On International Women’s Day, which falls on March 8, the United Nations declared that Afghanistan under Taliban rule is “the most repressive country in the world” when it comes to women’s rights, with the authorities confining virtually every girl or woman in their homes.
Simultaneously, a street in the capital, Kabul, witnessed a rare demonstration of about 20 women in front of the UN mission headquarters, who appealed to the international community to protect them under the movement’s extremist rule, according to AFP.
Since the Taliban took control of the country, women have been prevented from attending schools, and then universities, with a thousand and one arguments.
Hence the prohibition of work for women, and the movement began to resort to various methods of intimidation and repression in order to force women to return home behind closed doors.
It also prohibited women from wandering the streets without the escort of a male relative.
A rare demonstration for women in Kabul on Women’s Day (AFP)
No sports, no parks
They were prohibited from participating in sports competitions, or visiting exhibitions and public baths, and even prohibited them from entering public parks for picnics or entertainment.
Recently, divorced women have reported that the Taliban have begun to annul previously issued divorce rulings, with the aim of pressuring them into enmity with their husbands.
From Afghanistan (AFP)
However, the biggest impact of this crackdown was on teenage girls, university and secondary school students, after they were denied the right to education.
In an unprecedented step on the eve of March 8, the European Union imposed sanctions on the Taliban’s Minister of Higher Education, Nada Muhammad Nadeem, for his “responsibility for the widespread violation of women’s right to education.”
It is noteworthy that although the Taliban pledged, after their return to power in August 2021, to show greater flexibility towards the file of human rights in general and women in particular, they soon returned to their extremist rules that marked their rule between 1996 and 2001.
It gradually excluded women from public life entirely, excluding them from most public jobs, or giving them low wages to encourage them to stay at home.
