The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

"This decision does not mean there is discrimination here, or that the activities of the United Nations are blocked. On the contrary, we are committed to all the rights of all our countrymen, taking into account their religious and cultural interests."

"Considering the emergency situation in Afghanistan, it is necessary for the member countries of the United Nations to resolve the problem of frozen Afghan assets, banking, travel bans and other restrictions as soon as possible so that Afghanistan can progress in economic, political and security areas."

"Afghans have the capacity to stand on their own feet."

Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman, Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

UN officials met with the Taliban's higher education minister, at left, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Jan. 7, 2023 to discuss the country's ban on women attending universities. The organization said Tuesday that the Taliban has since barred its female staffers from working. (Taliban Higher Education Ministry/The Associated Press)

 

A week ago the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan further restricted women's human rights. Initially, when the Taliban took Kabul, they assured the world looking on, that they had every intention of respecting the human rights of women and girls. Presenting themselves as moderately reasonable, in the face of the reputation the first Taliban rule which imposed draconian laws against women seen in public without a male escort. Women were strictly forbidden from being seen without the all-enveloping burqas.

Women were forbidden to hold jobs outside their homes; paid work not for women, even widows without any means of income that could sustain the necessities of life. Child 'brides', a customary Islamist process of engineering girls into early motherhood, was rife. Education for girls was prohibited. Women in ill health could not be examined by male physicians. Women-only hospitals staffed by female physicians and surgeons who during surgeries were forced to wear that same burqa.

 

Afghan women chant slogans during a protest against the Taliban's ban on university education for women in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital. The country's Taliban-run administration ordered all local and foreign non-governmental organizations to suspend employing women. (The Associated Press)

 

While the Taliban was busy assuring the global community that it had matured its outlook and was willing to recognize the human rights of women and girls, those same women and girls knew differently. The Taliban's reassurance to the outside world was meant to forestall international involvement in the country's internal affairs as much as to convince global investment to continue its presence in Afghanistan. It took little time before the frail effort to convince the world that the Taliban was anything but the Taliban prevailed.

First to feel the sharp cut of the Islamist sabre were the former government's civil servants, all those who cooperated with the foreign intervenors representing the international community which had ousted the Taliban in search of Osama bin Laden. People were hunted down as traitors to fundamentalist Islam and to Afghanistan. Those that were able to flee to Turkey and Pakistan did, while the former NATO- and U.S.-led coalition members airlifted Afghans known to have assisted them as translators and other workers to safety abroad.

 

Afghan women are protesting against the Taliban’s decision to ban them from the country’s universities. Despite the growing global backlash over the regime's attack on women's rights, the Taliban is refusing to back down.

 

Those Afghans who live under Taliban rule suffer privation and hunger and fear. International NGOs installed themselves to offer humanitarian aid. And then came the pronouncement that Afghan women could no longer work for NGOs. Women attending universities were denied the privilege of returning to classes, joining younger women for whom high school education had previously been forbidden. Now, a week ago the Taliban announced that female Afghan staffers employed with the UN may no longer report for work.

 

In response the United Nations protested the decision, as unlawful and a violation of women's rights. Women, the UN stressed, have been essential for delivering life-saving assistance to millions of Afghans. The UN took the step of instructing its national staff both men and women to remain at home. The response to which was a denial by Taliban authorities that they were responsible for Afghanistan's multiple humanitarian crises. Such decisions as that decried by the UN, they point out, was an internal matter, requiring respect.

 

In the wake of the Taliban takeover of the country and the following economic collapse, aid agencies' role has been crucial in the provision of food, education and health care support. Distribution has been a problem, severely affected by the Taliban edict that banned women from working at non-governmental organizations; citing that they weren't wearing the hijab correctly, or following gender segregation rules.

