Female employees in public offices face ‘severe restrictions’ by Taliban
New Age Islam News Bureau
14 Nov2024
· Female employees in public offices face ‘severe restrictions’ by Taliban
· How the Taliban are erasing Afghanistan’s women – photo essay
· Taliban’s crude and cruel silencing of Afghan women
· Africa observes Pan African Women’s Day
· Iran announces ‘treatment clinic’ for women who defy strict hijab laws
· Girl students in Swat oppose boys’ college on their campus land
· Maryam Nawaz denies having throat cancer
· Woman arrested for keeping birds worth RM40,000 without approval
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/female-employees-public-restrictions-taliban/d/133711
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Female employees in public offices face ‘severe restrictions’ by Taliban
By Hasiba Atakpal
NOVEMBER 14, 2024
KABUL, Afghanistan — Women employed in public offices voiced frustration over a wave of restrictions imposed by the Taliban, reporting mounting pressure to adhere to strict dress codes and citing lower salaries compared to their male counterparts.
Many women who previously worked under Afghanistan’s former government have lost their jobs entirely, as Taliban edicts continue to erode female participation in public life. Some of these women, now confined to their homes, say they are struggling to make ends meet in the face of economic hardship.
Madina, a former employee, says she has been left in a state of uncertainty since the Taliban returned to power. “With the Taliban in power, women have been removed from all areas of society,” she said, using a pseudonym out of fear for her safety. “Even our voices feel silenced in Afghanistan.”
Despite broad bans on women’s employment in both government and private sectors, exceptions persist in a few areas, notably security, education, and healthcare. However, even in these fields, women report severe restrictions and social pressures.
Shazia, an employee in the Taliban-run Interior Ministry, said that her work in a Kabul security unit, where she conducts searches, has become increasingly challenging. “I held this role during the previous government, and the workload is just as high now,” she said, explaining that she earns far less than she did before. “I’m working out of necessity — I have six children, and my husband was killed. The pay is low, and there are strict demands regarding dress and hijab.”
The Taliban’s Interior Ministry recently reported that around 2,000 women remain employed within its ranks, working in areas such as the General Directorate of Passport, public services, and checkpoints. Yet, even for those still employed, the demands of the job are growing alongside mounting restrictions.
In a country grappling with political upheaval, these women continue to navigate uncertainty — often with no choice but to endure.
Source:amu.tv
https://amu.tv/136993/
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How the Taliban are erasing Afghanistan’s women – photo essay
14 Nov 2024
Earlier this year, I spent 10 weeks travelling with the photographer Kiana Hayeri across seven provinces of Afghanistan, speaking to more than 100 Afghan women and girls about how their lives had changed since the Taliban swept back to power three years ago.
Hayeri and I both lived in Afghanistan for years, and remained here after the Taliban took control in August 2021. In the past few years, we have seen women’s rights and freedoms, already severely curtailed, swept away as Taliban edicts have fallen like hammer blows.
In just over three years, Afghan women have been banned from nearly every aspect of public life: schools, universities, most workplaces – even parks and bathhouses. From Kandahar, the birthplace and political headquarters of the Taliban, the group’s leaders have dictated that women must cover their faces in public, always be accompanied by a man and never let their voices be heard in public.
As foreign women, we still carried the rare privilege of freedom of movement (although I doubt we could now travel as we did at the beginning of this year), which has nearly disappeared for the 14 million Afghan women and girls across the country. Meeting women while ensuring their security was a daily challenge.
Each province we travelled to revealed different shades of oppression. In some areas – in the south and east in particular – women were already living under very restricted conditions before the Taliban’s official return, with many saying that now, at least, there was no more violence. In other places, the sudden loss of freedom has been devastating.
For many, the Taliban’s refusal to allow girls to attend secondary education has been the hardest blow.
We met Gulsom, 17, who survived a suicide attack on her school just a few months before the Taliban came back into power. Severely wounded and left unable to walk, she must now use a wheelchair and had to continue her studies at an underground school.
But Gulsom insisted: “My will to study and work hard has increased.”
Yet her younger sister, who is 14, seems to have lost hope. She has left the house only a few times in more than two years.
