AFGHANISTAN: Taliban assault on women’s rights reaches a new level
The Islamist fundamentalists in power are demanding that NGOs operating in the country get rid of their female staff. They are also ordering kitchen windows to be blocked to conceal their female occupants.
Le Monde (03.01.2025) – Since their return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban have steadily wound back women’s rights week after week, gradually eroding their freedoms and dignity. On December 29, 2024, the Taliban’s Economy Ministry announced that all non-governmental organizations (NGOs), both national and international, must now comply with a decree issued at the end of 2022 that prohibits the employment of Afghan women. This measure, which had been largely ignored thanks to local and national exemptions, has now become imperative: Any NGO employing women will have its license revoked.
On December 31, 2024, the UN expressed being “deeply alarmed” by this decree, at a time when more than half the Afghan population depends on humanitarian aid. Volker Turk, UN high commissioner for human rights, denounced the discriminatory measure, underlining its catastrophic impact on access to vital aid. “No country can progress – politically, economically or socially – while excluding half of its population from public life,” he said in a statement. “For the future of Afghanistan, the de facto authorities must change course.”
A few days before this call to order, the Taliban had unexpectedly announced another oppressive decree: prohibiting windows in domestic spaces frequented by women, such as kitchens, to prevent them from being visible from the outside. Published on X on December 28, 2024, in Arabic, Dari and Pashto by Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, the decree requires building owners to obstruct these windows by erecting “human-height” walls, “to protect neighbors from temptation.” Municipalities are responsible for ensuring that this directive is properly implemented.
These new decrees add to a long list of restrictions imposed on women since the Taliban’s return to power. Since March 2022, Afghan women have not been able to study beyond primary school. In early December 2024, they were expelled from medical schools, where they were training to become midwives or nurses. Most public spaces, such as parks, beauty salons and gyms, are also closed to them.
Picture : Afghan women / Credits : Wikimedia