Commonality, who is headquartered in Kabul, asserts the nation is anything but a losing proposition.
That’s despite the everyday struggles that women, girls, and other Afghans endure one year after the Taliban’s control.
Women who work in organizations are “resisting from inside and protesting for their freedoms. Most significantly, women are leading humanitarian work and creating change in their neighborhood,” Bahman said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
This article appeared in The Patriot Brief and has been published here with permission.
