2023-08-15 09:08:13
Yogita Limaye BBC Afghanistan correspondent
August 15, 2023
image copyrightNava Jamshidi/BBC
“We will allow women to study and work within our structures and women will be very active in our society,” the Taliban declared in their first press conference shortly following taking power on August 15, 2021.
Two years on, the Taliban government has utterly broken those promises. Under their rule, women’s rights have been repressed among the most severe in the world – the Taliban leadership has introduced a series of draconian religious edicts, and some regional rulings continue to be fully enforced throughout Afghanistan.
At all these critical times, the BBC has been on the ground talking to girls and women in Afghanistan, documenting the grief, fear, hope and persistence in their shrinking lives and worlds.
September 2021 – Girls’ Secondary School closed
The Taliban first showed its attitude towards women a month following taking over power. Following a statement from the Ministry of Education, secondary schools were open to boys, with no mention of girls at all.
“Everywhere, we were told not to go to school,” a 17-year-old schoolgirl told us in Kabul at the time. “For 11 years, even with the risk of violence, I studied hard to become a doctor. Blow,” she sobbed, waving goodbye to her brother, who was leaving for school.
That same week, female employees of the Kabul municipal government were told by the mayor to stay at home, and only those jobs that men might not do were allowed to continue to be filled by women.
But some women still have hope. “They kept the universities open, so I think they’re going to change the policy soon,” a college student told us at the time.
At that time, we visited the headquarters of the Taliban’s morality police, The Ministry of the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. It is housed in the same compound that once housed the previous regime’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs – which was abolished a few weeks following the Taliban took power.
We were told that women might enter the department, but we saw none.
“Why did you close the girls’ school?” I asked a Taliban spokesman sitting in a courtyard surrounded by a group of Taliban fighters.
“It’s the girls who don’t go to school,” he replied.
When questioned, he said: “We will open girls’ schools across the country and we are working on improving security.”
December 2021 to March 2022 – travel restrictions, secondary education promises broken
image captiontext,
Girls’ schools in Kandahar, 2011 (top) vs. this week (bottom)
Women responded to the restrictions by taking to the streets of Afghan cities to demand the right to work and study. They were violently stopped by the Taliban government many times.
“I was beaten with wires,” one protester told us during an intimate meeting at her friend’s house. She kept changing locations for fear of being caught.
In January 2022, at least four female activists were detained — and beaten for weeks.
Restrictions are being implemented gradually. In December 2021, the Ministry of Punishment and Punishment of the Taliban government issued an order that women must be accompanied by close relatives of men when they travel more than 72 kilometers (45 miles).
Then, a glimmer of hope suddenly appeared.
On March 21, 2023, the Taliban education department announced that “all students” will be able to return to school at the beginning of the new term.
Multiple Taliban officials have told us that girls’ schools will reopen.
Two days later, a BBC team saw schoolgirls pouring into the Sayed ul Shuhada school. When they returned to the classroom, they wiped the dust on the table, talking and laughing excitedly. After a few minutes, however, the atmosphere changed.
A local Taliban education official forwarded a WhatsApp message to the principal saying the girls’ high school would remain closed until further notice.
Many students burst into tears. “What kind of country is this? What crime have we committed?” said a student named Fatima.
The Taliban government has been careful in explaining the move – calling it a return to traditional Islamic and Afghan values. At the same time, many ultra-conservative clerics, tribal elders and their followers are the backup forces helping the Taliban seize power in Afghanistan. We are told that there is a fear within the government that any move that goes once morest the faith of the elders might lose that support.
May 2022 – New dress code enforced
image copyrightNava Jamshidi/BBC
image captiontext,
Graffiti in Kabul before the Taliban came to power (above) read: “Be brave! Afghan women are no longer silent”; now it has been replaced by a slogan (below): “If an Afghan woman knew her worth, she would wrap herself up”
Less than two months later, on May 7, 2022, the government announced a decree, backed by Taliban supreme leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, requiring women to go from head to toe Feet wrapped in clothing.
“Women who are neither too old nor too young must cover their face, except for their eyes,” the decree reads.
The decree also requires male family members to ensure the obedience of women and girls or face action.
We might see during our field visits that the number of women on the street and how they dressed changed.
Women who once wore long colorful tunics, headscarves, jeans and high heels told us they have moved on to wearing loose black kaftans, hoods, surgical masks to cover their faces, and sneakers or boots .
Still more women began to wear the black “burka” (long burqa).
“We don’t care what we wear if it means they’ll allow us to go to school and work,” one of them explained.
At the same time that women are starting to disappear from public life, impoverished women, deprived of the right to work and the ability to provide for their families, are increasingly turning up on the streets, begging for help.
We’re starting to hear that more and more girls are being forced into early marriage by their families because they can’t get an education or find a job.
October-December 2022 – University, public places and NGO work banned
image captiontext,
Lake Qargha in September 2020 (top) and August 2023 (bottom)
In October 2022, there have been no major new restrictions for several months. When they allowed girls to sit for university entrance exams, including those who hadn’t completed their final year, hopes began to be revived.
In our conversations with Taliban leaders, divisions within the Taliban over women’s education became apparent.
“Some religious scholars have issues with girls going to school, and the government is trying to build consensus and address this issue,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told CNN in an interview.
But senior leaders in Kandahar continued to take a hard line. By the end of the year, women’s freedoms had shrunk considerably.
In November, a spokesman for the Ministry of Prosecution and Punishment told us that women have been banned from parks in Kabul because women do not obey Sharia law (Sharia law).
We see this kind of refereeing all the time, and following one city announces it, it’s often applied across Afghanistan — the park ban is exactly that.
When we visited the department this time, we were told that women were no longer allowed in – and that we, as foreign talents, were the exception.
audio captions,
Afghan singers abroad are increasingly using their music to express support for people living under Taliban rule.
Not far away, from the rooftop of a restaurant overlooking an amusement park in Kabul, we see fathers with their children, Taliban fighters and a group of boys having fun at night, but not a single woman .
Women are also banned from gyms, swimming pools and public baths.
“As girls in Afghanistan, we wake up every day to new bans,” a female student told us. “I was lucky to finish secondary school before the Taliban came, but now I worry that universities may be closed to women too. .”
She was right. On December 20, 2022, the Taliban Minister of Higher Education ordered that all public and private universities immediately suspend all female education until further notice.
Four days later, another harsh blow came. The Taliban’s economy ministry has told all local and international NGOs operating in Afghanistan to ask their female staff to stop coming to work or their licenses will be revoked.
July 2023 – beauty parlors banned
image copyrightNava Jamshidi/BBC
image captiontext,
A beauty salon that a woman cleans (top) and a secret beauty salon reopening in a residence (bottom)
Hair salons and beauty parlors are the last places where women can congregate without the Taliban watching.
But it was no surprise to most that the Taliban government announced on July 4 that the sites were closed.
An estimated 60,000 women are employed in hair and beauty salons.
A salon owner told us: “This is my family’s only source of income. My husband has health problems and cannot work. How will I feed my children?”
Despite the risks, she decided to open a beauty salon at home because, she said, she had no other options.
We see some women forced to stay at home, trying to find a life within the constraints. A number of secret underground schools are operating in parts of the country. Some NGOs still struggle to hire women while avoiding surveillance.
Women were allowed to work in a few fields such as security, public health, and arts and crafts.
And, despite the high risk of detention and violence, Afghan women still take to the streets from time to time to make their voices heard.
One of them told us: “We are not the women who were oppressed by the Taliban 20 years ago. We have changed and they have to accept it, even if it costs us our lives.”
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