Women's rights under the Taliban

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Afghan women with burqa

During the Taliban's reign in the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 - with well-founded fears that women's rights would be threatened again after the Taliban came to power in 2021 - the Taliban system became known internationally for the treatment and mistreatment of women . The declared aim of the Taliban was to create "a safe environment for women in which their chastity and dignity are inviolable again", which is based on beliefs according to which a woman should live in seclusion (" parda ").

Women have been forced to wear the burqa in public because, as a Taliban spokesman put it, "a woman's face is a source of corruption for men unrelated to her." Women were banned from working and receiving education from the age of eight. Up until now, teaching has been limited to the teachings of the Koran . Women seeking higher education were forced to attend underground schools, where they and their teachers risked the death penalty if discovered. Women were not allowed to see a male doctor without a male companion, which resulted in many diseases going untreated.

1996-2001

Gender politics

A member of the Taliban religious police beat a woman in Kabul (August 26, 2001). The recordings were filmed by RAWA (Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan).

The gender policy was based on the following content:

  • From the age of eight, women were prohibited from being in direct contact with men who were not related by blood or were not married to them.
  • Women should not take to the streets without a male blood relative and without a burqa.
  • Women should not wear high-heeled shoes so that no man can hear a woman's footsteps and become aroused by it.
  • Women are not allowed to speak loudly in public as no stranger should hear a woman's voice.
  • All windows on the ground floor and first floor should be painted or screened in order to avoid women in their apartments being seen from the street.
  • Photographing or filming women is strictly prohibited, as is displaying pictures of women in magazines, books, newspapers, stores, or in your own home.
  • Place names that contain the word "woman" must be changed. (An example: "Women's Garden" was renamed to "Spring Garden").
  • Women are not allowed to be on the terrace or balcony of their apartment or house.
  • Banish women from radio, TV and all kinds of public gatherings.

Dress rules

Colorful clothing was banned because it was viewed as sexually attractive. A Taliban decree from 1996 states: "If women go outside with fashionable, adorned, tight and sexy clothes, they will be condemned by Islamic Sharia and will never go to heaven." The application of nail polish was also forbidden .

mobility

The Taliban's regulation of public appearance severely restricted women's freedom outside of their home. It was especially difficult for those who could not afford a burqa or who did not have a mahram (male relative to accompany them). These women were literally under house arrest. One woman who was badly beaten by the Taliban for walking alone on the street said: “My father was killed in the war ... I have no husband, brother and son. How should I live if I am not allowed to go out of the house alone? "

A field worker from the NGO Terre des hommes saw the effects of these restrictions on women's mobility in the largest state orphanage, Taskia Maskan, in Kabul. After the female employees were released from their duties, the approximately 400 girls who lived in this institution were imprisoned for a whole year. Regulations concerning the mobility of women were:

  • Prohibited women from riding a bicycle or motorcycle, even with their mahram
  • Prohibited the woman from taking a taxi without her mahram
  • Introduction of separate bus operations to prevent men and women from traveling in the same bus

work

The Taliban disagreed with previous Afghan legislation that allowed women to be employed in mixed-sex jobs. In their eyes this was a violation of Parda and Sharia . On September 30, 1996, the Taliban issued a ban on all women from work. It was estimated that 25 percent of government employees were female. United with the loss of other sectors, the decree affected thousands of women. This has had a devastating impact on household incomes, especially in vulnerable or widow-led families that were widespread in Afghanistan.

Elementary schools that did not only teach girls were closed in Kabul as almost all elementary school teachers were female. Thousands of educated families fled Kabul to Pakistan after the Taliban took over the city in 1996. Among those who stayed in Afghanistan, the number of mothers who had to go begging with their children increased as the loss of income pushed their families to the edge of social existence.

The supreme leader of the Taliban, Mohammed Omar , promised female officials and teachers a severance payment of the equivalent of 4.50 euros a month, but only for a limited time. A Taliban representative said: “The fact that the Taliban should pay monthly severance pay to 30,000 unemployed women who are now sitting comfortably at home is a whip in the eyes of those who want to defame the Taliban on women's rights. These people try to incite the women of Kabul against the Taliban with unfounded propaganda. "

The Taliban supported the maintenance of the clan (extended family) or the zakat (alms tax) so that women would not have to work. But years of conflict meant that small families could hardly support themselves, let alone take care of other family members. Legislation was men's business, such as food aid, which could only be received from a male relative. The possibility that a woman might have no male relatives at all was rejected by Foreign Minister Mullah Ghaus. He was surprised that such a small section of the Afghan population was attracting so much attention and concern internationally. Little changed for women in rural areas as their lives were shaped by unpaid domestic, agricultural and reproductive work.