Gulsom said: “[In 2021] she went to school on the day they were supposed to open, but she returned crying. [The Taliban] fired [shots] to disperse the girls, as they were asking when will the schools would open. She said the Taliban beat two girls and warned them not to leave their homes.”
Since then, she has sunk into a deep depression. Gulsom said: “She always asks me, ‘What is the use of studying this much? At the end you will die. I don’t work hard, I will die; and you work hard, you will die too. I want to die in peace.’”
We spoke to many girls who no longer see the value of trying to continue their education at home when they cannot graduate from school, cannot work and cannot imagine a future for themselves.
For some of the young women we met, being barred from school now means they have to try to find a job or get married, like the young women in one province who spend their days sewing school uniforms for the young girls still allowed into the primary classroom.
We also saw how the economic crisis gripping the country since the Taliban took power has proved catastrophic for many girls and women.
At only 14, Maryam has been forced to become engaged to her landlord’s son in exchange for a well and solar panels, after her family could not find work.
Her family was part of the wave of returnees expelled from Pakistan in late 2023. As undocumented refugees, they were harassed into leaving by the Pakistani police. They are now struggling to rebuild their lives, with few job prospects and virtually no social security assistance.
“I went to a madrasa in Pakistan, but here I cannot go,” she told us. “I’m good at reading and writing. When I heard that we were coming back to Afghanistan, we were very happy and excited, but I’d rather live in Pakistan – there I could at least pursue my education.”
In Zabul and Kabul, we visited hospitals and saw how malnutrition was one of the most corrosive effects of the poverty faced by many Afghan women and their families.
Fatima is only two and a half years old, and weighs 5kg (11lb). When we met her in a malnutrition ward in the suburbs of Kabul, she had been admitted to hospital for the third time because her family did not have enough money to buy food.
Gender inequality is fuelling this crisis: nurses told us that they were treating more female children because when food is scarce, families prioritised feeding the boys.
It was important for us to look beyond the traditional representations of Afghan women as passive victims of the Taliban and show them as active players in their own lives.
We wanted to show their strength in the face of this absurd and brutal regime, including through acts of resistance: attending underground education networks or creating informal gatherings – whether it is a snowball fight, a birthday party, art classes or henna painting.
These acts, though small, are profound forms of resistance against the Taliban’s efforts to strip away and deny their humanity – perhaps the deepest form of violence that is being inflicted against millions of women and girls across the country.
Many are battling against a rising tide of despair. Zahra, a young women’s rights activist, organised online protests after the Taliban began brutally repressing demonstrations: “Since we cannot protest in the streets any more, we do it from home: with the masks, with the hijab, in front of the camera.
“Five to 10 women do these videos, and we then send them to the media, in order to still raise our voices,” she told us.
Yet in the months since we interviewed her in Kabul, she has lost hope that her activism could change anything and has left the country to live in exile. “Now I see there is no way to stay here; I would waste my time, waste my life,” she says. “There is no improvement possible. I cannot be a human being here. There is nothing.”
After 10 weeks of listening to women’s stories, we came away from Afghanistan certain that what is happening there is more than repression: it is an attempt to erase women completely.
On 18 June, Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, backed calls to codify gender apartheid in Afghanistan as a crime under international law, defining what was happening as “a profound rejection of the full humanity of women and girls” based on their gender alone.
Even in those provinces where more sympathetic Taliban commanders looked the other way, allowing underground schools to continue and for women to work and move around the streets more easily, their freedom is still dependant on the decisions and whims of men in power.
In Afghanistan, where women’s every freedom has been repressed, where they cannot show their faces any longer or make their voices heard in public, it is more important than ever to carry their voices, ensuring they do not disappear into silence.
Today, their hearts are tightened not only by the weight of repression but by the indifference of a world that seems to have forgotten them. Their stories deserve to be heard.
Source:theguardian.com
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/nov/14/women-girls-afghanistan-taliban-repression-interviewed-photographed-100-afghan-women
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Taliban’s crude and cruel silencing of Afghan women
By ANOUSSA SALIM
NOVEMBER 14, 2024
Afghan women are being silenced under Taliban rule. Image: YouTube Screengrab / NBC News
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Since the Taliban’s return to power, Afghan women have faced severe restrictions on participation in education, employment and public life.
