Afghan Women Under Fire of Taliban Orders
Published on Thursday, June 20th, 2024
Written by Hussain Ali Haidari
Afghanistan is a country with a population of more than 32 million people. Women make up about 49% of the population.
After the Taliban took power in Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, half the population of Afghanistan have been targets of systematic humiliation, discrimination, and violence. By issuing more than 50 discriminatory and anti-feminist written and oral decrees, under various pretexts, the Taliban have expelled women from virtually every aspect of public life.
They deprived them of all human rights and benefits, including the right to work, the right to an education, freedom of expression, and social, civil, and political participation.Women are essentially imprisoned within the walls of their homes.
The study of these decrees shows to what extent this anti-feminist group has persecuted Afghan women.
These commands can be divided into the following categories:
Deprivation Of Education and Training
After the Taliban came to power, in February 2022, they prohibited girls from going to foreign scholarships without a Sharia Mahram (a relative, typically male, who acts as an escort) Soon after, right as the academic year was set to begin, the Taliban issued another order declaring that no girl was permitted to continue with schooling beyond the 6th grade. In April 2022, the Ministry of Higher Education of the Taliban issued a decree and separated the educational days between boys and girls in universities, barred women from pursuing certain areas of study ,and prevented female students from participating in their graduation ceremony.
On the 30th April 2022, the leadership of the Taliban government issued an order to prevent girls from going to universities until further notice. Then, on October 29, Nada Mohammad Nadim, the Acting Minister of Higher Education of the Taliban, in an official statement, announced a ban on girls entering universities.
On the first day of December 2022, the Ministry of Higher Education of the Taliban, in a letter, ordered all universities to refrain from accepting theses of female students and to prevent female professors, crews, and employees from entering the universities. In the same month, girls were prevented from entering religious schools. In addition, the Ministry of Higher Education of the Taliban, with a written publication on December 8, asked all private universities to refrain from recruiting female students. In April 2023, the Ministry of Public Health of the Taliban announced that the exit exam for female doctors from universities was also prohibited. In addition to this, in June 2023, the Taliban Ministry of Public Affairs and Prohibition of Evil published a statement, prohibiting girls from going to private educational centers. In August of 2023, the same ministry released a verbal order, announcing that girls over 10 years old and girls under 10 years old who happen to be tall are not allowed to go to school in some provinces.
Due to these restrictions, more than three million women and girls were denied attending schools and universities. Meanwhile, according to statistics, 8.3 million girls and women were studying until 2018, and the presence of girls in universities had increased to 38%.
Deprivation of Women’s Rights to Work and Travel.
The Taliban has steadily chipped away at women’s freedom of movement since coming to power. In December of 2021, the Taliban banned women from traveling by land for more than 72 kilometers in addition to any foreign travel without a Sharia Muharram. In April 2022, they ordered that no woman can appear without covering – in Islamic terms – in public and bazaar arenas. In December 2022, Taliban officials in Ghazni province ordered telecommunications to stop providing services to female customers.
In August 2022, female employees in government offices were forced to wear the “Islamic Hijab”. In June 2022, the presence of women in wedding halls in Faryab was banned. In August 2022, a Taliban spokesman announced that the presence of women in the judicial system was prohibited, claiming it was against Sharia law.
Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans girls from attending school beyond the primary level. In September 2021, not long after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, it was announced that the country’s high schools would reopen for the new academic year for boys only.
“One thousand days out of school amounts to 3 billion learning hours lost,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement released June 13. “For 1.5 million girls, this systematic exclusion is not only a blatant violation of their right to education but also results in dwindling opportunities and deteriorating mental health.”
“As we mark this grim milestone, I urge the de facto authorities to allow all children to resume learning immediately,” Russell said. “And I urge the international community to remain engaged and support these girls who need us more than ever. No country can move forward when half its population is left behind.”