Small groups of Afghan women on Friday staged rare demonstrations to mark International Women’s Day in private spaces, after a crackdown by Taliban authorities forced activists off the streets.

Since surging back to power in August 2021, Taliban authorities have imposed a strict interpretation of Islam, with women bearing the brunt of curbs the United Nations has labelled “gender apartheid”.

Women have been squeezed from public life, barred from travelling without a male relative and banned from certain jobs, secondary school and university as well as parks, fairs and gyms.

A handful of women in several provinces gathered to demand restrictions be lifted, according to activists from the Purple Saturdays group which protests Taliban curbs on women.

In northern Takhar province, images circulated by activists showed seven women holding papers obscuring their faces, reading “Rights, Justice, Freedom”.

No public protest

In Balkh province, several women also held up signs saying “Don’t give the Taliban a chance” in front of a banner reading, “Save Afghanistan Women”.

There were no reports of women’s protests in public spaces by Friday afternoon.

The UN mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, on Friday urged the Taliban to lift restrictions on women and girls, saying not doing so risked “further pushing the country into deeper poverty and isolation”.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said a recent report by the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan highlighting restrictions on women and girls was “propaganda”.

The Taliban have waged a systematic assault on the freedom of Afghanistan’s people, including women and girls experiencing “immeasurably cruel” oppression, the U.N.’s human rights chief said.
| Photo Credit: AP

The Taliban have waged a systematic assault on the freedom of Afghanistan’s people, including women and girls experiencing “immeasurably cruel” oppression, the U.N.’s human rights chief said on Tuesday.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said that human rights are in a state of collapse in Afghanistan more than two years after the Taliban returned to power and stripped back institutional protections at all levels. He urged U.N. member states to help fill the void.

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“The shocking level of oppression of Afghan women and girls is immeasurably cruel,” Mr. Turk said during a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. “Afghanistan has set a devastating precedent as the only country in the world where women and girls are denied access to secondary and higher education.”

The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, as U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from the country after more than two decades of war. They initially promised a more moderate approach than during they during their previous rule from 1996 to 2001 but gradually reimposed their harsh interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.

Along with excluding girls and women from education beyond sixth grade, most forms of employment and many public spaces, the Taliban have harassed or beaten women at checkpoints for failing to wear a hijab, or Islamic headscarf, according to a report Turk presented to the Human Rights Council. They have ordered women to return home from markets for shopping without a male guardian.

With female lawyers and judges excluded from working or practicing law, women and girls have less ability to obtain legal representation and access to justice, the report stated.

The Taliban edicts have prompted an international outcry. But officials, including the supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, have told other countries to stop interfering in Afghanistan’s internal affairs.

Nobody from the Taliban was immediately available for comment on the U.N. report.