Women banned from varsity

UNFAZED by the global condemnation of its gender-discriminatory directives that smack of human rights violations, the juggernaut of the regressively dictatorial Taliban regime has been rolling on in Afghanistan with increasing force ever since it regained supremacy in the country in August 2021. The latest decree bans women from attending universities. The first blow dealt to the women took away their jobs and it came immediately after the Taliban wrested power. In March this year, the girls were barred from senior secondary schools; May saw women ordered to fully cover themselves, not move without a male escort and stay at home; last month, parks, fairs and gyms became out of bounds for them. These series of orders paint the Taliban in the same misogynistic and patriarchal colours that they were notorious for during their earlier reign from 1995 to 2001. Their leaders are brazenly defending the patriarchal decisions as being ‘Islamic’ and fending off global backlash as being ‘interference’ in the country’s affairs.

However, how will they resist opposition from their own women? In the two decades since the Taliban were toppled from power by a US-led military coalition in the wake of the 9/11 attacks carried out by Al Qaida, the Afghan women have experienced rights and freedoms under the protective umbrella of the UN, the US and its allies. They were empowered with education and awareness of their rights in the global order of things. This empowerment was manifested in their protest outside the education ministry’s office in Kabul in August.

While their cries for ‘bread, work and freedom’ were then muffled by government forces, the saga of suppression and atrocities heaped on the women calls for an international response. Even as other hardcore Islamist countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE are ceding more space to women, Afghanistan’s rulers are stuck in the chillingly austere mould of the 90s and have reneged on their 2021 promise of honouring human rights obligations, including those of women. A recent UNDP report says that women’s expulsion from the economy could cost Afghanistan $1 billion or 5% of the GDP. The Taliban need to introspect on this impending loss.

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