As district after district slipped out of control from the Afghan army, a valiant Salima Mazari, the woman Governor of Charkint, held fort till she was captured by the Taliban on 18th of August 2021. Such is the passion of women like her and the likes of Zarifa Gafari, mayor of Maidan Shar and Fauzia Koofi who braved assassination attempts to stay in public life and bring progressive reforms. All this stares into an abyss, as images of Taliban 1.0 return.
Reuters/Pajhwok news agency
Afghan woman
Santiago Lyon/AP
WOMEN IN THE DAUR – E – JAHILIYA TALIBAN 1.0
It was a time when women in Afghanistan were virtually under house-arrest, and often had to paint their windows black lest they be seen from outside. Taliban declared that women were forbidden to go to work and never leave their homes without being escorted by a male family member. Women who earlier held responsible positions were forced to wander the streets in their burqas, selling everything that they owned or begging in order survive. Much has been written about the brutal rapes and sale of women into forced prostitution and slavery in Pakistan.
Women’s mortality had greatly increased because of the shortage of female doctors, and the Taliban stipulations that there should not be use of anaesthesia even during caesarean birth, and other operations. With Hammams (public baths) banned for women, in the face of water scarcity, sanitation became a pipe dream. Vaginal infections among women.rose. With no mobility, entertainment, access to health care or education, one can only imagine the state of women’s mental health. Alas, mental healthcare was hardly a discourse then!
This had a negative multiplier effect on society: Since majority of the women workforce comprised of teachers, so restrictions on women’s employment created paucity of teachers which dealt a blow to primary education. The Wahabi educated Taliban 2.0 is in fact the standing crop of this female workforce- deprived education system of Afghanistan. Despite these restrictions, however, many valiant Afghan women continued secretly teaching children, turning their homes into community homes for students, managed & financed by women.
The post -Taliban era constitution of 2004, at the dawn of this century provided for 27% reservation of seats in the House of the People for women, Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women, Afghan Women allowed to include their names on their Children’s birth certificates and Identification cards. The number of women officers in Afghan National Police, Afghan National Army, and solo flying pilots in the Air force grew. By 2014 women in Afghanistan made up for 16.1% of the labour force including medical field and media specially in education. Several women went on to take up high offices of deputy ministers and advisors.
But now we seem to have entered a time travel machine, zooming into the dark past.
WOMEN’S TREATMENT: INTRINSIC TO TALIBAN SCHEME?
In early July, after Taliban leaders who took control of the provinces of Badakhshan and Takhar issued an order to local religious leaders to provide them with a list of girls over the age of 15 for “marriage” with Taliban fighters. Herded to Waziristan in Pakistan, they are offered as sex-slaves to lure more Taliban fighters to the fold. Women’s brutalisation, is hence a crucial cornerstone to the Taliban scheme of things. It is natural, therefore, for the Taliban to be abhorrent of their rights-an educated and self-dependent woman can never be enslaved!
And now young educated Afghan women are burning their degrees, lest they be penalised for being educated!. Women in banks have been sacked, and in the government may now only work from home, for the six months they have been allowed to work before being removed. The ‘disappearance of women’ in Afghanistan as it were has resumed, with women being dragged out of cars and killed for not wearing veils or being taken as forced wives.
TALIBAN 2.0: WHAT IS TO COME OF WOMEN?
The Taliban have begun this time by presenting a more benign picture of themselves-inviting women to be a part of government, dissociating from Saudi -Arabia, and Wahhabism. This emboldened nations like China and Russia who are already on the path of establishing a politico-economic relations with them. And of course, there is a lure of Afghanistan’s mineral reserves! The nations that are interested, justify their stand saying that Taliban 2.0 are largely an indigenous lot, and keep Saudi-Arabia and UAE at an arm’s length so less likely to be bigoted.
Girls’ schools are to remain open, but teachings are to be according to Sharia– which leaves out subjects such as computers, biological sciences, physics. On the threshold of Industrial Revolution 4.0, this amounts to the de-skilling of an entire generation, and has further socio-economic ramifications. On the other hand, lynching and maiming of the women police officers is running amok in the outskirts, setting stern ‘example’.
The voices of Afghan women loud and clear fall on deaf ears of international community. Women protest movements are lashed out to give way to numerous veiled women escorted by Taliban gunmen demonstrating support to the Taliban regime.
Even as the UN women expresses concern over sever rights’ infringement of Afghan women the political fatigue and defeatism in the post-pandemic West, however, makes it easy to ignore this dualism between actions and words of the Taliban towards women.
The NATO is not one of the 1990s era, and so even a thin veil of words is enough to keep an invasion at Bay. Meanwhile, efforts had started to reach an agreement with the Northern Alliance, which has far more progressive views on women’s rights, as it is said that the wiser Taliban 2.0 are amenable to persuasion and eager to gain legitimacy. But the prospects of coalition of these diametrically opposite views on governance also have already been consigned to flames, as the ‘lions of Panjshir’ bravely oppose the swarms of Taliban running over the territory. And so, what is to be expected of the women’s question?
The question remains as to whether this regime has anything different to offer the women this time. Whether the critique of Wahabism shall reflect on their policies towards women.
Whether the international community will be able to exercise restraint in indulging in this new Great Game, for the sake of women’s rights. If ever again Afghan women will see the light of the day out of their burqa, in boardrooms, streets and the parliament alike. If ever, children-girls and boys alike- will find their way to schools awash with the light of rational and empowering education, not the education of hatred and bigotry.
The voices of Afghan women loud and clear fall on deaf ears of international community. Women protest movements are lashed out to give way to numerous veiled women escorted by Taliban gunmen demonstrating support to the Taliban regime.
Women became officers in Afghan National Army, and solo flying pilots in the Air force. By 2014 women in Afghanistan made up for 16.1% of the labour force more saliently in medical field and media.
Women are offered as Sex-slaves to lure more Taliban fighters to the fold. Women’s brutalisation, is hence a crucial cornerstone to the Taliban scheme of things.