Women aren’t allowed to move in public spaces unless accompanied by a male relative. In addition, the Vice and Virtue Ministry reported a ban on the public display of any images depicting living beings, including in official media broadcasts.
Recently, the Taliban Ministry of the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has introduced a new law that restricts Afghan women from performing Takbir, a verbal form of expression of faith.
This restriction erases not only a woman’s fundamental right to worship but also her very identity and existence as an autonomous being. Under these laws, Afghan women are now reduced to statues, visible in form but mute in essence, a stark symbol of the Taliban’s crushing dominance over their lives and freedom.
Just in a few years, Afghan women have witnessed extreme hardship in their societal roles excepted from the Taliban. The regime has now enacted an even graver restriction, silencing women entirely by making it illegal for them to hear or express their voices in public.
According to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
This article was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 to recognize the fundamental human rights of thought, speech, and expression.
Afghanistan’s new law restricting the voice of women has demonstrated the basic right to think, speak, and have a voice in society. The Taliban government restricts the public display of women’s voices, including laws prohibiting women from singing or reciting poetry aloud in public.
Historically, music and poetry have been vital components of Afghan culture, often used as powerful forms of self-expression and social commentary.
The Taliban view such public displays of women’s voices as inherently sinful, aligning them with what they deem “un-Islamic” activities. The public appearance of women’s voices through music, speech and poetry is a form of rebellion against the rigid interpretation of Islamic law, which seeks to impose across all aspects of life.
The ban on women’s voices isn’t just a symbolic act; it’s an attempt to erase women from the cultural and social fabric of Afghanistan. With the silencing of women in public spaces, the Taliban seeks to maintain a patriarchal society in which men hold dominant roles and women are relegated to the private sphere.
This legal restriction also underscores the broader authoritarian nature of the Taliban’s governance, as they seek to impose their narrow vision of morality on the entire population, with little regard for individual freedoms or rights.
Recently, at the UN General Assembly, Hollywood actress Meryl Streep stated, “Cats have more freedom than women in Afghanistan”, in an appeal to the international community to stop the Taliban’s repression. The actress indicated that even animals have more rights now in Afghanistan following the increased restrictions on women.
The Taliban’s stance on women’s voices is also indicative of a broader pattern of silencing dissent and curtailing freedom of expression.
While the international community has denounced the Taliban’s actions, there is little concrete action to address the dilemma of Afghan women. Sanctions, diplomatic pressure and humanitarian aid have not been enough to reverse the oppressive policies or to encourage the Taliban to change course.
Since the group’s return to power in August 2021, women in Afghanistan have witnessed a systematic dismantling of their rights. A chilling example of this mentality came from Syed Ghaisuddin, the Taliban’s minister of education, when he was asked why women needed to be confined to their homes.
His response was, “It’s like having a flower, or a rose. You water it and keep it at home for yourself, to look at it and smell it. It [a woman] is not supposed to be taken out of the house to be smelled.”
The Taliban has rolled back hard-won freedoms in education, employment and mobility, relegating women to the private sphere and erasing their presence from public life.
Source:asiatimes.com
https://asiatimes.com/2024/11/talibans-crude-cruel-silencing-of-afghan-women/
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Africa observes Pan African Women’s Day
November 14, 2024
31 July is Pan African Women’s Day and 2019 marked the 57th anniversary of the Pan-African Women’s Organization (PAWO), the Specialised Agency of the AU dedicated to gender equality and women’s empowerment
In his statement to commemorate the day, the AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat noted amongst other things the import of the day pointing out that Pan African Women’s Day is a day to celebrate and acknowledge the Foremothers of Africa who gallantly fought for the liberation and development of this continent. He also reiterated the important role of African women who continue to be the backbone of our economies as farmers, entrepreneurs, traders, scientists and leaders in many other sectors.
The Chairperson noted that one of his priorities remains the full implementation of the policy organs’ call to have gender parity in the workforce of the AU by 2025 and committee that he will continue to demand dignity and protection for all women and girls who have been forcibly displaced in Africa; remarking that it is the collective responsibility of Africans to hold themselves and their leaders accountable to deliver on the gender equality and women’s empowerment commitments.
