It was obvious that after the U.S. and Western powers abandoned Afghanistan and the Taliban returned, it would be women who would pay the heaviest price. It was predictable, and in fact as early as the day after the Taliban seized the presidential palace, they announced new regulations, including gender separation in universities and the introduction of a new dress code for women. Since then, regulation of Afghan women’s bodies and rights has become increasingly oppressive, until a total ban on attending schools and universities came last December.
Afghan Community takes to the streets of Italy
Last January 28th, the Afghan Community in Italy, the UNIRE association and the PTM Italia Movement, together with Afghan women and Afghans from all over Italy, gathered in Piazza Santi Apostoli in Rome to make their voices heard. The event was organized by members of the diaspora who live in Italy, which is considered a safe country, and therefore feel they have a responsibility to speak out about what is happening, raise awareness, and inform public opinion in Italy and their home country. Their intention is to put pressure on the Taliban with the support of the international community so that they can once again guarantee the rights now deprived to women and girls in Afghanistan.
With this purpose, speeches were given by the vice president of Afghan Community in Italy Mr. Mohammad Idrees Jamali, Dr. Syed Hasnain, president of the Italian National Union for Refugees and Exiles Association – UNIRE, representatives of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement Italy, several Afghan women activists such as Kobra Rahmati and Morsal Noori, women and girls’ rights activist Dr. Rabee Alizadeh, Afghan Embassy official in Italy Mr. Ahmed Khalid Akbar Sahib, and many other members of the diaspora. There were also interventions by Italians, including journalist Carla Musa who for decades worked in Afghanistan and lived alongside women who today, after decades, are denied the freedoms and rights they are entitled to.
The day was opened by the moderator, the vice president of the National Afghan Community Association, Mr. Mohammad Idrees Jamali, who took us back to August 2021 when, upon the fall of the former Ashr Al-afghani government, the far-right returned to power in Afghanistan after two decades of military occupation by Western powers.
Since they are a terrorist and Islamic fundamentalist group, they want to control every aspect of the lives of the female population. That is why, since their return to power, the Taliban has been rapidly re-establishing the norms that for decades have harmed the basic freedoms of Afghan women, girls and children. First and foremost, by banning access to education.
The following talk by Dr. Syed Hasnain, president of the Italian National Union for Refugees and Exiles Association, offers us a socio-political analysis of the situation of deprivation of basic rights to Afghan women. We quote his words:
“Afghanistan is no longer talked about. I am referring to journalists in different parts of the world. On August 15, 2021, our country fell under a regime of darkness. On that day we said that the Taliban have not changed; they want to take Afghanistan back to the Middle Ages, if not before. They rage against women because they know that Afghan women have courage to defend their rights. The first enemy they considered was women and they immediately attacked them, removing images of women from public spaces. The face of women is scary to this fundamentalist group. Afghan women are not even allowed to go to school to learn to read and write, they are not allowed to leave the house alone. Here in Italy and other European countries, women can access all public spaces, and that is also why Afghan women run away and come here. But in a society where women will not have the opportunity to go to school, to work, to contribute in society, other societies and other countries will also suffer the consequences. That’s why we are here, to raise our voices, to fight and bring the message of the women who are left in Afghanistan.”
The event continued with the women’s speeches. Unfortunately, the language barrier prevents us from reporting the exact words of the Afghan women who spoke on the stage in Piazza Santi Apostoli. However, we can report the concepts expressed by the female moderators who spoke in Italian or English.
Mihaela Mitrut of the Blue World Association, among others, condemned women’s oppression in Afghanistan stating that “we can no longer think that in that in 2023 a woman does not have the right to education, that a woman cannot go to school and does not have the right to read and write. We can no longer allow that a woman still has to be in a veil, that she does not have the right to be seen and to be known, that she does not have the right to express what she feels and what she wants to convey.”
Similarly, Maria Clara Mussa, an Italian journalist who has lived in Afghanistan for decades, takes the floor in defense of what she calls her Afghan sisters:
“In this event we followed what many of the Afghan women who are living in Italy exhibited. We consider them and they consider themselves lucky, they thank Italy because it is hosting them, but of course they are heartbroken because they are thinking about their sisters who are left in their country, which is currently a broken country. It is suffering the most severe humanitarian crisis on earth thanks to the abandonment that was made by the international coalition in August 2021, which was also the month when the Taliban took over the Afghan government. The terror we have is that Afghanistan will become a haven for terrorism. Right now we think of the women, the girls who cannot go to school, who cannot work, who cannot live, who cannot go out without a man to accompany them, and we have to fight for them. We must make sure that public opinion does not forget about the women who are suffering in Afghanistan.“
Morsal Noori, an Afghan activist, intervenes, pointing the finger at the Taliban and their stubbornness against women’s freedom, as well as Western neglect in Afghanistan, which has caused events to decline:
“A large percentage of the country’s population are women, who do not enjoy basic rights. We are here to advocate for the importance of human rights, such as women’s empowerment, improvement of women’s status and equality between men and women. These are among the most fundamental rights in the European Union, the United Nations and all 17 UN agencies: democracy, human rights, gender equality, women’s empowerment. So why do the Taliban disregard these fundamental rights and deprive Afghan women of these rights? We are here to make the voices of Afghan women heard! The Taliban must allow them to go to school, to work, to go to university and to have these important rights. We want the United Nations, the European Union and all the countries that have a major impact on the political situation in Afghanistan to work together, consider this important issue and find a solution.“
The activists in attendance called the Taliban’s sentences inhumane and demanded immediate action from policymakers in Italy and Europe. Legitimate demands were made in chorus by the minorities present (Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks), female and male members of the diaspora, without distinction.
