Last week, at a summit in Albania, Zahra Mohammadi said the world had misunderstood the Taliban. “They think that the Taliban will maybe change,” she said. “The Taliban will never change.”
So what? At home in Afghanistan, Mohammadi could have been arrested simply for opening her mouth.
Since the Taliban took over three years ago it has introduced more than 70 edicts which between them bar women and girls from
- being educated beyond primary school level;
- working, bar a few exceptions in the health sector; or
- travelling without a male guardian.
An especially draconian package of “vice and virtue” laws passed last month requires women to stay at home unless their need to go out is “urgent” and to be completely covered in thick clothing if they do. They’re also barred from singing and reading aloud in public, and in private if their voices can be heard outdoors.
Breaking these laws can lead to imprisonment, flogging, stoning, rape and arbitrary execution. In February 2022, Mohammadi, a dentist by training, was arrested and tortured by the Taliban for protesting, forcing her into exile in Europe.
Last week she joined more than 130 women in Tirana for the largest organised gathering of Afghan women outside Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover.
Roadmap. The conference issued a declaration calling on the international community to ensure that
- international aid is reaching vulnerable populations, particularly women and girls.
- foreign delegations meeting with the Taliban include women.
- decisive action is taken to hold the Taliban accountable, including recognising gender apartheid as a crime against humanity.
Roadblocks. Afghanistan presents the international community with a Catch 22. As a country it desperately needs help, but if the Taliban won’t change and gender apartheid is a crime, then to engage with the Taliban is to be complicit in that crime.
- Aid. With an estimated 23.7 million Afghans expected to require aid in 2024, the UN is caught between preventing a humanitarian catastrophe and breaching its own conventions.
- Security. Without cooperating on security, the risks associated with Afghanistan becoming a sanctuary for other radical Islamist groups only increase.
- Finance. In 2022 and 2023 the Taliban was represented at peace conferences in Norway, seeking to unfreeze nearly $10 billion seized after the 2021 takeover. Western officials wanted to make access to the money conditional on lifting restrictions on women and girls. Instead, the Taliban claimed being invited was a step towards legitimisation and restrictions were tightened, not eased.
Result: When the Taliban demanded a ban on Afghan women attending a UN conference on Afghanistan in Doha in July, the UN caved. Its decision was heavily criticised at the summit and linked to the recent restrictions on women’s voices in public. Meanwhile, the money remains frozen and the Taliban isolated: not one government recognises it as legitimate.
High stakes. One woman who risked coming from Afghanistan to Tirana said she did so because “We don’t have rights. We don’t have a voice. So it’s very important for us to be able to come together to have a united voice to be able to express that”.
The next day, the Afghan Ministry of Justice said if anyone criticised its legislation “whether in the media or in other forums” they would face a criminal trial under the Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia law.
Freedom songs. Afghan women are responding to the ban on singing by doing just that, mainly online, channelling anger but also mocking the Taliban.
What’s more… As the summit took place, a group of women took to the streets of Kabul calling for international action with shouts of “Work, Freedom, Education”.
It’s in those women that Mohammadi finds strength: “I am happy that the Afghan women in this horrible situation have taken to the streets to demand their rights,” she says. “The world must hear our voice”.
aLSO, in the nibs
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