Women
Judges, Sportswomen, Journalists And Businesswomen Have Been Facing Threats from
Taliban
Main
Points:
1. More than 3,000 women were
killed by Taliban from 2010 to 2020.
2. Taliban government minister
says a woman should not be a minister.
3. Taliban minister says women
are only fit to give birth and stay home.
4. Out of 700 women
journalists only 39 are presently working in TVs.
-----
New Age Islam Staff Writer
23 November 2021
In Afghanistan, the rule of Taliban has not
brought any change especially for women though in the beginning and before they
came to power, the Taliban had repeatedly promised that they would honour
women’s rights in the country. Though
officially they say that they will honour women’s rights, in practice they have
not shown any change in their policy towards women. There is little difference in what they did
before they came to power and what they are doing after coming to power.
Women were killed, tortured and sexually
attacked by the Taliban in the decade from 2010 to 2020 for defying their code
of conduct on dress, education and jobs. According to UNAMA Annual Reports, a
total of 3,435 women died by the insurgents in Afghan from 2010 to 2020.
The brutality and repression against women
of Afghanistan continued unabated though the Taliban tried to portray a tolerant
image of themselves post ascension. Persons of former Afghani national army and
police, professionals, businesswomen, judges and journalists are being hounded
and threatened by the Taliban for raising their voices in favour of women.
Out of 700 women journalists working in
national TV channels, only 39 are working because of the threats and
harassment.
Female judges are being watched and followed
by the Taliban government for giving judgments in favour of women. The working
women are not directly told to remain at home but are indirectly being
threatened and being advised by the Taliban to stay at home for their own
safety. Women players are being hunted down and identified especially those who
participated in international competitions.
The
Taliban have no woman minister in their new cabinet. They say that a woman
cannot be a minister and they are only fit to give birth. This is the way of
thinking of an organization that claims that Islam gives women a place of
honour. With the ascension of power, the Taliban have shown that they have not
changed so far as their policy towards women is concerned.
In this article on the plight of Afghan
women in Taliban ruled Afghanistan, Sanchita Bhattacharya gives a detailed
account of the insecurity and harassment Afghan women face today.
-----
Afghan
Women: The Endangered Sex
By Sanchita Bhattacharya
22 Nov 2021,
On
November 13, 2021, two female officers affiliated with the former Afghan
National Army were found dead in Gardez, the capital of Paktia Province. Sources
indicated that the killing took place on November 12.
On November 6, 2021, the Taliban stated
that rights activist and university lecturer, Frozan Safi, was killed in the
northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in Balkh Province. Reports indicate that the woman
received a call – an invitation to join an evacuation flight – and was picked
up by a car, only to be found dead later. There are conflicting reports
regarding the actual number of her dead associates, with some suggesting that
Safi and three other women were killed, while others suggest Safi and another
female were found dead.
Afghanistan Women Image: Pixabay
-----
On September 4, 2021, a pregnant
Policewoman, Banu Negar, was mutilated and killed, suspectedly by the Taliban,
in front of her husband and children in Firozkoh, the capital of Ghor Province.
On August 3, 2021, Taliban terrorists
killed a 21 years old woman, Nazanin, in the Samar Qandian village of Balkh
District in Balkh Province, for dressing ‘inappropriately.’
On July 12, 2021, a woman, identified as
Najia, was killed by Taliban cadres in Faryab Province as she refused to cook
for them.
These incidents are not in isolation.
Though no official data is available for the period after June 30, 2021,
according to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP),
based on open media sources, at least 15 women have been killed and two injured
by insurgents since July 1, 2021 (data till November 21, 2021). These numbers,
however, are likely to be gross underestimates of the true level of violence
targeted against women. Indeed, the United Nations (UN) Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in its 2020 Afghanistan
Humanitarian Needs Overview, noted,
Women across Afghanistan continue to be
subject to high rates of violence related to their gender, although this
remains difficult to quantify due to suspected underreporting and overall lack
of data.
Meanwhile, according to the United Nations
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan’s (UNAMA’s) Afghanistan 2021 Midyear Update
on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, released on July 26, 2021, at
least 219 women had been killed and 508 were injured between January 1 and June
30, 2021. In the corresponding period of 2020, at least 139 women were killed
and 261 injured, registering an increase of 82 per cent in overall casualties
(deaths+ injuries).
Women killed by Insurgents in Afghanistan:
2010-2021
Year |
Female Death |
2010 |
98 |
2011 |
166 |
2012 |
301 |
2013 |
235 |
2014 |
298 |
2015 |
333 |
2016 |
341 |
2017 |
359 |
2018 |
350 |
2019 |
345 |
2020 |
390 |
2021 (till June 30) |
219 |
Total |
3435 |
Source for data between
2010 and 2020: UNAMA Annual Reports
Source for 2021 data: UNAMA Mid-year Report 2021
Significantly, year 2020 recorded the
maximum of 390 female fatlities in a year in insurgency-linked violence since
UNAMA began systematic documentation of such data in 2010. UNAMA's 2020 Annual
report noted,
Women continued to be gravely harmed by the
armed conflict in a multitude of ways in 2020, including through death, injury,
and sexual violence. Women also bore the brunt of the broader effects of the
armed conflict which negatively impacted their enjoyment of a wide range of
human rights, including freedom of movement and access to education,
healthcare, and justice, and the right not to be discriminated against on the
basis of sex or gender.
