The Taliban
Has Declared Jihad on Women’s Rights;
It’s Up
to the Rest of the Free World to Save Them
Women in Afghanistan are in
dark days. They suffer from widespread injustices and are deprived of their
rights. It is our moral obligation to stand in solidarity and come to their
rescue.
By Wahab Raofi
During a speech after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize
in 2001, Kofi Annan, then the Special Representative of the United
Nations’ Secretary-General, said: “Today, in Afghanistan, a girl will be born
... But to be born a girl in today’s Afghanistan is to begin life centuries
away from the prosperity that one small part of humanity has achieved. It is to
live under conditions that many of us in this hall would consider inhuman.”
That was more than two decades ago, but sadly, the
same holds true today for girls and women in Afghanistan.
As global attention remains fixed on Gaza and Ukraine,
it is crucial to recognize a severe and ongoing violation of human rights
elsewhere. The Taliban has been perpetuating a disturbing, gender-based form of
apartheid in Afghanistan.
Since seizing control in August 2021, the Taliban have
been suppressing the rights of women. They closed schools for girls after the
sixth grade, prohibited women from participating in events in public spaces,
and restricted their ability to work alongside men in office settings.
As if the restrictions weren’t enough to satiate the
Taliban’s anti-female sentiment, an additional significant punishment has been
imposed. Under the pretext of women’s “protection,” the new decree calls for
the closure of shelters for abused women and instead sends them to jail.
CBS reported that the Taliban is imprisoning women for
their own “protection from gender-based violence.”
But Sahar Wahedi, a tech startup CEO and women's
rights activist, told CBS News that the report “reveals a stark absence of a
clear and coherent framework for justice in Afghanistan, significantly
hindering the process of reporting and addressing gender-based violence. This
ambiguity, particularly with the Taliban's vague reference to 'Sharia law,'
places an immense burden on women.”
The Lancet
reported
“estimates from the United Nations Population
Fund suggest that 87% of women in Afghanistan experience at least one form of gender-based
violence during their time, and 62% are subjected to
multiple forms of violence.”
Researcher Asia Abbasi wrote for Human Rights Watch
that "there is no country in the world
where the basic human rights of women and girls are more
restricted than in Afghanistan … and no government anywhere has expressed
support for the Taliban’s policies there.”
In an essay for LSE Public Policy, Narges Nehan writes
that “The struggle for women’s rights in
Afghanistan stretches back to the nineteenth century.”
Former Member of Parliament Shukria Barakzai, who
currently resides in exile, like other members of former the Afghan government that
fled the country shortly after the Taliban takeover, told me that the Taliban
are driven by a radical religious ideology. She emphasized the need for the
United States and the rest of the free world to establish a non-governmental
commission to formally denounce the Taliban regime as anti-woman.
There exists a misconception among those not fully
familiar with Afghan culture, perpetuated by the Taliban and their supporters,
that Afghanistan is a tribal society where Afghans are resistant to sending
female members of their families to school. This is not accurate. I was born
there; women in the past held an esteemed status in traditional Aghan society.
Allow me to share an Afghan proverb that reflects the stature
women held in Afghan society. The saying goes, "My mall (material)
position is to be sacrificed if my head is in danger, and I am willing to
sacrifice my head to protect my namoos (my wife and the female members
of my family).” The proverb suggests that Afghans had a firm line between the religion
and traditions. But not anymore.
During a decade
of Soviet invasion in the 1980s, thousands of Jihadis, especially from the Arab
peninsula, poured into Afghanistan to fight alongside the Afghan mujahedeen (once
called freedom fighters) to combat non-Muslim invading forces. But after the
Soviets left, Afghan institutions and social structures fractured. A new order
replaced the old Afghan traditional one, replacing it with a more fundamental
version of Islam. One could describe it as “Islamization.”
The Islamization of society cast a profound influence
into all aspects of life, and the most obvious victims were women and their
loss of human rights.
But the trend reversed in 2001 when the U.S. freed
Afghanistan from the yoke of the Taliban, and for two decades of American
presence in Afghanistan, there was considerable progress for women in terms of
education and political participation.
Unfortunately, advancements in women’s rights primarily
materialized only in the capital Kabul and a few other cities. The rural areas saw
minimal impact from the positive changes. The disparity between urban growth
and rural neglect provided fertile ground for the recruitment of extremists,
including the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other Muslim extremist groups.
Now the Taliban is in full control of the country and wants
to impose their strict rules of Islam on all citizens. This is what they were
taught in religious Madrassas in Pakistan. Since coming to power, they have
focused all their attention on full Islamization of society, women’s rights
among them. When women raise their voices for their rights, they face potential
peril.
The BBC reported that women were beaten
for demanding their rights after taking to the streets with banners reading
"Bread, Work, Justice." This is a stark departure from Afghan
tradition; a man raising a hand against a
woman was formerly viewed as an act of cowardice.
I am in solidarity with what the women are protesting
and the human rights activists who signed a letter on October 5 from the
Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project, together with the Global
Justice Center. The joint letter and legal brief urges
the international community to codify the crime of gender apartheid in the UN’s
Crimes Against Humanity Treaty. The letter and legal brief were endorsed by
dozens of prominent jurists, scholars and civil society representatives.
Under
the Taliban, Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls cannot go
to school beyond the sixth grade, women are barred from working and even going
to hairdresser salons. In fact, they are imprisoned in their homes.
I urge the global
community to unite in support of Afghan women on moral grounds and declare the
Taliban regime an apartheid system. Just as the sanctions imposed on November
6, 1962, when the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 1761,
condemning South African apartheid policies, it is imperative that we take a
stand against the Taliban's discriminatory rule. Failing to do so implicates us
in aligning with a gender-biased regime that has unjustly declared war against
half of its own citizens.
As the Nobel Laureate
Malals Yosufzai said, the world needs to
recognize and confront the “gender apartheid” against women and girls imposed
by the Taliban.
If Kofi Annon were
still the U.N. Secretary General, I am sure he would have done everything in
his power to rescue Afghan women from their horrific situation.
Despite living in
terror, Afghan women have not surrendered. Many take the forefront of
resistance to the Taliban. As an example, I conclude by pointing out an Afghan
folk-hero named Malala Ho. She fought alongside Ayub Khan and was responsible
for the Afghan victory at the Battle of Maiwand on in 1880, during the Second
Anglo-Afghan War. She is also known as "The Afghan Jeanne d'Arc."
When the Afghans
began to fall back, Malala grabbed a flag (some say she used her veil) and shouted:
“With a drop of my sweetheart's blood, shed in defense of the Motherland, will
I put a beauty spot on my forehead, such as would put to shame the rose in the
garden!”
Malalai was
herself struck down and killed by a British soldier.
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