 

Members of the Taliban stand guard at the entrance gate of Kabul University in Kabul a day after the Taliban said female students would not be allowed access to the country's universities until further notice. (Ali Khara/Reuters)

The New-Old Afghanistan

A curtain divides these students at a private university in Kabul. Gender separation is now the official policy here — and that is likely to spread. "Co-education contradicts the principles of Islam as well as national values, customs and traditions,” said Abdul Baghi Hakkani, the incoming minister for higher education, in Kabul.

"It is becoming really, really troublesome. … Is this the stage where the girls are going to be forgotten?"

"I know they don’t believe in giving explanations, but explanations are very important."

"We have to talk. We have to find a middle ground."

Mabouba Suraj, head, Afghan Women’s Network

 

"[t is] the right of women to work, learn and participate in politics on the national and international stage."

"Unfortunately, in the current Taliban Islamic Emirate government there is no space in the Cabinet." 

"By closing the women’s ministry it shows they have no plans in the future to give women their rights or a chance to serve in the government and participate in other affairs."

Sara Seerat, former advisor, Afghan Women's Affairs Ministry

 

By stealth, if not exactly yet official, Afghanistan's women's ministry is no more. "I am the only breadwinner in my family", said an employee of the ministry, now locked out of employment, since the government ministry for which she worked is no longer in operation. "When there is no ministry, what should an Afghan woman do?", she said plaintively. Well, it would appear, nothing, nothing an Afghan woman can do, but heed the direct orders of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan: stay home, mind the kitchen, look after the children, be prepared at all times to satisfy her husband's urgent needs. No husband? They'll find one for her.

 

Workers were assigned the job of replacing the women's ministry sign with those of the Ministries of Prayer and Guidance and the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. A ministry absolutely integral to the support of sharia law. Henceforth women are to be fully veiled, garbed face-to-foot in black burqas. They must not show their faces, their elbows, their wrists, their ankles to a male other than their husbands. They must not venture out in public other than in the stewardship accompaniment of a male family member.

 

Should they attempt to do otherwise, representatives of the Ministry of the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice will immediately act to correct such behaviour. Public floggings are in order, as they were between 1996 and 2021. Those not then old enough to remember those days will swiftly become familiar with such penalties. The women who had been employed in the former women's ministry will have understood that something dire was imminent. They had been attempting to enter their workplace for seeks. And informed to return home.

 

On Thursday the building gates were finally locked. There was no direct response from the usual Taliban spokesmen the following day, other than a senior Taliban leader having proclaimed earlier in the week that women would not be permitted to work alongside men in government ministries. A statement not open to interpretation, other than what it represents as a bald directive of Taliban sharia-led obligations all must obey. This is the new Afghanistan -- all over again.

 

Getty Images

 

In the years before the U.S.-led NATO mission to Afghanistan the previous Taliban iteration saw its Ministry for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice exercising its mandate as moral police tasked with enforcing the Taliban sharia including a strict dress code. It was anything but uncommon to see women being struck for dress code infractions, in public. Nor were public floggings and public executions infrequent. A very similar ministry exists in the Islamic Republic of Iran, with men policing the 'morals' of women's behaviour and garb; they have much in common.

It was a time when girls were denied the opportunity to attend school. Women were not permitted to work outside the home, nor were they allowed to attend university. The new Taliban ministry of education has stated that schools meant specifically for boys would reopen, while some schools still operate where girls up to the sixth grade were in attendance. Women still have gone out to university classes, with strict enforcement of physical separation from men, in split classes. Girls' high schools, however have been shuttered.

The Taliban explain much of this as owing to the still-unsettled security situation; not that they have issued an order for schools to close, since their takeover. Simply that many activities specifically meant for women and girls were not yet feasible. "All teachers and male students should attend school", said the statement, with state and private schools at primary and secondary levels along with official madrassas (religious schools) opening.

 

Photos and videos emerging from Afghanistan show bustling activity returning to the streets of cities — as at this restaurant in Herat, where customers are being welcomed back. But there is one conspicuous difference from before: At the tables are men and men alone, often wearing the traditional knee-long tunic. Women have become a rarity in the cityscape.