Source:au.int
https://au.int/en/articles/africa-observes-pan-african-womens-day
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Iran announces ‘treatment clinic’ for women who defy strict hijab laws
14 Nov 2024
The Iranian state has said that it plans to open a treatment clinic for women who defy the mandatory hijab laws that require women to cover their heads in public.
The opening of a “hijab removal treatment clinic” was announced by Mehri Talebi Darestani, the head of the Women and Family Department of the Tehran Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. She said the clinic will offer “scientific and psychological treatment for hijab removal”.
Iranian women and human rights groups have expressed outrage at the announcement.
Sima Sabet, a UK-based Iranian journalist who was a target of an Iranian assassination attempt last year, said the move is “shameful”, adding that: “The idea of establishing clinics to ‘cure’ unveiled women is chilling, where people are separated from society simply for not conforming to the ruling ideology.”
Iranian human rights lawyer Hossein Raeesi said that the idea of a clinic to treat women who did not comply with hijab laws is “neither Islamic and nor is it aligned with Iranian law”. He also said it was alarming that the statement came from the Women and Family Department of the Tehran Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which falls under the direct authority of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
The news has since spread among the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protest groups and female students, sparking fear and defiance.
One young woman from Iran, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “It won’t be a clinic, it will be a prison. We are struggling to make ends meet and have power outages, but a piece of cloth is what this state is worried about. If there was a time for all of us to come back to the streets, it’s now or they’ll lock us all up.”
The announcement about the opening of the clinic comes after state media reported that a university student who was arrested after stripping down to her underwear on a in Tehran, reportedly in protest at being assaulted by campus security guards for breaches of the hijab law, had been transferred to a psychiatric hospital. Human rights groups including Amnesty International say there is evidence of torture, violence and forced medication being used on protesters and political dissidents deemed mentally unstable by the authorities and placed in state-run psychiatric services.
Human rights groups have also expressed alarm at the crackdown on women who are considered to be in breach of Iran’s mandatory dress code, saying there has been a recent spate of arrests, forced disappearances and the shuttering of businesses linked to perceived breaches of the hijab laws.
Last week, the Center for Human Rights in Iran highlighted the case of Roshanak Molaei Alishah, a 25-year-old woman who it said was arrested after confronting a man who harassed her on the street over her hijab. The NGO said her current whereabouts is unknown.
Source:theguardian.com
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/nov/14/iran-announces-treatment-clinic-for-women-who-defy-strict-hijab-laws
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Girl students in Swat oppose boys’ college on their campus land
November 13, 2024
SWAT: A large number of girls students on Tuesday took to the streets to protest the government’s decision to allocate land of their college for the construction of a boys’ college in Khwazakhela tehsil here.
The students chanted slogans against the government’s decision and called for its reversal.
The protesting students said that their college building had remained under the use of security forces for 15 years, and when the college was made operational, miscreants torched its 15 classrooms.
“When the college building was under the occupation of the security forces, we were forced to attend classes in a madressah that lacked the necessary facilities,” Ishrat Bibi, a BS student, said.
Currently, she said the students were attending to their classes in tents as the burned classrooms could not be reconstructed till date.
The students deplored that instead of addressing their plight, the government’s recent decision to allocate a portion of the college’s land for a boys’ college showed its lack of commitment towards the promotion of girls’ education.
The girls said that there was ample government land in Khwazakhela for constructing the boys’ college.
“While we’ve been waiting for funds to reconstruct our destroyed classrooms, the government seems to have funds readily available for a new college for boys. We are not opposed to building the college, but it should not come at the expense of our campus,” Hifsa, another student, asserted.
The protesters warned of staging a sit-in if their college’s land was allocated for boys’ college.
When contacted, higher education department’s regional director Inayatullah Khan told Dawn that the girls’ college campus spanned 53 kanals of land though KP regulations stipulated a requirement of only 20 kanals for a college.
