With the West turning a blind eye to the Taliban’s brutal oppression, Afghan women show their defiance
Back in August 2021, an inevitable tragedy occurred: the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan and thus reignited one of the most totalitarian governments the world has ever seen. After foreign forces vacated the area, the political and militant group seized the opportunity to advance, re-establishing complete dominance. Three years on and the devastating impact the Taliban’s rule has had on the people of Afghanistan is most apparent when you consider the everyday lives and suffering of Afghan women and girls.
Welcome back to Explained By a Blonde. This week, I’m diving into a topic that’s deeply important. There’s been plenty of talk about the oppression of women and girls in Afghanistan, but what’s been glaringly absent is real outrage at the West’s indifference and the international community’s abandonment.
Why does it feel as though we’re quickly creeping towards a state of acceptance when it comes to the dire situation in Afghanistan? The rights of women across the world are at risk, and every community deserves the same level of respect and attention.
How did the Taliban regain power in Afghanistan?
Throughout August 2021, the Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic group, successfully seized provinces across Afghanistan before ultimately taking the capital, Kabul, on 15 August. This came after a 20-year insurgency from the movement.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, as soon as the Taliban re-established their rule, they immediately reintroduced laws and regulations reminiscent of their tyrannical and brutal reign in the 1990s.
Within the first year of its renewed control, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released a report detailing the Taliban’s numerous human rights violations. These included details regarding extrajudicial killings, torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary arrests, and detentions.
How has the Taliban’s oppression affected women and girls in Afghanistan?
As previously mentioned, while oppressive to all, the Taliban’s biggest moral atrocity lies in its complete subjugation of Afghan women and girls.
The UNAMA’s findings paint a very dark picture, specifically touching upon women and girl’s lack of access to education: “The education and participation of women and girls in public life is fundamental to any modern society. The relegation of women and girls to the home denies Afghanistan the benefit of the significant contributions they have to offer. Education for all is not only a basic human right, it is the key to progress and development of a nation.”
Indeed, these extreme conditions were amplified on the international stage on 21 August, when the Taliban ministry promulgated a new set of laws. Described as legislation that “will be of great help in the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice,” these laws have succeeded in further controlling every aspect of Afghan women and girl’s social and private lives.
For example, it is now required that women cover their bodies and faces completely if they leave the house. Moreover, their voices are not to be heard in public places. If their voices carry outside of their private homes, this is also considered illegal.
Afghan women are some of the strongest and most resilient people I’ve ever seen. In an act of rebellion, shortly following the publication of the recent laws, hundreds of women took to social media, recording themselves singing and using their voices as a form of protest.
Afghan women are responding to the Taliban's ban on women speaking in public by launching a campaign and singing out loudly. pic.twitter.com/0r884tkteS
— Habib Khan (@HabibKhanT) August 27, 2024
Speaking with public radio station French Culture, Hamida Aman, the founder of Begum TV, a Paris-based channel aimed at educating Afghan women and girls, noted: “The only right we are allowed is to breathe”—an emphatic statement that accurately portrays the seriousness of the situation in the country right now.
In order to try and seek out education, some Afghan women have fled to the UK to try and access something brutally kept from them in their own country. One 22-year-old woman, Mah, told the BBC that she fled the country shortly after the Taliban’s takeover in 2021. Now residing in Wales, Mah hopes a GCSE in English is the start to eventually becoming a midwife in Wales.
“It’s hard for me because I can go to college here and I can go to work. But at the same time, back home, my friends who are the same age, can’t leave the house,” Mah explained.
While it’s understandable that the West want to avoid a military conflict in Afghanistan, it’s reprehensible that the rights of women under this oppressive rule have become a second fiddle problem. Aman further commented: “No one cares about Afghan women or human rights in this country. The United Nations is silent in the face of the Taliban.”
Attempting to justify the West’s actions, Mélissa Cornet, a specialist on gender issues in Afghanistan, explained to France24: “The UN works in Afghanistan and therefore has to work with the Taliban. If it takes a very hard line on women’s rights, it will be expelled from the country and no one will be able to talk to the regime and help Afghans.”
While Corent’s point makes logical sense, it’s undeniable that the international community’s idea of limited cooperation looks a lot more like collective acceptance.
Afghan women meet in Albania in an act of defiance against the Taliban
On Wednesday 11 September 2024, more than 130 Afghan women arrived in Albania at an All Afghan Women summit. While some women who attempted to reach the meeting from Afghanistan were stopped and deterred, those who managed to make it declared the trip as an “act of defiance.”
Fawzia Koofi, women’s activist and former Afghan MP, whose organisation Women for Afghanistan arranged the summit, said: “In these three days, the women of Afghanistan from all backgrounds come together to unite their efforts on scenarios to change the current status quo at a time when women in Afghanistan say they are being completely erased from the public sphere.”
“We aim to achieve consensus and strategise on how to make the Taliban accountable for the human rights violations they are perpetrating and how to improve the economic situation for women inside the country,” she continued.
Women in Afghanistan will continue to show their faces and have their voices heard in these extremely frightening times. And it’s crucial that we never stop amplifying their stories. But it’s also critical that we never stop demanding action, accountability, and legitimate solutions to the Taliban’s tyrannical reign.
Here are a list of organisations that are attempting to help, improve, and protect the lives of women and girls in Afghanistan: Women For Women International, Vital Voices, and the Malala Fund.