Female health workers have been exempted from employment, but women employed in the sector have had to work under much more restricted circumstances. The exertion of driving to work in a gender-segregated bus system and under constant harassment was too much for some women, and they ultimately gave up their jobs voluntarily. Those who stayed lived in fear of the regime and preferred to stay in hospital during the week to minimize exposure to the Taliban.

The city of Herat was particularly hard hit by the Taliban's dissolution of women's rights. Before 1995, Herat was one of the more cosmopolitan and open-minded areas of Afghanistan. Women were allowed to work in a limited number of areas of activity, but that was stopped by the Taliban authorities. Herat's new governor, Mullah Razzaq, ordered women not to go past his office as he was concerned about being distracted.

education

The Taliban said they were fulfilling their Islamic duty and training boys and girls alike. Nevertheless, the Taliban issued a ban on teaching girls over eight years of age. Maulvi Kalamadin insisted that this was only a temporary disposition and that girls and women could go back to school or work as soon as facilities and roads were adequately secured to avoid contact between the sexes. The Taliban wanted complete control of Afghanistan before turning to the ulema scholars to decide on the content of the new curriculum, which would replace the Islamic but unacceptable version of the mujahidek .

The Taliban demanded time to achieve their goal. They criticized international aid organizations for calling for women's rights to be restored with immediate effect. The Taliban justified their approach in an Iranian interview with: “No other country gives women the rights that we give them. We give women the rights that God and His Prophet gave them to stay at home and receive religious instruction in hijab . "

The work ban was particularly devastating in education. In Kabul alone, 106,256 girls, 148,223 boys and 8,000 female students were affected. 7,793 teachers were laid off, crippling education and causing 63 schools to close due to a lack of educators. Some women founded secret schools, such as the Golden Needle Sewing School . The students, parents and teachers were completely clear about the consequences if the Taliban discovered them.

Medical supplies

Before the Taliban came to power, male doctors were allowed to treat women in hospitals, but a decree was soon introduced that no male doctor was allowed to touch a woman's body under the pretext of counseling. With the reduction in female health care workers, many women have had to travel long distances for treatment and the number of women's hospitals has dwindled.

In Kabul, some women set up makeshift clinics in their homes to treat families and neighbors, but medicines were difficult to get and their effectiveness was not guaranteed. Many women suffered pain or died prematurely because they were not treated. Only women who had the necessary money and the support of their mahram could receive medical care in Pakistan.

In October 1996 women were excluded from the traditional hammam (public bath) because social contacts were considered un-Islamic. This inexpensive right to hot water was particularly enjoyed by women, and it was an important facility in a nation where few people have running water. The UN therefore predicted an increase in scabies and vaginal infections in women who are denied personal hygiene and access to medical care. Nasrine Gross, an Afghan-American writer, commented on this in 2001: "That many Afghan women have not been able to pray to their God for four years because Islam forbids a woman to pray if she has not bathed after her menstrual period." In June 1998 the Taliban barred women from general hospitals in the capital. Before that, they could be treated in a ward that was exclusively reserved for women. So there was only one clinic left in Kabul that women could go to.

Forced seclusion

The forced seclusion of women often triggered stress , isolation and depression , which threw the harmony in the family off balance. A survey of 160 women found that 97 percent had symptoms of major depression. 71 percent complained of a deterioration in their physical well-being. Latifa, a Kabul writer, wrote:

“The apartment is like a prison or a hospital. The silence weighs heavily on all of us. Since none of us do anything, we have nothing to talk about. Unable to reveal our feelings, we withdraw into our own fear and despair. Since we are all sitting in the same black hole, it makes no sense to repeat over and over again that we cannot see clearly. "

The Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan ( RAWA ) specifically addressed these issues. The organization was founded by Meena Keshwar Kamal , who was murdered in 1987 at the age of 30.