UNAMA's Afghanistan 2021 Midyear Update on
Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict noted that the reasons behind
violence against women included:
Professional affiliation (Afghan National
Police officers, penitentiary staff, judges, media professionals);
accused of supporting the Government or
Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), spying for ANSF;
Accused by the Taliban of "immoral
conduct", adultery. Also, illiteracy and low levels of public awareness;
outmoded patterns of marriage; corruption and abuse of state positions; women's
limited access to justice; the lack of security and perceptions that violence
against women is 'normal,' resulted in violence against women in Afghanistan.
Interestingly, since they took over power on
August 15, 2021, the Taliban have sought to portray themselves as more tolerant
than their global reputation suggests. In their first press conference held on
August 17, 2021, the Taliban categorically declared, “we will honour women's
rights but within the norms of Islamic law.”
On the contrary, and as expected, incidents
of brutality and repression continue to be reported. Such incidents of
brutality and abuse, apart from the killings already mentioned, included the
September 8 incident, when many women came out into the streets of Kabul
demanding equal rights and participation of female members in government, they
were lashed with whips and beaten with batons that emit electric shocks, by
Taliban fighters. Earlier, on September 7, the Taliban locked tens of women in
the basement of Azizi Bank to prevent them from joining protesters in Kabul
streets.
Further, Taliban forces have been mounting
surveillance of women working in various fields and targeting them in various
ways. As reported on October 21, 2021, Taliban officials have recovered
personal information of more than 200 female judges, who still remain in
Afghanistan, from court records. Susan Glazebrook, President of the judges'
association and a justice of the Supreme Court of New Zealand observed,
The women judges of Afghanistan are under
threat for applying the law… They are under threat because they have made
rulings in favour of women according to law in family violence, custody and
divorce cases…
Women journalists and media personnel are also
in grave danger from the Taliban. 48 hours after the Taliban took control of
Kabul, women reporters with privately-owned TV channels such as Tolo News,
Ariana News, Kabul News, etc., had dared to resume talking on the air and going
out to cover events. But media executives quickly found that they were being
threatened and intimidated. In one such incident, on August 25, 2021, Nahid
Bashardost, a reporter for the independent news agency Pajhwok, was beaten by
the Taliban while reporting near Kabul Airport. Also, as reported on August 19,
Taliban forces barred two female journalists Khadija Amin and Shabnam Dawran,
both with the public broadcaster Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA), from
working at the station's offices. Many female journalists are fleeing
Afghanistan due to fear of repression. A September 20 report indicated that
just 39 women journalists were still formally working in privately-owned radio
and TV stations in. That’s a precipitous drop from the 700 women.
On
August 25, 2021, Taliban spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, announced that women
should not go to work for their own safety. He argued that the measure was
necessary because the Taliban's soldiers "keep changing and are not
trained."
Reports on October 20, 2021, indicated that
the coach of the Afghan junior women's national volleyball team, on conditions
of anonymity, stated that, since their takeover, the Taliban had tried to
identify and hunt down women athletes. The militants have been even more keenly
on the look-out for members of the Afghan women's volleyball team, who competed
in foreign and domestic competitions, and appeared in media programs in the
past.
On September 17, 2021, the Taliban replaced
the Ministry of Women's Affairs with the Ministry for Promotion of Virtue and
Prevention of Vice, which was disbanded in 2001. For Afghan women, this change
in Ministry is an official reminder that the Taliban have not changed, and
intend to bring back the oppressive and discriminatory order of their first
regime.
Indeed, the Taliban are unabashedly
expressing regressive and anti-women views. On September 9, 2021, in an
interview to Tolo News, Taliban spokesperson, Sayed Zekrullah Hashim thus
declared,
A woman can't be a minister, it is like you
put something on her neck that she can't carry. It is not necessary for a woman
to be in the cabinet, they should give birth & women protesters can't
represent all women in AFG [Afghanistan].
The
Taliban formed an all-male interim government on September 7, 2021, as Taliban
spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, now acting Culture and Information Minister,
announced the formation of a 33-member Interim Cabinet. Later, on September 21,
2021, another 17 new members were added to the Cabinet. No woman was included.
Taliban’s preceding rule from 1996 to 2001
caused severe havoc in the lives of Afghan women and girls. The regime was
notorious for violence against common Afghan women, with frequent incidents of
lashing, whipping, public executions, stoning, acid attacks and sexual
violence. The situation improved dramatically, once the Taliban was ousted from
power in 2001, but began to deteriorate as the Taliban started to regain lost
ground.
With the Taliban back in power since August
15, 2021, the scenario looks like a rewind to the past, with the likelihood
that violence and brutality against women will increasingly be considered
‘normal’. At present, frightful incidents are being occasionally reported as
isolated cases. The everyday strain in the lives of Afghan women are largely
unseen, and can only multiply.
Source:
India Blooms
-----
Sanchita
Bhattacharya is a Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African
Muslim News, Arab
World News, South
Asia News, Indian
Muslim News, World Muslim
News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism