Afghan women struggle for rights under increasing Taliban repression

Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, it has imposed severe restrictions on women and excluded them entirely from active life.

Despite early promises to preserve women’s rights within the context of Islamic law, the Taliban quickly released a slew of decrees, limiting employment for women, banning travel without a male guardian, imposing a strict dress code, and prohibiting schooling for girls beyond sixth grade.

There have been numerous claims of violations of women’s rights, and accounts of harassment and restrictions on women’s access to work, education, and mobility have been reported.

In July, the Taliban ordered the closure of hair and beauty salons, leaving thousands of women across the country without any income.

In addition, the Taliban forbade women from engaging in sports, going to public parks, and working for NGOs and the United Nations.

Guterres: UN will 'never be silent' on women's rights

UN Secretary-General António Guterres strongly condemned the Taliban’s decision to ban Afghan women from working with the UN in Afghanistan.

Guterres called it “a violation of the inalienable fundamental human rights of women.”

He pledged that “the UN would never be silent when women’s and girls’ rights are under attack, as they are today in Afghanistan.”

Asad Ullah Zadran, a former official at Afghanistan’s Law and Justice Ministry who fled the country after the Taliban took power, told The Media Line: “Afghan working women have stood up against the patriarchal policies of the Taliban across the country. The Taliban always repressed, whipped, and imprisoned them for their nonviolent, civil protests.”

Zadran said, “One of the key reasons for the Taliban’s difficulty gaining international recognition is their position on women’s rights.”

The Taliban has been under persistent pressure from the global community, particularly the United Nations, to restore women’s basic rights and eliminate the prohibition on girls’ education before it can be recognized.

Recently, the World Economic Forum carried out an international study on gender inequalities. Afghanistan came last out of 146 countries.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch research on Afghanistan since 2021 found that “the crime against humanity of persecution targeting women and girls has been imposed through various written or announced decrees. These decrees have placed severe restrictions on freedom of movement, expression, and association; prohibitions on virtually all employment; bans on secondary and higher education; and permitted arbitrary arrests and violations of the right to liberty.”

Human Rights Watch also said, “Taliban authorities are specifically responsible for gender persecution. This persecution has been imposed through spoken and written decrees that have restricted women’s and girls’ movement, expression, employment, and education.”

Gordon Brown, the UN’s special envoy for global education, said in a recent statement, “For denying Afghan women and girls education and employment, the Taliban leaders should be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court. Afghan girls and Afghan women have been fighting the most egregious, vicious, and indefensible violation of women’s rights and girls’ rights in the world today.”

UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan Richard Bennett also criticized the Taliban’s restrictions on women’s education, employment, and movements.

“Such restrictions must be lifted in order to ensure a better future for Afghanistan and its women,” he said in a TV interview.

Afghan women in exile protest abroad

 After the Taliban took power, hundreds of women’s rights activists left the country and took refuge elsewhere, especially in European countries.

Women’s rights activists who fled from Afghanistan to Germany embarked on a 10-day hunger strike recently to draw global attention to the Taliban’s treatment of women.

One of the leaders of the hunger strike was Tamana Zaryab Paryani, 25, a former Afghan national bodybuilding champion who won gold medals in two national contests. She moved to the German city of Cologne. Her younger sister, Zarmina Paryani, also took part in a hunger strike.

In an interview with BBC Persian before starting her hunger strike, Paryani accused the Taliban of depriving women of basic rights because of their gender.

“The international community is deafeningly silent in the face of Afghanistan’s ongoing gender apartheid,” she said. “We had no alternative but to go on a hunger strike to urge the world to acknowledge it and act against it.”

Despite the Taliban’s violent suppression of dissent, women’s rights advocates staged multiple rallies in the capital, Kabul.

Paryani consistently rallied for women’s rights and took part in multiple protests outside Kabul University, demanding that women be granted the right to education and employment.

In January 2022, Taliban officials raided Paryani’s home and imprisoned her and three of her sisters. They were held in Taliban custody for 26 days.

Several human rights groups sharply criticized the four sisters’ wrongful incarceration and urged their immediate release.

After being released, the sisters attempted to flee to Pakistan. Taliban intelligence officers captured them again and imprisoned them in Kabul for 10 days.

After they were again released, they managed to enter Pakistan through the border town of Spin Boldak, and from there, they traveled to Germany.

Taliban denies allegations of women's rights violations

The Taliban itself staunchly denies allegations of women’s rights violations.

“The reports about the violations of human rights in Afghanistan are malicious and full of discrimination and baseless propaganda,” Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s chief spokesman, told The Media Line.

“Such allegations are crafted and disseminated by individuals who fled Afghanistan for their own agenda, seeking to smear the image of the Taliban-led government.”

Mujahid said the Taliban’s “interpretation of Islamic laws forms the basis of their policies, including those related to women’s rights.” He said that the Taliban is working “to establish a society that aligns with Islamic values and there is no regression in women’s rights.”

“Every country in the world has its own system of law and justice,” he said. “Any citizen of Afghanistan who commits a crime will be punished according to Sharia [Islamic] law.”

Umar Karim, a research fellow at the University of Birmingham, told The Media Line that the unique status of Afghanistan under the Taliban makes it more difficult for other countries to exert pressure on Afghanistan.

“The current Afghan government is not recognized by any state, and neither is it considered a legitimate representative of the Afghans,” he said. “It is difficult for the international community to compel them on human rights issues. Furthermore, any specific sanctions applied on the country in this regard are to affect not just the Taliban government but all Afghans, who already are facing epic levels of poverty.”

Karim said that the Taliban sees women’s rights as a Western issue used as a pretext to justify foreign military presence in the country.

“It’s an alien concept for Afghan society,” he said. “Furthermore, the gradual increase in the power of the Taliban supreme leader has meant the implementation of more strict policies with regard to women’s rights and education. More moderate voices in Afghan society have been unable to effectively push back against the trend of reducing women’s rights.”

Niels Groeneveld, a human rights activist and expert on Afghanistan based in Utrecht in The Netherlands, told The Media Line, “The struggle of Afghan women is a complex and multilayered force in the world of activism, their struggle is a polyphonic catalyst for collective transformation.”

“Tamana’s move to Germany highlighted a stark and uncomfortable truth: the failure of the international community to recognize and prioritize the plight of Afghan women on the scale it deserves,” he said. “Her hunger strike raised questions not just about Afghan policy but about the global hierarchy of empathy and concern.”

Islamic Studies professor: Afghans need the world to focus on poverty, hunger

Prof. Momina Fatima, former deputy head of the Department of Islamic Studies at Kabul University, criticized the West for focusing on the Taliban’s treatment of women rather than the severe poverty and hunger affecting the country.

“Millions of children in Afghanistan are suffering from severe malnutrition,” she told The Media Line.

“People are in dire need of humanitarian aid, suffering from hunger and starvation, but the Western world is troubled by Afghan women wearing hijabs and veils. The hijab is a part of Islamic Sharia, not a verdict imposed by the Taliban. No doubt there are many flaws and drawbacks in the Taliban policies, but the situation is not that much worse as shown by the Western media outlets.”