Punish

Punishments were mostly carried out in public, either as a solemn spectacle in sports stadiums and marketplaces or as spontaneous beatings on the street. Civilians lived in fear of harsh punitive measures; Women who violated regulations were often victims of violence. Examples:

  • In October 1996, the tip of a woman's thumb was cut off for wearing nail polish.
  • In December 1996, Sharia Radio reported that 225 women from Kabul had been arrested and punished for disregarding Sharia clothing regulations. The conviction was passed on by the tribunal and the women received lashes on the legs and back.
  • In May 1997, five women CARE International employees who were conducting studies for an emergency program with the authorization of the Home Office were forced out of their cars by members of the Religious Police . The guards used a public address system to insult and harass them before beating the women with metal rods and leather whips 1.5 meters in length.
Public execution by the Taliban of a woman named Zarmeena in the Ghazi Stadium , Kabul, November 16, 1999. The accompanying film can be viewed here.
  • In 1999 a mother of seven was executed in front of 30,000 spectators in Kabul's Ghazi Stadium for murdering her abusive husband (see right). She was detained for three years and extensively tortured before she was executed. Still, in an effort to protect her daughter (reportedly the real offender), she refused to plead innocence.
  • When the Taliban raided a woman who was secretly running a school in her apartment, they beat the students, threw the teacher down the stairs and arrested them. The Taliban threatened to publicly stone her family if she refused to sign a written declaration of allegiance to the Taliban and its laws.
  • The still young Bibi Aisha had her nose and ears cut off by her husband and member of the Taliban in 2009 because she had fled from her violent father-in-law and his family. In 2010 she received a nasal epithesis from doctors in Los Angeles . A portrait of the 18-year-old was named Press Photo of the Year 2010.

From 2021

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In September 2021, the Taliban made niqab compulsory for women at universities.

Pupils in the seventh to twelfth grades were excluded from school for an indefinite period. The Ministry of Women, previously located in Kabul, was abolished; instead, the Ministry for the Preservation of Virtue and Suppression of Vice was established in the building . Its religious police brutally suppressed women during the first Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001.

At the end of December 2021, the Taliban government spokesman announced that women traveling in a car would have to wear a hijab . From a distance of around 72 kilometers, a male companion is also required.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ This is the strategy the Taliban are pursuing. In: deutschlandfunk.de. August 27, 2021, accessed August 30, 2021 .
  2. ^ A b c Nancy Hatch Dupree: Afghan Women under the Taliban In: William Maley: Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban . Hurst, London 2001, ISBN 0-8147-5586-0 , ISBN 0-7864-1090-6 , pp. 145-166.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Peter Marsden: The Taliban: War, religion and the new order in Afghanistan . Zed Books, London 1998, ISBN 1-85649-522-1 , pp. 88-101.
  4. ↑ a b c M. J. Gohari: The Taliban: Ascent to Power . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2000, ISBN 0-19-579560-1 , pp. 108-110.
  5. ↑ Ron Synovitz: Afghanistan: Author Awaits Happy Ending To 'Sewing Circles Of Herat' ( Memento from June 30, 2004 in the Internet Archive ), Radio Free Europe , March 31, 2004.
  6. ↑ a b Christina Lamb: Woman poet 'slain for her verse' . In: The Sunday Times , November 13, 2005.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Michael Griffin (2001). Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban movement in Afghanistan . London: Pluto Press, pp6-11 / 159-165.
  8. ↑ a b some of the restrictions imposed by Taliban in Afghanistan
  9. ↑ a b Restrictions Placed on Women by the Taliban ( Memento of October 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ^ Butcher, Bolt: Two Hundred Years of Foreign Failure in Afghanistan . David Loyn, ISBN 978-0-09-192140-8 , p. 235
  11. ^ Afghan women tell tales of brutality . oocities.org
  12. ↑ Chronology of Events January 1995 - February 1997 . UNHCR
  13. ↑ Rashid: Taliban . 2000, p. 106
  14. ^ Taliban sack all female civil servants, teachers .
  15. ^ Butcher, Bolt: Two Hundred Years of Foreign Failure in Afghanistan . David Loyn, ISBN 978-0-09-192140-8 , p. 243
  16. ↑ a b c d Latifa: My forbidden face: Growing up under the Taliban . UK: Virago Press pp. 29-107.
  17. ^ Afghan Women's Request for Recognition at the UN
  18. ↑ Rashid: Taliban . 2000, p. 71
  19. ↑ Women in Afghanistan: The violations continue Amnesty International accessed 12/11/07
  20. ↑ Zarmina'S Story
  21. ^ A b Anna-Maria Wallner: World Press Photo: Is that an argument for war? In: DiePresse.com. February 11, 2011, accessed January 26, 2018 .
  22. ↑ afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com
  23. ↑ Afghanistan: Taliban issue Nikab compulsory for women at universities. In: The mirror. Retrieved September 5, 2021 .
  24. ↑ Can Merey: Powerless Afghan Women. How the Taliban government silences women. In: t-online.de. September 24, 2021, accessed September 24, 2021 .
  25. ^ Taliban dissolve independent electoral commission in Afghanistan. Der Standard , December 26, 2021, accessed the same day.