Women's eroding rights in Afghanistan

[ghazi52]

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Taliban reject UN report, say no women fired from govt jobs​

AFP
September 13, 2022

In this file photo, Afghan women and girls stage protest in front of the Ministry of Education in Kabul on March 26, 2022, demanding that high schools be reopened for girls. —AFP
Taliban authorities on Tuesday condemned UN accusations that they are violating the rights of women to work in Afghanistan, insisting thousands are employed in the country's public sector.

But Sharafuddin Sharaf, chief of staff at the ministry of labour and social affairs, told AFP that many women were being paid despite not attending work, as offices were not set up for proper segregation of the sexes.

“Working together in one office is not possible in our Islamic system,” he said, a day after a United Nations rights expert said there had been a “staggering regression” in women's rights since the Taliban's return to power in August.

He could offer no figure on the number of women working but insisted “not a single female employee has been fired” from the civil service.

However, there have been several protests by women over losing their jobs and demanding the right to work — some of which have been put down forcefully by the Taliban.

Sharaf said some women only went to work “once in a week to their relevant offices to sign their attendance, and their salaries are paid at their homes”.

This takes place in offices where “gender-based segregation is yet to be done,” he said, adding that women were at work in the health, education and interior ministries where they are needed.

Sharaf said it was up to the all-male leadership of the Taliban to decide when women “can come to the rest of the offices where they are not coming currently”.
His comments come after a UN rights expert said women's freedoms had significantly deteriorated since the Taliban returned.

“There's no country in the world where women and girls have so rapidly been deprived of their fundamental human rights purely because of gender,” Richard Bennett, the special rapporteur on the rights situation in Afghanistan said in Geneva.

Government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Bennett's report was biased.

“There is no threat to the lives of women in Afghanistan now, or nobody dishonours Afghan women,” he said in a statement late on Monday, adding that they are still being enrolled in public and private universities.

Still, most secondary schools for girls have been ordered to shut across the country, meaning this generation of women university students could be the last.

Several Taliban officials say the ban is only temporary, but they have also wheeled out a litany of excuses for the closure — from a lack of funds to time needed to remodel the syllabus along Islamic lines.

On Monday, the education minister was quoted by local media as saying it was a cultural issue, as many rural people did not want their daughters to attend school.
Since the Taliban seized power, they have imposed harsh restrictions on girls and women to comply with their austere vision of Islam — effectively squeezing them out of public life.

They swiftly shut down the ministry of women's affairs and replaced it with the ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice.

The hardliners have also ordered women to cover up in public, preferably with an all-encompassing burqa.

 

[CLUMSY]

The truth lies somewhere in between. Western media is largely overexaggerating but sources such as 5pillars who have gone to afghanistan say that it isnt as bad as people say.

 

[nope]

Hey fvcktard, ask to West to stop invading countries in the developing world like Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq.

That those were good examples.

Korea and Vietnam are progressive's and prosperous countries where women can go to school so Iraq if I am correct

and when did i defend western war you inbred

 

[ghazi52]

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Taliban break up women’s protest in Herat​

AFP
October 3, 2022

Herat: Afghan girls chant “Education is our right, genocide is a crime” during a march from the University of Herat to the provincial governor’s office on Sunday, two days after a suicide bomb attack at a learning centre in Kabul.—AFP

HERAT: Authorities dispersed a women’s rally in Afghanistan’s western city of Herat on Sunday, with protesters claiming they were beaten by Taliban forces who fired shots in the air.

Scores of students turned out in protest against a Friday suicide bombing on a Kabul classroom that killed and wounded dozens of pupils as they prepared for exams.

The bomber blew himself up in the women’s section of a gender-segregated study hall in a Kabul neighbourhood home to the Hazara community.

The United Nations said at least 35 people were killed and another 82 wounded, most of them girls and young women.

On Sunday, more than 100 women — mostly Hazara — marched in Herat against the attack, which was one of the deadliest in recent years to strike the minority group.

“Education is our right, genocide is a crime,” the protesters chanted as they made their way from Herat University to the office of the provincial governor.

Dressed in black hijabs and headscarves, the protesters were stopped from reaching the office by heavily armed Taliban forces, who also ordered journalists not to report on the rally.

“We had no weapons but were only chanting slogans as we marched,” protester Wahida Saghri said. “But they beat us with sticks and even fired in the air to disperse us. Please carry our voice across the world because we are not safe here.”

Another group of women students prevented from protesting in the street staged a separate rally on the campus of the university, television footage showed.