“The department has decided to allocate 20 kanals of land for the boys’ college, leaving about 30 kanals for the girls’ college. Additionally, approximately Rs70 million have been approved for the reconstruction of the burned classrooms, work on which would begin soon,” he said.
Source:dawn.com
https://www.dawn.com/news/1871972/girl-students-in-swat-oppose-boys-college-on-their-campus-land
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Maryam Nawaz denies having throat cancer
By Murtaza Ali Shah
November 14, 2024
LONDON: Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz has refuted recent media reports claiming she has throat cancer.
Speaking at a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) event in London with her father, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Maryam addressed the gathering organised by PML-N UK President Ahsan Dar.
She confirmed that she had been in Geneva for medical check-ups, reassuring supporters that she is cancer-free and intends to return to Pakistan in two days.
“I have been working non-stop for eight months. I have been suffering from Parathyroid. This can be cured only in Switzerland or America, I was in Geneva for my check-ups.”
“I can confirm I don’t have throat cancer as reported,” she stated.
“I didn’t want to play victim about my matter but I have been compelled to address this. I am going back to Pakistan in two days.”
Meanwile, Nawaz, addressing PML-N workers, expressed optimism about Pakistan’s future, attributing progress to the hard work of his brother, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and Maryam.
He praised the dedication of PML-N workers and lamented missed opportunities for Pakistan, especially the potential to join the G20, which he linked to the country’s political setbacks.
Reflecting on his 2017 disqualification by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case, Nawaz criticised retired judges, including hinting at Saqib Nisar and Justice Ijazul Ahsan, whom he blamed for derailing Pakistan’s economic growth.
“You are responsible for the destruction of Pakistan. All of you played a dirty role. Pakistan could have become the ‘Asian Tiger’ today if it was not for what you did. You did a huge injustice to Pakistan, for your selfish motives,” he asserted.
Nawaz further emphasised PML-N’s vision for Pakistan, noting that the party had consistently led the country toward prosperity whenever in power.
“Shehbaz Sharif is making all-out efforts to steer the country towards prosperity. He works days and night for the betterment of Pakistan,” Sharif added.
Maryam said that Pakistan stock market is setting new records, and Pakistan reserves are going up. “The whole world is looking at Pakistan and want to invest in Pakistan. Every new day, we hope, will bring prosperity.”
She acknowledged the challenges, saying, “We don’t have a magic wand to get the country right.”
“Nawaz Sharif is asked why he couldn’t become the prime minister. The fact is his brother is now the premier of Pakistan, his daughter is Punjab’s chief minister and he is leader of the team. It’s under his leadership that we saved Pakistan from being going default,” she added
Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif also spoke at the event, accusing Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of radicalising overseas supporters, leading to confrontations.
Earlier, PTI and PML-N workers clashed outside Avenfield flats, where police intervened to restore order after 20 minutes of unrest.
Source:thenews.com.pk
https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1250943-maryam-nawaz-denies-cancer-rumours-nawaz-sharif-blames-economic-setbacks-on-judges
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Woman arrested for keeping birds worth RM40,000 without approval
BERNAMA
14-11- 2024
KOTA BHARU: The General Operations Force (PGA) confiscated three types of birds that were kept without approval, worth nearly RM40,000 in Kampung Dusun Durian, Tawang, Bachok today.
PGA Southeast Brigade Commander Datuk Nik Ros Azhan Ab Hamid said the seizure was carried out by members of the 7th PGA Battalion together with the Department of Wildlife Protection and National Parks (Perhilitan) at a premises.
“The results of the inspection found that there were 11 White-rumped Shama (Murai Batu), one Luris Neck and seven Common Iora found in the premises without official storage documents from Perhilitan.
“The estimated value of the seizure was RM39,750 and the suspect, a 25-year-old woman, was arrested to assist in the investigation. The case is being investigated under the Wildlife Conservation Act 2010 (Act 716),“ he said in a statement yesterday.
He added that the suspect and the confiscated goods were taken to the Bachok District Police Headquarters for further action.
Source:thesun.my
https://thesun.my/malaysia-news/woman-arrested-for-keeping-birds-worth-rm40000-without-approval-EI13284437
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/female-employees-public-restrictions-taliban/d/133711