In yet another draconian move to curtail women’s freedom in Afghanistan, the Taliban said it will close all national and foreign non-governmental groups in the country employing women. 

In a letter published on X on Sunday night, Afghanistan’s Economy Ministry warned that failure to comply with the latest order would lead to NGOs losing their license to operate in the country.

“The Ministry of Economy, as the authority for registering non-Emirati institutions, is responsible for coordinating, leading, and supervising all activities of domestic and foreign NGOs,” the post in Persian read.

“Therefore, once again, a follow-up circular has been issued to stop the work of female employees in non-Emirati and foreign institutions. In case of non-cooperation, all activities of the offending institution will be suspended and the activity license they received from this ministry will be cancelled,” it added.

وزارت اقتصاد منحیث مرجع ثبت و راجستر موسسات غیر امارتی، مسولیت انسجام، رهبری و نظارت تمامی فعالیت های انجو های داخلی و خارجی را به عهده دارد.
بناً یکبار دیگر طی متحدالمال تعقیبی در مورد توقف کار طبقه اناث در موسسات غیر امارتی داخلی و خارجی هدایت داده شده است. در صورت عدم همکاری… pic.twitter.com/kqiW7Re3an

— Ministry of Economy-Afghanistan (@economy_af) December 29, 2024

This comes two years after the Taliban told NGOs to suspend the employment of Afghan women, allegedly because they didn’t wear the Islamic headscarf correctly, according to a report by the Associated Press.

Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan three years ago, Afghan women have been excluded from almost every sphere of public life, including schools, universities, most workplaces – and even parks and bathhouses. The Taliban have already barred women from many jobs and most public spaces. They have also excluded them from education beyond sixth grade.

Earlier, the Taliban prohibited the construction of windows in residential buildings overlooking areas used by Afghan women. Announcing the move, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid explained in a statement on X, “Seeing women working in kitchens, in courtyards or collecting water from wells can lead to obscene acts.”

Image used for representative purpose only
| Photo Credit: AP

The Taliban said Thursday (September 26, 2024) it was absurd to accuse them of gender discrimination and other human rights violations, as four countries vow to hold Afghanistan’s rulers accountable under international law for their treatment of women and girls.

Australia, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands are set to start legal proceedings against the Taliban for violating a U.N. convention on women, to which Afghanistan is a party.

The countries launched the initiative on Wednesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, which is taking place in New York until Monday.

Despite promising more moderate rule after they seized power in 2021, the Taliban have barred women and girls from education beyond sixth grade, many public spaces and most jobs. In August, the Vice and Virtue Ministry issued laws banning women’s bare faces and prohibiting them from raising their voices in public.

More than 20 countries expressed their support Thursday for the proposed legal action against the Taliban.

“We condemn the gross and systematic human rights violations and abuses in Afghanistan, particularly the gender-based discrimination against women and girls,” the countries said.

Also Read:How will the morality law hit Afghan women?

“Afghanistan is responsible under international law for its ongoing gross and systematic violation of numerous obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,” they added.

The countries said they did not politically recognize the Taliban as the legitimate leaders of the Afghan population.

“Afghanistan’s failure to fulfill its human rights treaty obligations is a key obstacle to normalization of relations,” they said.

The Taliban’s deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said human rights were protected in Afghanistan and that nobody faced discrimination.

“Unfortunately, an attempt is being made to spread propaganda against Afghanistan through the mouths of several fugitive (Afghan) women and misrepresent the situation,” he said on social media platform X.

“It is absurd to accuse the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan of violating human rights and gender discrimination,” he added.

The Taliban reject all criticism of their policies, especially those affecting women and girls, describing it as interference. They maintain that their actions are in line with their interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.

Fereshta Abbasi, an Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch, urged other countries to register their support for the four countries’ legal action and for them to involve Afghan women as the process moved forward.

“The announcement by Germany, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands may mark the beginning of a path to justice for the Taliban’s egregious human rights violations against Afghan women and girls,” said Ms. Abbasi.

The story so far: The Taliban last week announced a new law on the “Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” which imposes its interpretation of sharia or Islamic law on the people of Afghanistan. It not only bans women from showing any part of their bodies or faces in public, but silences their voices as well. It also seeks to regulate many aspects of daily life, from music and games, to travel, dress, and sexual practices.

What does the law say?

The 114-page document published in the official gazette says that women must cover their entire bodies and faces “due to the fear of temptation”, in the presence of unrelated men, as well as non-Muslim and “immoral” women. A woman’s voice — singing, chanting, or reciting aloud — is considered awrah or intimate and must not be heard. “Whenever a grown woman leaves her house out of necessity, she is obliged to cover her voice, face, and body,” it said, stipulating that any violation will lead to punishment. Unrelated men and women are not allowed to even look at each other.

Men must grow their beards, and must not wear neckties or have Western-style haircuts. All games and forms of entertainment, even traditional children’s games played with marbles or walnuts, are banned as a form of gambling. Travel must be planned to avoid times of prayer, and drivers are forbidden from transporting women who are not accompanied by a related male guardian.