“We were unable to go out as Taliban security forces shut the main gate of the university,” protester Zulaikha Ahmadi said.

“We then chanted slogans and called for the opening of the gate, but they dispersed us by firing into the air.” Demonstrators are heard in the footage shouting “open the door, open the door” after which a Taliban member beats them with a stick.

The group is then seen dispersing as gunshots are heard in the background.

Women’s rights protests have seen tense standoffs with authorities since the Taliban returned to power, with demonstrators detained and rallies broken up by aerial firing.

Female activists have still tried to stage sporadic protests, most in Kabul, against a slew of restrictions imposed on them by the Taliban.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack at the Kaaj Higher Educational Centre in the capital.

But the militant Islamic State group regards Shias as heretics and has previously staged attacks in the area targeting girls, schools and mosques. Hazaras have also been targeted in Herat in recent years.

Published in Dawn, October 3rd, 2022

 

[ghazi52]

Women protest for right to education, employment in Kabul​

by The Frontier Post

KABUL (Khaama Press): A group of Afghan women staged a protest in Kabul to express their concerns over the ongoing ban on female students, according to sources, after repeated calls by the international community to reopen girls’ schools above sixth grade.

Last month, Heather Barr, Associate Director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, dubbed Afghanistan the “only country on the planet” to deny girls access to education, warning the devastating impact of the Taliban action.
Protesters called on the Islamic Emirate leadership to lift the ban on girls’ education, allowing them to take an equal share of employment opportunities.

“The document that we have in our hands is useless because all of us are at home and do not have any jobs,” said Shokorya, a protester, as TOLOnews quoted.
“If they don’t address our problems we will continue our struggle,” said Arezo, another protester.

While a majority of female employees lost their jobs since the beginning of Taliban rule, a former employee of the Ministry of Interior Marghalare said she lost her job, facing economic challenges to raise her family. “We call on the United Nations and the international community to pay attention to us and save women from these violations of their rights,” said Marghalare, who worked at the Ministry as the head of the gender department, according to the local media.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Economy said that efforts are underway to provide work opportunities for women in the country.

“Specialists and elites play an important role in the development, advancement and progress of the country, and, in this regard, our policy is to support businesswomen and experts,” said Abdul Latif Nazari, Deputy Minister of Economy.

On August 15, 2021, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, rolling back women’s rights advances and media freedom – the foremost achievements of the post-2001 reconstruction efforts on gender equality and freedom of speech.

After the Taliban imposed a ban in September of 2021, it has been 389 days that girls in Afghanistan are restricted from attending secondary schools despite international calls for reconsideration.

Last month, Heather Barr, Associate Director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, dubs Afghanistan the “only country on the planet” to deny girls access to education, warning the devastating impact of the Taliban action.

“This is absolutely a shameful situation which makes Afghanistan the only country on the planet which systematically denies girls access to education because of gender,” she added. “This is going to have a devastating impact.”

But the deputy spokesman of the Islamic Emirate said efforts are continuing to reopen schools for girls above grade six. He, however, did not provide further details on the matter.

“On this issue, officials of the Islamic Emirate have explained it to you and that is enough for now,” said Billa Karimi, Deputy Spokesman for the Islamic Emirate.

In March, the Islamic Emirate on a formal decree banned female students of grade six and above from attending classes in schools throughout the country.

The decision by the group has triggered a backlash among international communities and the United Nations, including foreign ministries of Canada, France, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the US, urging for immediate reconsideration of girls’ education.

 

[chinasun]

 

[ghazi52]

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Afghan women were stopped from entering amusement parks in Kabul on Wednesday after the Taliban’s morality ministry said there would be restrictions on women being able to access public parks.

A spokesperson for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (MPVPV) confirmed that women would be restricted from accessing parks when asked for comment by Reuters, but did not respond to requests to provide further details.

It was not clear how widely the restrictions applied or how they affected a previous rule from the MPVPV saying parks, including open-air spaces, must be segregated by gender and certain days would be aside for women.

Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesperson for the hardline Taliban administration, did not respond to a request for comment.

At a Kabul amusement park containing rides such as bumper cars and a Ferris wheel, Reuters witnesses observed several women being turned away by park officials, with Taliban agents present observing the situation.

Masooma, a Kabul resident who asked that only her first name be published for security reasons, had planned to take her grandchild to visit the park but was turned away.

“When a mother comes with their children, they must be allowed to enter the park, because these children haven’t seen anything good … they must play and be entertained,” she told Reuters. “I urged a lot to them, but they didn’t allow us to get inside the park, and now we are returning home.”

