West Turns Blind Eye Towards the Deterioration of Women's Rights in Afghanistan

Written by Maria de Gregorio (BSc International Relations)

On the 15th of August 2021, the day the Taliban came back to power, Nasima locked her office early and went home, running in the streets amongst hundreds of people trying to flee. She was a successful woman, leading a civil organisation for women’s rights alongside finalising her master's degree and running two businesses. Passionate about travelling worldwide to host forums and discussions, Nasima revelled in her independence and freedom. Yet that afternoon, she knew that everything was about to change. The atmosphere was heavy, laden with the looming fear that all the hard-won victories of the 2004-2021 Republic were on the brink of being undone. That terror was reflected in the desperation and dread etched into the faces of all the strangers running alongside her. Despite having been only eight years old during the last Taliban rule, Nasima remembered it vividly. Women had been forcibly covered by burqas, most girls her age had begun preparing for marriage and she had had to wear a scarf around her face anytime she had wanted to play outside. That blurred childhood memory was about to become her reality again: “something died inside of me on August 15 2021, or at least that is how I felt, my hopes crushed, my education irrelevant, my investment in Afghanistan gone” (from UN Women).

That day was 3 years ago. Since then, the hopes of many other women have been shattered. Liba (22) was a medical student when the Taliban regained power. She is now banned from entering university, where security forces stand at the entrance, ensuring no woman crosses the threshold of knowledge. Sometimes, she dares to approach the building and catch a glimpse of the male students going in, of what her life could have been. “The house has become our prison”, she says, “The walls seem to reach the sky, wrapping around my throat like a rope, choking me. It feels like someone has hung me from the highest wall in the world.”

The Taliban’s convictions and interpretation of religion have successfully erased women from public life, eradicating their fundamental rights. Since returning to power in August 2021, they have issued at least 70 decrees that directly target the autonomy and daily life of women and young girls. Before, Afghanistan’s constitution championed gender equality and explicitly prohibited violence against women. Today, women have been excluded from government functions and erased from the law. Before, women were running for all kinds of public office, including presidency. Today, they can’t even run in a park or join a gym. Once, women used to be doctors, journalists, governors, lawyers. Now, the Taliban’s rule has effectively removed their voices, faces and perspectives from the public eye.

And the West allows them to do so. 

Afghanistan has long been an arena for Great Power competition and war. In the last three decades, the country has been occupied by Soviet troops and US-led international forces. Moreover, in the years between foreign occupation, the territory has been controlled by violent militant groups. The Taliban entered Kabul for the first time in 1996, after the soviet Red Army left the country, abandoning it in a state of chaos and civil war. They rapidly introduced their hard-line vision of Islam, implementing punishments like stoning to death or amputations as well as forbidding women from employment. However, their reign was short-lived. In 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11, the US began its bombing on Afghanistan and Anti-Taliban Northern Alliance forces were deployed to Kabul. For nearly two decades, the US remained deeply entrenched in the country, only withdrawing in 2021. While its primary objective was to remove the Taliban from power, the US gradually shifted its mission to include nation-building efforts and local security force trainings in an attempt to establish a stable democratic government. Nonetheless, this endeavour proved to be ineffective: when US troops withdrew in August 2021 the Taliban launched a full-scale military campaign to regain power, facing little to no resistance from Afghan officials and soldiers. All the US could achieve was signing the Doha Agreement, in which the Taliban promised not to pursue terrorist attacks in Afghanistan. While this aligned with the US’s policy goals, it left all humanitarian issues unaddressed. In 2021, the US therefore chose to abandon Afghan people to yet another era of chaos and oppression.

For every woman and girl in Afghanistan, every day since then has brought further deterioration of their rights and their social and political standing. In fact, Afghanistan stands as the only country with a policy banning girls from attending school beyond sixth grade level. Moreover, women aren’t allowed to work outside their home and can’t leave the house without a male chaperon (mahram) accompanying them. Women rights activists, regardless of their sex, continue to be persecuted and arrested. All that had been achieved under the Republic unravelled at an alarming rate: despite the Taliban’s claims to have eased restrictions in the years since their last reign, once again women and girls forfeited control over their quotidian lives.

Some argue that Afghanistan is relatively politically and economically safe under Taliban rule: the economy has stabilised, inflation appears to be under control and the currency has been one of the strongest in the region. However, the humanitarian crisis has reached an unprecedented magnitude. Half of the Afghan population does not have food security and a third of the country does not have access to shelter or to a clean water source. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Afghans are being pushed out of Iran and Pakistan, forced to return to a home country that does not have the means to host them. Women are paying the highest consequences of these conditions. Some have assured the press that they feel relieved to have a seemingly stable government now that conflicts have subsided. Yet this safety comes at the expense of their agency, a price no one, male or female, should ever have to pay.

International organisations, like UN Women, are continuously urging world leaders to increase pressures on the Taliban regime through forms of leverage such as sanctions or travel bans through the UN Security Council. These efforts have yielded scarce results. I the United Kingdom, the government’s response to Afghan refugees fleeing persecution has been defined “grossly flawed and utterly inadequate” by Amnesty International. In fact, although the UK announced a resettlement scheme for Afghans refugees, such as women human rights defenders, this program has not become operational in any substantial manner. Instead, UK ministers are now seeking to introduce draconian immigration measures that will come close to shutting down the UK’s entire asylum system. Moreover, while the international community has continued to litigate against the Taliban, it has done so at the expense of the Afghan population. Afghanistan’s central bank reserves have been frozen due to sanctions, and while companies were initially able to continue operations, a significant number have shut down. This is largely because many investors are hesitant to engage with them, given the increasingly complex process of money transfers. Consequently, many people in the sector have lost their jobs and living conditions in Afghanistan are steadily deteriorating. In addition, European countries have contributed little beside supporting indefinite global initiatives, in which discussions have seldom led to concrete actions.

However, all these countries have every interest in supporting not only women in Afghanistan, but all the population in need. This aligns not only with European humanitarian values but also with practical policy considerations. Afghanistan is just two countries away from Europe and should the number of Afghans fleeing the country rise, they are likely to attempt reaching European shores, exacerbating the ongoing migration crisis. As citizens, we too have a role to play. When reading the news, we must remember the faces behind the statistics, the individuals behind the stories, and the complexities behind the generalisations. While our governments may overlook the erosion of women’s rights in Afghanistan, it is our responsibility to remind them of the situation unfolding so near to us. Women are losing their fundamental rights, and failing to act makes us no better than the governments oppressing them.