The morality police, called Muhtasib, are authorised to mete out discretionary punishment, including up to three days in prison. They can compel people to revere Islamic symbols, and check phones and laptops to ensure there are no images of living beings. They can also ensure that women’s voices or music do not emanate from homes or gatherings.

Is this a new development?

Many of these regulations are already in place in Afghanistan, with some having been declared through Taliban decrees over the past three years, or imposed more haphazardly by local enforcers. Observers fear that the official codifying of these so-called “morality laws”, however, will lead to more brutal punishment and give a stronger backing to the Muhtasib.

Also read | Afghan women filmed singing in protest of ban on their voices

A look at Afghan history shows the extreme regressiveness of these laws. Women in Afghanistan were granted the right to vote in 1919, a year before women in the U.S. The early 1920s saw a rush to modernise the country with changes in dress and education opportunities, led by the royal family, which sparked a backlash from conservative forces. From the 1960s to the 1980s, however, women’s rights and participation in public life expanded, first among the urban upper classes but spreading to some extent in rural areas as well. Women became ministers and judges, doctors and diplomats, singers and entertainers. The Taliban’s first stint, from 1996 to 2001 was a brutal shock, imposing sharia law and taking women back to the medieval era. During the two decades before the Taliban came back to power, however, a new generation of young women grew up in relative freedom to study and work, and many hoped that the Taliban had also changed its stance.

“They were portrayed as Taliban 2.0, as more moderate, so we engaged with them,” said Fawzia Koofi, a former woman lawmaker from Afghanistan, in an interview with CNN after the new laws were announced. She noted that even some of the daughters of Taliban leaders had been educated abroad in the interim period. But since they came back to power, they have been “constantly targeting women” with “draconian measures”, she said.

Nayanima Basu, an Indian journalist who covered the Taliban takeover on the ground in Afghanistan, and the author of The Fall Of Kabul: Despatches From Chaos says that people she spoke to in the provinces outside of the “bubble in Kabul” were clear that the Taliban’s thought processes had not changed. “There is a disparity between the Taliban leadership in Doha — which has offered assurances to the international community that exclusive schools and universities for girls will reopen — and the Stone Age thinking of those actually in power in Afghanistan,” she pointed out.

How are women in Afghanistan reacting?

Some Afghan women have defied the ban on raising their voices in public, with videos being posted on social media showing them singing, even while dressed head to toe in black, with faces covered. Others can be seen raising their fists. A few have even reportedly protested on the streets, which “indicates that a small number do not care about their life and death because they do not have anything left to lose”, Ms. Koofi told CNN.

Others engage in subtler forms of resistance, but with long-term effects. Pashtana Dorani, now in exile, founded a non-profit called LEARN to open underground schools for teenage girls within Afghanistan, which now has 661 students in five schools, which run clandestinely, in shifts, changing locations when they learn of Taliban surveillance. In a social media post a few days after the new law was announced, Ms. Dorani showed videos of girls in full burkhas learning science, mathematics and language. “They may shut the doors but they can’t take away our dreams,” she wrote. “No ban can stop us from reaching for a better future. This week, our girls kept moving forward. Education opens doors, even when they’re locked.”

What is the response of the international community?

There was condemnation from governments and celebrities. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock criticised the new laws as “almost 100 pages of misogyny”, while actress Angelina Jolie termed the regime “cowardly and oppressive”.

The United Nations issued immediate denunciations of the new law, but said it would continue to “engage” with the Taliban. UN Women said the new rules were “oppressive”, while the office of the UN Commissioner for Human Rights called for the “utterly intolerable” law to be immediately repealed. However, after criticism of the law by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, the Taliban reportedly said it would no longer cooperate with the Mission. In response, a UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said that the UN backed the criticism, but “will continue to engage with all stakeholders in Afghanistan, including the Taliban”.

“I am a firm believer that political pressure will make the Taliban respond, but that political pressure has never been exerted,” Ms. Koofi told CNN, noting that the UN had agreed to the Taliban demand to exclude Afghan women from talks in Doha this summer. “So the Taliban thinks the world doesn’t really care about women’s rights,” she said, adding that there are differences among the global north and south and that has “further emboldened the Taliban”. Some countries, including China, have accepted the credentials of the official Taliban ambassador. While India has not established official diplomatic relations, The Hindu has reported on efforts by the Taliban to install appointees in India.

Asked about the new law, officials in the Ministry of External Affairs shared a statement reiterating India’s position regarding Taliban’s treatment of women in Afghanistan. “We have noted with concern the reports in this regard. India has consistently supported the cause of women’s education in Afghanistan. We have been emphasising the importance of the establishment of an inclusive and representative government that ensures equal rights of women and girls to participate in all aspects of society, including access to higher education,” he said.

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.

Also Read | Taliban say security forces will stop women from visiting Afghan national park

“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.