Two park operators, who asked to remain anonymous to speak on a sensitive matter, said they had been told by Taliban officials not to allow women to enter their parks.

Since taking over Afghanistan last year, the Taliban have said women should not leave the home without a male relative and must cover their faces, though some women in urban centres ignore the rule and some women have been permitted to work in government offices. The group also made a U-turn on signals it would open all girls’ high schools in March.

Western governments have said the group needs to reverse its course on women’s rights for any path towards formal recognition of the Taliban government.

The Taliban say they respect women’s rights in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law.

 

[ghazi52]

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Taliban ban women from parks, morality ministry says​

Reuters
November 11, 2022

Afghan women will no longer be allowed in parks, a spokesperson for the Taliban’s morality ministry said, in part because they had not been meeting its interpretation of Islamic attire during their visits.

Mohammad Akif Muhajir, the spokesman for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, made the comments in an interview with local media and, when asked about the restrictions, referred Reuters to audio of the interview.

“For the last 14 or 15 months we were trying to provide an environment according to Sharia (Islamic law) and our culture for women to go to the parks,” he said.

“Unfortunately, the owners of parks didn’t cooperate with us very well, and also the women didn’t observe hijab as was suggested. For now, the decision has been taken that they are banned,” he said, referring to the group’s interpretation of the Islamic dress code for women.

Almost all women in Afghanistan wear a head scarf, or hijab, in public. However, the Taliban have said women should wear long flowing clothes that cover their bodies and also cover their faces, such as the all-enveloping burqa. Some women in Kabul and other urban centres do not cover their faces in public and others wear surgical face masks.

Western governments have said the Taliban needs to reverse its course on women’s rights, including a U-turn on signals they would open girls’ high schools, for any path towards formal recognition of the Taliban government.

It was not clear how long the park restrictions would last and whether they would be extended across Afghanistan.

Park operators in western Herat and northern Balkh and Badakhshan provinces said they had not been asked to stop women from entering yet.

Some women in those provinces told Reuters they were watching the restrictions in Kabul closely and were worried they might be applied in other provinces.

“Here they haven’t restricted women and girls yet but you will never know when they change their minds,” said a woman in Badakhshan who asked to remain anonymous.

The Taliban say they respect women’s rights in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law.

 

[ghazi52]

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Taliban ban Afghan women from gyms and public baths​

AFP
November 13, 2022

People walk in a street in Kabul, Afghanistan, November 9. — Reuters
Gyms and public baths are now also off limits to Afghan women, the Taliban confirmed on Sunday, days after banning them from parks and funfairs.

Women are increasingly being squeezed out of public life since the Taliban’s return last year despite the hardliners promising a softer version of the harsh rule that characterised their first stint in power that ended in 2001.

Most female government workers have lost their jobs — or are being paid a pittance to stay at home — while women are also barred from travelling without a male relative, and must cover up with a burqa or hijab when out of the home.

Schools for teenage girls have also been shuttered across most of the country since the Taliban’s August 2021 return.

“Gyms are closed for women because their trainers were male and some of them were combined gyms,” Mohammad Akif Sadeq Mohajir, spokesman for the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue, told AFP.
He said “hammams” — traditional public bathing houses that have always been segregated by sex — were now also off limits.
“Currently, every house has a bathroom in it, so it won’t be any issue for the women,” he said.
One video clip circulating on social media — which could not immediately be verified — showed a group of women, backs to the camera, lamenting the gym ban.
“It’s a women-only gym — the teachers and trainers are all women,” a voice says, breaking with emotion.
“You can’t just ban us from everything. Do we not have the right to anything at all?”
Activists have said the increasing restrictions on women are an attempt to stop them from gathering to organise opposition to the Taliban’s rule.
Small groups of women have staged frequent flash protests in Kabul and other major cities, risking the wrath of Taliban officials who have beaten and detained them.
Earlier this month, the United Nations voiced concern after the Taliban disrupted a press conference in the capital, submitting female participants to body searches and detaining the event organiser and several others.

 

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Don't forget us, Afghan women tell Pakistan minister​

"You serve as an example of the status of women in our neighbouring country," the Afghan Women's Network writes to Khar​

AFP
November 29, 2022

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar in meeting with Women Chamber of Commerce during her visit to Kabul on November 29, 2022. — Twitter/@ForeignOfficePk

KABUL: A leading Afghan women's group urged Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar not to forget their plight as she visited Kabul Tuesday to discuss relations with the country's Taliban rulers.

