It’s our worst nightmare how quickly Afghan women have lost 20 years of hard-earned rights.
In the past year, the ruling Taliban have decided that females cannot receive an education past seventh grade; may not attend university; may not leave their homes without the escort of a male family member; may not visit parks and recreation centers, and are barred from most fields of employment, including, as of this weekend, those with humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders.
Saturday’s edict is the final nail in the coffin, rendering the female sex as nothing more than chattel.
THE HOPES that females would retain some elements of equality when the Taliban returned to power in 2021 have been expunged.
It’s not just women who are affected. Minorities, too, are regarded as second-class citizens and have suffered much the same fate.
Today, half the population — 20 million people — suffer malnutrition caused by the collapse of the Afghan economy after the Taliban regained control.
Their lifeline? Humanitarian aid organizations, of which several have responded to Saturday’s edict by ceasing their efforts altogether with the hope of forcing officials to reconsider.
Taliban representatives defended the most recent decision by saying women were not obeying the country’s Islamic dress code that requires a woman to cover her body from head to toe.
As for denying women a higher education, it’s because under the official interpretation of Islam, not all subjects are appropriate for women and the unsupervised mixing of genders is forbidden.
The Taliban’s constraints are drawing rebukes from other Muslim countries, including Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
“Our religion, Islam, is not against education; on the contrary, it encourages education and science.” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday. “What harm is there in women’s education? What harm does it do to Afghanistan?”
Unfortunately, the Taliban are in no mood to be lectured.
Experts predict the next shoe to fall for Afghanistan will be a mass exodus. Already, almost 500,000 have fled the country in response to the Taliban’s repressive rule.
According to the Norwegian Refugee Council an estimated 5,000 Afghans are crossing illegally into Iran each day, many with the goal of reaching Europe. Increasingly, those fleeing are what every country needs most — the young and the educated.
Judging from Afghanistan’s recent history, what’s happened in the blink of an eye, will take decades to overcome. And that’s a best-case scenario.
