Twenty Afghan women protested the Taliban’s restrictions on Afghan women’s freedoms this Sunday in Kabul.
Fundamentalist Islamists have slowly eroded women’s rights over the last 20 years, since 2001, when their regime fell.
“Education, it is my right!” Reopen schools The demonstrators, who were often covered in veils, gathered at the Ministry of Education to chant “Reopen the schools!” They marched for about 100 meters before being stopped in their tracks by Taliban dressed in civilian clothes who came to disperse the protest.
Participant Zholia Parsi stated that she wanted to read a statement, but the Taliban wouldn’t allow it. They also confiscated the cell phones of some girls and stopped us from taking photos or videos during our protest.
The Taliban have placed a number of restrictions on civil society since their return to power. Many of these are intended to subjugate women to their fundamentalist view of Islam. They have made it difficult for women to work in public, limited their travel rights, and banned girls from high school and college.
This latest restriction dates back from May when the government published an edict, which was endorsed by Taliban leaders Hibatullah Akhundzada and Hibatullah Akhundzada. It made it mandatory for women to wear full-face veil in public.
They stated that they preferred the burqa (blue, meshed at the eye level) but would accept other veil types that only revealed the eyes. The Taliban also believed that women should not leave home unless they have a compelling reason to.
The international community was furious at these new measures. Friday’s rejection by the UN Security Council of its request to lift these restrictions was a sign that the Taliban considered the concerns “unfounded”.
Afghan women have had new freedoms over the past 20 years, including returning to school and applying for jobs in every sector of the economy, even though the country remains socially conservative.
