Women in Taliban’s Afghanistan: lack of access to education

Ground Report | New Delhi: Women in Taliban’s Afghanistan; The Taliban have taken control of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Most of Afghanistan’s territory is now under Taliban control. Remembering the first Taliban regime, many Afghans are fleeing the country. Many countries have pulled out their diplomats and the process of people leaving Afghanistan continues.

Under the Taliban, women and girls were discriminated against in many ways for the ‘crime’ of producing a girl.

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Taliban regime 1996 to 2001: the harshest of Islamic Sharia laws imposed on women. Complete isolation from society: Women were not allowed to step out of the house without a male escort and burqa, they were completely covered from head to toe

• No access to education and employment
• Women were punished severely for breaking any of these laws – public beating or even stone-pelting.
• Eyewitnesses testify that he was shot, his eyes taken out and then coerced several times by Taliban militants.
• Prohibited from working
• Prohibition on leaving the house without a male guardian
• Ban on showing your skin in public
• Restrictions on access to healthcare provided by men (women were forbidden to work, Healthcare was almost inaccessible)
• Banned from engaging in politics or speaking in public.

Women in Taliban’s Afghanistan

There were many other ways to deprive them of their rights as well. Women were essentially invisible in public life, imprisoned in their own homes. In Kabul, residents were ordered to cover their ground and first-floor windows so that the women inside could not be seen from the street. If a woman left the house, she was in a full-body veil (burqa), accompanied by a male relative: she had no freedom.

At present, a Taliban spokesman has suggested in his public statements that things will be different from last time. According to a Taliban official, women can work "wherever they want" within the limits of Sharia law. Those jobs can be in government, private sector, business, and elsewhere, he said.

"We will respect women's rights… Our policy is that women will have access to education and work, to wear the hijab"

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As Human Rights Watch reports, "ethics' officers - known as 'Vice and Nature' police continue to work in Taliban-controlled districts" to ensure that people "dress and "Social code set by the Taliban regarding public deportations".

In addition, the Taliban have indicated their intention to deny girls education from the age of 12, ban women from employment, and reinstate a law requiring women to live with a single guardian.

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