The trip by Khar, Islamabad's first woman foreign minister in 2011 but now a minister of state, comes weeks after the Taliban imposed new restrictions on Afghan women, barring them from parks, fun fairs, gyms and public baths.

The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan said Friday that Taliban restrictions on women and girls could amount to a "crime against humanity".
"You serve as an example of the status of women in our neighbouring country," the Afghan Women's Network, representing several activist groups, said in an open letter to Khar.

"We call on you to use your visit not only as a minister but as a woman and as a Muslim woman leader to support the women of Afghanistan and strengthen our solidarity."

The minister also met a delegation from Women's Chamber of Commerce, where she expressed keen interest in strengthening linkages between entrepreneurs of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

 

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Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan leaves women in complete desperation​

The Frontier Post

KABUL (Khaama Press): With the latest set of gender-based restrictions on women’s access to education and employment, the Taliban administration has put in place a ‘Gender Apartheid’ in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s interim regime has started exercising ender apartheid in Afghanistan following the enforcement of a ban on women’s education and work in government and non-government organizations, prompting condemnations from the international community.

The latest move has sparked protests in different corners of Afghanistan as female university students and women activists took to the streets chanting for equal rights to education over the past couple of days.

Foreign governments including the US, UK, Germany, Norway, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran have criticized the earlier ban on the university education of women in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, global organizations such as the UN, UNAMA, Amnesty International, European Union, and Islamic Unions described the act as extremely disappointing and called on the Taliban administration to lift gender-based restrictions and allow Afghan women and girls to return to public life.

Taliban’s administration has accused female university students of not complying with the Islamic Hijab, mingling with male students, and not following the regulations established by the ruling regime.

“Women in Afghanistan are suffering gender apartheid. The Taliban have imposed a system whose aim is to expel women from public spaces. It has been 431 days since girls are not allowed to attend school. More could be done. The EU must support the establishment of an independent mechanism for accountability and support ICC investigation.

The EU has to step up its support for Afghan women’s and human rights, as well as for women in exile, by providing quality educational and employment opportunities” MEP Soraya Rodríguez Ramos, Renew Europe Group’s Coordinator in the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, said.

Considering the dire economic situation and the harsh winter hitting ordinary people so hard, the gender-based restrictions imposed by Afghanistan’s ruling regime is not appropriate at all. Doing so will affect the continuous flow of humanitarian aid into the country and paves the way for further isolation of the country during these difficult times.

 

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Women's eroding rights in Afghanistan​

Razeshta Sethna
04 Jun, 2022

Twitter: @BBCYaldaHakim


Under the Taliban regime that came into power last year in Afghanistan the lack of women’s rights is again official policy. In one of its most-recent decrees, the Taliban’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue ordered women presenters on television to cover their faces stating this ‘decision was final’ without room for discussion.

Last month, Tolo News anchor Nesar Nabil wore a face mask on television in Kabul protesting the regime’s decree forcing female presenters to cover their faces. Nabil and other male presenters at major news channels in Afghanistan wore masks to show solidarity with their female colleagues. The regime has stated violations of this decree will result in punishment for male family members - essentially indicating that men have a right to control women and to police their movement and bodies.

Twitter: @saadmohseni

Meanwhile, this decree that blatantly violates freedom of expression and personal autonomy has prompted the #FreeHerFace campaign on social media with male journalists among other supporters posting pictures with their faces covered in solidarity with women. Making the veil mandatory is a ‘symbol of gender apartheid’ as a former member of the Afghan parliament and a women’s rights activist stated on Facebook.

Protests continue in Afghanistan as educated urban women reject new directives based on ultra-conservative interpretations of Sharia law calling for reducing their rights and freedoms. For one, this makes clear resistance to repressive measures will likely take root and increase because the country the Taliban governs is very different from Afghanistan of the 1990s. Afghan women and men refuse to be silenced into submission because many are prepared to pay a high price for securing freedom for future generations.

Earlier, the Taliban had issued another guideline preventing women from travelling distances greater than forty-five miles from their home without a close relative. Women from rural areas have expressed concern that Taliban control has translated into more restrictions when it comes to pursuing education, employment, even choosing whom they marry, travelling and resulting in increased violence towards women.

In Ghazni, a Taliban ban on education states girls in grades 7 to 12 have to stay home, according to a Human Right Watch report. University students, including medical students must stay home, crushing women’s professional aspirations. There is fear, uncertainty and a brain drain making young people feel hopeless. Depriving women of the ability to make choices not only erodes identity and livelihoods but deprives the country of human resources and talent.

