Issuing over 85 decrees to this date which have directly attacked the freedoms of women, the Taliban have stripped women of their basic rights and freedoms. The seeds of oppression are deeply rooted, a result of the long history of foreign intervention. Both the Soviet Union, and the United States occupied Afghanistan, presenting themselves as the harbingers of progress, and with that, the idea of women’s rights was seen as an unwelcome foreign import. However, this fact is not to detract from how the Taliban have revoked women’s most fundamental human rights in a systematic attempt to erase them from public life.
After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, establishing a new government based on Islamic Law. Decrees against women’s freedoms proliferated. They immediately shut down girls' schools, claiming that the curriculum was against the teachings of Islam. From 1997, screens had to be placed on ground floor windows so women couldn’t be seen. Not only have women been physically hidden, there is a complete erasure of women from public life, rendered invisible. In the wake of the 11th September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre, a US-led military coalition launched attacks in Afghanistan and the Taliban regime collapsed. However, despite concerns about vulnerability to another Taliban regime, US President, Joe Biden, withdrew US forces in 2021. The Taliban once again seized Kabul and controlled Afghanistan.
Since the Taliban regained power in 2021, edicts against women have continued to escalate. In a speech at the United Nations in September 2024, Meryl Streep stated that: “Today in Kabul, a female cat has more freedom than a woman.” This statement encapsulates the immense level of restrictions placed on women in the past few years. Women have been completely barred from public life: they cannot speak in public, must cover their faces and bodies, cannot read or sing aloud, and must have a male chaperone when outside their homes. Moreover, women and girl’s access to education has been almost completely dismantled. By April 2023, it was estimated that 80 percent of school aged girls were out of school. These restrictions are a de facto denial of women, and indeed human's basic needs.
The lack of women and girls in education is, and will continue to have dire societal and economic consequences. A United Nation’s analysis estimates that the impact of excluding women from education will correlate with an increase in the rate of early childbearing by 45 percent and an increase in the risk of maternal mortality by at least 50 percent. Similarly, the Afghan economy will lose the equivalent of USD 9.6 billion by 2066 if these restrictions remain in place. Perhaps more important though, the lives of women and girls across Afghanistan are at stake. As a result of being stripped of their identities, livelihoods and basic freedoms, there is an enormous mental health crisis facing women and girls.
Despite this, the international community has done very little in the way of condemning the Taliban. Afghan human rights activist, Metra Mehran, has commented on how humanitarian aid in Afghanistan isn’t gender sensitive or monitored properly, and that Western countries have continued to take an appeasatory approach to the Taliban, with women excluded from negotiation. Journalist Barry Sadid theorises that this is because Western countries do not want to justify the asylum applications of Afghan Women and girls, indicating a much larger problem with Western humanitarian efforts being insufficient and insincere. When speaking with Amnesty International, Samira Hamidi, the Regional Campaigner for South Asia, discussed how the international community has failed the people of Afghanistan by failing to create a comprehensive strategy to address the crises or to hold the Taliban accountable for their crimes and human rights violations. The lack of concrete action taken against the Taliban should be a deep source of shame.
However, Afghan women have continued to fight for their rights in the absence of external support. Metra Mehran, at a United Nations meeting in Doha, labelled the actions of the Taliban a “Gender Apartheid” and called for the international community to withhold any form of engagement with the Taliban until they have made verifiable strides towards an inclusive system of governance. With women excluded from negotiations with the Taliban, Mehran is bringing the silenced voices of Afghan women to an international stage. This is an admirable feat, but is also crucial in the creation of a comprehensive and sustained effort against the Taliban.
Afghan women are also working tirelessly to fill the education gap created by the Taliban. One example is BBC journalist, Shazia Haya, who produced an educational programme for Afghan girls aged between 11 and 16, called Dars (‘lesson’), giving hope to many young girls living under Taliban rule.
Most predictions about the future of women’s lives under the Taliban remain bleak as the Taliban continues to seek international recognition. The Taliban have crafted the idea that they are trying to protect women from moral corruption. In reality they condemned women to entrapment within their own homes. Despite this, Afghan women have made extraordinary efforts to bring awareness to the situation of women in Afghanistan. However it is critical that the international community take decisive action against the Taliban, treating their actions as what they are – human rights abuse.