When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan the movement began to turn back the clock by reverting to the harsh practices imposed during its 1996-2001 reign. The Taliban commenced by targeting women, demanding that they appear in public only with a male relative and covered from head-to-toe in loose garments. Men are punished if women relatives do not observe dress codes, making men responsible for imposing restrictions. Taliban enforcers beat women whose clothing does not conform to Taliban edicts, especially those who wear Western-style trousers under their burqas or chadors.

Since the Taliban resumed rule, girls between the ages of eight-10 have been barred from attending middle and secondary schooling and Taliban enforcers, including women, have entered girls’ classrooms to compel staff to inspect girls’ bodies for puberty with the aim of excluding them from school.

This policy denies new applicants a university education. Women already at university have been allowed to complete courses but can pursue only subjects approved for them, such as literature and religion, and have been segregated from men. Women not employed as teachers of girls, nurses, doctors and specialised civil servants have been dismissed from their jobs even though they may have been sole breadwinners in their families.

Before the Taliban was ousted by the US and its allies in 2001, only 5,000 girls were enrolled in school. When the Taliban returned at the end of August last year, around 3.8 million girls and women (38 per cent) were being educated at all levels. Women were nearly 22 per cent of the workforce in 2019 but that fell to 14.8 per cent in 2021.

Last week, the Taliban outdid itself when it banned women from gyms, parks and amusement parks in the movement’s ultimate bid to cancel women’s rights and freedoms. The spokesman for the Taliban’s Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Ministry Mohammed Akef Mohajer explained that the Taliban “tried its best” for 15 months to avoid closing these facilities for women, ordering separate days of the week for male and female use or imposing gender segregation.

“But,” he stated, “unfortunately, the orders were not obeyed and the rules were violated” as men and women were seen in parks together and the hijab (women’s head covering) was not observed. Taliban teams have been deployed to deny women and children accompanied by women entry to these places. The edict targets poor women and children whose sole recreation had been strolling in parks and enjoying inexpensive rides on ferris wheels and roller coasters in amusement parks.

Affluent women who have not fled the country have been denied physical exercise in the only place where they had access. Walking and jogging in cities and the countryside has never been a possibility in this deeply conservative society.

The UN’s Special Representative for Women in Afghanistan, Alison Davidian, condemned the Taliban’s latest ban. “This is yet another example of the Taliban’s continued and systematic erasure of women from public life, we call on the Taliban to reinstate all rights and freedoms for women and girls.”

Nothing seems to budge the Taliban. The ban on girls’ education has been specifically criticised by religious scholars (Ulema) in several Muslim countries as well as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. They argue this ban has no religious justification and amounts to reneging on a Taliban pledge to permit all Afghan girls access to education.

Although the international community has conditioned aid deliveries and an end to asset freezes on cancelling such revanchist policies, the Taliban has imposed them one-by-one, preventing economic recovery and condemning at least 50 per cent of the country’s populace to poverty and hunger.

When the Taliban returned to power, it revived the country name the movement adopted during its previous truncated reign: the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. After months of deliberation it installed a government comprised exclusively of senior members of the movement with Hibatullah Akhundzada, 60, a religious rather than a military figure, in the top post as supreme commander and ultimate arbiter of policy. He has closed the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and reinstated the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which deploys the harsh “morality police.” He has just renewed corporal punishments for offenders.

Why does the Taliban fixate on women’s rights? This fixation seems to be largely due to Akhundzada who, although based in Kandahar, Pakistan, has imposed his will on ministers and military leaders in Kabul. He has insisted that governance must be in accordance with Islamic Law and Afghan traditions.  It seems, however, that Afghan traditions are the dominant factor. For example, the centuries-old Afghan practice of paying off a debt with or selling a girl child has intensified since the Taliban resumed rule and growing numbers of Afghan families have been plunged into poverty.

A report issued by the UN Women’s Organisation in August this year on the first anniversary of the Taliban’s return, stated. “The Taliban’s position on women’s rights has been central to its worldview and vision for society” and the movement has not changed its approach since its first period in power. “Women are systematically excluded from public and political life, and restricted in their access to education, humanitarian assistance, employment, justice and health services. In short, women and girls’ lives and prospects are confined to the home.”

The long- and short-term costs of this policy are, the organisation said, “tremendous. Suicide rates among women have reportedly increased; mortality rates... are expected to rise, and overall economic losses due to the erosion of women’s employment are estimated at $1 billion. The combined effect of gender-segregation requirements and a lack of educated women will be far-reaching, shutting women out of public life, access to services, knowledge.”

The authors of the report castigated the international community when they said, “Afghan women largely feel the world has abandoned them.”

Photo: AP