Afghan women need international support - Hindustan Times
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Afghan women need international support

Dec 24, 2022 09:24 PM IST

The brave women of Afghanistan and civil society groups need greater support from the international community. The hope that Afghan women can fight the good fight seems a mirage now, given how they have been oppressed and pushed to the sidelines.

With the latest decree by the Taliban banning women in Afghanistan from higher education, all hope the organisation would change once in power is lost. Earlier, some hope was held out based on statements from some Taliban leaders that they were not opposed to women being educated. According to a United States Institute for Peace report, the Taliban’s deputy foreign minister, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, had said, “Education is obligatory on both men and women, without any discrimination. None of the religious scholars ...can deny this obligation. No one can offer a justification based on Sharia for opposing [women’s] right to education.”

Afghan women chant slogans in protest against the closure of universities to women by the Taliban, Kabul, Afghanistan, December 22, 2022 (REUTERS) PREMIUM
Afghan women chant slogans in protest against the closure of universities to women by the Taliban, Kabul, Afghanistan, December 22, 2022 (REUTERS)

Despite these hopeful words, things have deteriorated for Afghanistan’s women. Anita Anand, a development and communications consultant who worked in Afghanistan between 2004 to 2016 and is connected with many networks of women’s organisations, says, “It does not come as a surprise to me that the Taliban has put further restrictions on women’s higher education. Its earlier promises to the international community that it would allow girls and women to study were empty promises. The Taliban are relentless and repressive and do not consider the rights of anyone as an issue to be addressed. As long as the Taliban are in power in Afghanistan, women are doomed.” Human rights organisations report floggings of women for “moral crimes”, and instances of torture of women have also been reported. And it is not just women who are being terrorised.

Saleem Attaye, a Kabul-based artist, teaches young men and women art. Mostly women. Attaye says, “Even before the Taliban took over in 2022, they were bombing girls’ schools. This is not new. They want to keep children, especially girl children, in the dark and not learn and know about the world around them. Before the Taliban came back into power, our women and daughters lived with pride. In my gallery, every day I sit with fear and dread that anytime a Talib can come in with his gun and destroy everything. As an artist, I want to make portraits of women, but that is not allowed anymore. I cannot play music either.” “Every night when I go home, my two younger daughters in Class 9 and 12 ask me: Father, when is our school going to open? My two sons are allowed to go to school. India has been kind to us, and we hope it will help us with the opening of schools and ensuring electricity.”

“The world has forgotten us. We are full of pain and are living in fear all the time — in a lawless land. It’s the rule of the jungle here. We want music, freedom, and our country back. There is very little hope. We don’t see a way out of this darkness. We just must wait.”

There has been criticism of this repression from several Muslim countries, but the Taliban does not care. Most countries may not have recognised the Taliban but have not condemned its policies strongly or stopped engaging with it. Instead, they say the Taliban should not be shut off. But this policy has produced little by way of ensuring women’s rights. One way in which the Taliban could be influenced is if progressive Muslim leaders and clerics try to engage with it and put forward their interpretations of the Sharia.

The brave women of Afghanistan and civil society groups need greater support from the international community. The hope that Afghan women can fight the good fight seems a mirage now, given how they have been oppressed and pushed to the sidelines. The United States and friendly countries such as India could do much more to keep lines of communication with the Taliban open on women’s rights. An entire population of talented women cannot be pushed into the darkness with no hope of better days without democracies putting up some resistance.

lalita.panicker@hindustantimes.com

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Lalita Panicker leads the opinion section at Hindustan Times. Over a 33-year career, she has specialised in gender issues, reproductive health, child rights, politics and social engineering.

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