Upon seizing power, the Taliban regime instituted a system of gender apartheid effectively thrusting the women of Afghanistan into a state of virtual house arrest. Under Taliban rule women were stripped of all human rights – their work, visibility, opportunity for education, voice, healthcare, and mobility.
What are women's rights in the Taliban?
Afghanistan's Taliban order women to wear burqas Following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Afghan women earned many rights, which the Taliban had taken away from 1996 to 2001. The hard-earned rights included the right to choose how they dress, and the right to employment and education.
What is happening in Afghanistan with women's rights?
The regime has also banned women from showing their faces on all kinds of media, including advertisements and television; schools have been closed down for girls, and women are not permitted to move outside their homes without a male consort.
The Elimination of Women’s Rights
Taliban Reality For Women and Girls
- A woman who defied Taliban orders by running a home school for girls was killed in front of her family and friends.
- A woman caught trying to flee Afghanistan with a man not related to her was stoned to death for adultery.
- An elderly woman was brutally beaten with a metal cable until her leg was broken because her ankle was accidentally showing from underneath her burqa.
- A woman who defied Taliban orders by running a home school for girls was killed in front of her family and friends.
- A woman caught trying to flee Afghanistan with a man not related to her was stoned to death for adultery.
- An elderly woman was brutally beaten with a metal cable until her leg was broken because her ankle was accidentally showing from underneath her burqa.
- Women and girls died of curable ailments because male doctors were not allowed to treat them.
Taliban Law Is in Opposition to Islam
- Women in Afghanistan were educated and employed prior to the Taliban control, especially in the capital city Kabul and other major cities across the country. For example, 50% of the students and 60% of the teachers at Kabul University were women. In addition 70% of school teachers, 50% of civilian government workers, and 40% of doctors in Kabul were women. The Taliban claimed to follow a pure, fundamentalist Islamic ideology, yet the opp…
Who Are The Taliban?
- During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980’s the United States through a CIA covert operation based in Pakistan supplied billions of dollars to support insurgent militia forces called the mujahideen (soldiers of God). Following the Soviets’ withdrawal in 1989, factions of the mujahideen fell into a civil war and in 1994, the Taliban emerged as a dominant force. The Taliban is comprised of young men and boys of Afghan descent who had har…
End of Taliban Rule in Afghanistan and Re-Emergence
- The 2001 defeat of the Taliban liberated all Afghans from a brutal regime. It was especially a pivotal moment for Afghan women and girls from the regime’s draconian decrees. The world witnessed reports of women in Mazar-e-Sharif, Kabul, and other cities going into the streets without male relatives and discarding their burqas–actions that would have garnered brutal punishments under the Taliban. Some 38% of the women have returned to work…