Afghan women and their unmourned rights

In Afghanistan, heavenly snow-capped valleys with their beautiful brown plains is hell on earth for women. Born into strongly male-dominated households, women and prosperity are two separate phenomena; one can be either of the two but hardly ever both. Undoubtedly, the world at large does not accommodate women proportional to their capabilities to society and the economy, but in Afghanistan today, women’s rights violations have become both glaring and deeply suffocating.

In most patriarchal societies, the term ‘women’s rights’ is not only frightening but is also a subject of heated discussions among men and women who perceive it as a danger. The term is often interchangeably used with white or western feminism that disregards distinct forms of oppression faced by women in varying cultures.

Scripts are read and verses translated, but women lie at the bottom of the hierarchy especially in a country like Afghanistan. Many rural women in that country don’t concern themselves much with what they believe are the ‘isolated elite women’ demanding freedom; freedom from men. In an ideal world, a woman has the right to speech, movement, assembly, association and to live with dignity but a woman in a far-flung district of Ghaziabad is more worried about a hot meal and obstetric death from lack of health care than liberty in the true sense.

Taliban restrictions coupled with cuts in aid to public health by the international community have accelerated maternal deaths and malnutrition among women, increasing their troubles to extraordinary levels.

If the Taliban’s justification for enacting these medieval measures is to protect women, then a lot of introspection has to be done on their ability to protect anybody at all.

Naila Mahsud

Girls are not allowed to attend schools after primary school and work opportunities for women have been eroded to a huge extent due to the Taliban’s ‘religious and cultural considerations.’ Any woman who still has a job has to be accompanied by a male chaperone of the house if her travel exceeds 45 miles.

A humanitarian crisis largely as the result of the US-backed war, frozen assets and Taliban’s repressive style of rule has impacted women and girls and households with more female children. Faced with poverty, an increasing number of parents are marrying off their daughters in exchange for dowry or to Taliban fighters for their families’ protection.

Back in 2001, then first lady Laura Bush took to US radios and reiterated that the ‘war on terror’ was also a ‘fight for the rights and dignity of women.’ Using women as scapegoats in Afghanistan began there by all stakeholders. Ironically, close to 47,000 civilians including women of course, were killed as part of the US-funded war.

Punitive measures in the form of cuts in food aid by the World Food Program and the United Nations directly hit more than two million female-led households in Afghanistan. In these bleak circumstances, there have been reports in multiple international publications that confirm many Afghan mothers are sedating their children to sleep through the distress of hunger.

Widows and single women find it even more frustrating to wait for any aid to be collected by men and delivered to them since women are not allowed to travel far without a male chaperone. Paradoxically, sharp cuts in aid as a knee-jerk reaction to restrictions on women’s rights directly impacts women and children.

Ever since 2001, the international community attempted to work for a better economic standing for women in Afghanistan, but not so much as a family unit. More and more, working women in the country were isolated from their families. As a result, cultural and traditional norms were disregarded creating more rifts in already conflict-ridden households. 

At the other end of the spectrum, the Taliban have turned their backs on the promises made during the Doha agreement, with women now all but invisible in public offices and the judiciary. They are banned from attending salons and public parks. They are barred from attending schools beyond a certain level. If the Taliban’s justification for enacting these medieval measures is to protect women, then a lot of introspection has to be done on their ability to protect anybody at all.

More than anyone, the onus is on the Taliban to reintegrate women into a society that needs a bigger work force, more household income and more people who are educated or skilled. An ease in restrictions and the basic right to education should not threaten their ideals of what a traditional or religious society looks like.

– Naila Mahsud is a Pakistani political and International relations researcher, with a focus on regional politics and security issues. Twitter: @MahsudNaila