Barriers to employment, education and healthcare have begun to result in a financial crisis for women not allowed to work - even women farmers cannot work and must stay home.

The consequence is poverty, malnutrition and starvation - some families have sold their children into marriages to feed other family members; others in desperation have sold their kidneys to buy food. Almost 75% of the previous government’s budget was met through foreign donor assistance which ceased shortly before the Taliban takeover. With no cash, employment, international donor money and high food prices, widows and female breadwinners are challenged to find avenues to feed their families.

Western countries that had supported Afghanistan until last year stated they would exercise influence over the Taliban and use development aid and garnering political legitimacy as levers but the evidence of violations is mounting and the Taliban have not been forced into changing course.

Take a look at the iconic image of an Afghan TV presenter at Tolo News, clearly distressed, holding her head in her left hand, dressed in a coat and hijab. Every piece of clothing she wears from head-to-toe is black; a visual metaphor for the forces of darkness and patriarchy that women must fight against after more than twenty years of hard-won gains. The strain of mustering strength for another fight is visible. This is a shameful failure of the western post-war construction toolkit and the lack of political will to tackle the Taliban.

These seemingly never-ending harsh restrictions - also in place between 1996 and 2001, when the Taliban banned women from life and education - enforcing rules of conduct and dress codes for women, restricting movement, forbidding girls from going to school, and curtailing women from full and equal participation in public life are the realities many are living through in Afghanistan.

Teachers have gone back to conducting lessons in clandestine schools for girls so that they are not left behind echoing the nineties when underground schools were functioning. Rights activists have stood their ground despite the risk of beatings and imprisonment personifying bravery and resilience. Afghan women professionals and sportswomen have been honoured with international human rights awards for empowering other women.

Journalists continue their work holding the powerful to account despite illegal detention, vicious beatings and abuse. That freedom of expression and pursuit of human rights have become centric to the aspirations of a generation with the desire to achieve more, and achieve better is clear.

Inhumane rules curtailing women’s rights underscore two aspects. One, the regime is determined to roll back women’s rights and has no intention to fulfill its promise to ensure girls attend school. And, second the removal of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs after the Taliban took power in August 2021 indicates without doubt that the identity and presence of women is systematically being eliminated.

The fight for preserving rights now requires action from the international community, not promises.

It must not forget Afghanistan even while there is a brutal war raging in Ukraine which warrants immediate assistance and attention. It must pressure the Taliban regime more strongly to end blatant violations making this a condition for receiving economic assistance and political recognition. It must offer expert assistance to the leadership to set a clear plan of action for educating girls. Do not abandon the hope that women and girls will change things in the future if they have the tools to do so. Pressure Pakistan as a neighbour to ensure they bring these violations into sharper focus with senior leaders in Kabul with whom they share a long-standing relationship. When human development and rights are made prerequisites, even the most loathsome regimes with mounting economic and military challenges could be pressured to relent.

Forgetting the women of Afghanistan is not an option. When the rights of half the population are brutally eroded in a country that has only known decades of civil strife and a deadly war on terror followed by fragile governance structures undermined by corruption, the wider consequences of taking yet another young generation backwards will be felt not only within Afghanistan but regionally (where like-minded ideologues are neighbours) and globally - whether those consequences translate as a massive exodus to the west or renewed militancy and radicalisation.

In 2011, Afghanistan was the most dangerous country to be a woman with high levels of violence, poverty and poor healthcare. Despite hard earned rights over twenty-years women are being subjected to repressive measures backsliding on progress made.

When Mahbouba Seraj, a women’s rights activist was recently asked what message she had for international stakeholders who have been in Afghanistan for the last twenty-years, she was livid: “I’m going to say - really - shame on you,” she said. “I’m going to say to the whole world, shame on you.”

This response explains why Afghans are frustrated with the gap between the international community’s promise and its reality.

The article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Business Recorder or its owners

Women's eroding rights in Afghanistan

Under the Taliban regime that came into power last year in Afghanistan the lack of women’s rights is again ...

www.brecorder.com

Mostly propaganda... Just like Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction. .

 

[Catalystic]

Op

Lets forget afghanistan, let their beloved india love them and care for them. Stop posting their plights, thay hate us anyway.

 

[ghazi52]

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UN aid chief to visit Afghanistan over female aid worker ban​

“We regret to see that there is already an impact of this decision on our programs,” UN aid coordinator says.

 

[Mujahid Memon]

Mostly propaganda... Just like Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction. .

That's what I was thinking