There is a demand, in particular, to activate legal avenues of migration for women, to activate scholarships, and to welcome those who want to pursue their paths of study. At the same time, help is requested for those who remain in Afghanistan, because after 20 years of presence in the country, the West cannot forget about them especially today in the face of violations of the fundamental rights of minorities and women.
“We members of the diaspora in Italy want our message to be conveyed and for women in Afghanistan to be granted the rights to go to school, to have access to basic rights, to leave home alone, to walk and travel. We are a forgotten country, even though the situation is very recent. We are out of the media, no one talks about us. Meanwhile, women cannot go to work, and 20 million Afghans need humanitarian aid. The right to go to school is fundamental even in the most radical Islam, so we have to keep talking about the situation in Afghanistan.”
Taliban measures and their impact on the female population
Since the Taliban was removed from power in 2001, tremendous progress has been made in improving education and literacy rates in Afghanistan, especially for girls and women. According to a UNESCO report, the number of girls attending elementary school has increased from almost zero to 2.5 million in the 17 years since Taliban control. 10 million students were enrolled in school in 2018, up from 1 million in 2001. The report also states that the female literacy rate has nearly doubled in a decade, reaching 30 percent.
Everything changed, again, in 2021. The Taliban returned to power after U.S. soldiers left the country. Women knew that all the gains they had made would be erased, so those who succeeded fled the country. Religious fundamentalists tried to reassure the international community about their intention to respect human rights as much as possible, but the facts proved otherwise.
Next, we list the new regulations put in place by the far-right group against the Afghan female population:
- The new Taliban government replaces the Ministry of Women’s Affairs with the Ministry of Vice and Virtue. While former female employees were locked out of the ministry, the building’s sign was replaced with a new one, which reads “Ministry of Prayer, Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.” Female employees said they tried to go to work for several weeks and were told to go home. Historically, the ministry is known for its strict control of women’s behavior and dress maintained through religious police abuses. These abuses, carried out in the name of the harshest interpretation of Sharia law, have meant violence against Afghan women for infractions of the dress code or the requirement to go out publicly only when accompanied by a guardian. In values and modus operandi, the Afghan ministry is reminiscent of the Iranian Moral Police, whose violence was the main cause of the outbreak of the women-led revolution in Iran.
- Newly elected Minister of Higher Education Abdul Baqi Haqqani announces new rules to regulate women’s dress. He also announces that female students will be separated from male students inside universities and that subjects taught to women will be revised to “create a reasonable and Islamic curriculum that is in line with our Islamic, national and historical values.”
- In December 2021, a new Taliban decree stipulated that Afghan women could not travel more than 75 kilometers from their home address without being accompanied by a male close family member to stop escape attempts.
- Since their return to power, the Taliban did not reopen universities until February 2022, when female and male students returned to classrooms. This time, however, gender segregation has forced girls to move to private and exclusive classrooms, which are often unavailable in public infrastructures.
- As for the opening of high schools, we can say that for girls it has not happened since the fall of Kabul. Under increasing international pressure, the Taliban initially declared that schools would be opened for all students-including girls-after the 2022 Afghan New Year, which is celebrated on March 21. This was on the condition that boys and girls would be separated into different schools or on different schedules. On March 23, however, girls in middle and high schools arrived with a ban on re-entering the classroom until a school uniform appropriate to women’s dress code was designed.
- On December 20 of the same year, a spokesman for the Ministry of Higher Education announced the immediate and permanent suspension of university education for Afghan female citizens.
In little more than a year, the return of the Taliban meant that women lost the rights for which they had fought tirelessly for the past two decades. Every freedom has been progressively repressed. Women disappeared from radio and TV, the burqa became compulsory again, female mannequins in fashionable boutiques (which were closed) were censored. Now women can no longer work in most sectors (including NGOs), they can no longer enter public parks, and they can only leave their homes with their faces covered and accompanied by a male guardian.
The end of women’s dignity in Afghanistan came at the hands of the Taliban as early as 1996 to 2001, when they banned the right to study for women and girls. What we are witnessing is nothing but a repetition of history, and the responsibility this time is all in the hands of the United States and Western powers. We are the cause of this humanitarian disaster, and the press is complicit in it. Will it be guilt that silences newspapers and telenojournalists about what is happening to Afghan women? Probably yes.
Nevertheless, Afghan women have not given up. Many brave women still take to the streets today and voice their dissent, risking their lives, while others are seeking alternative methods of online study. The situation is far from rosy, but associations such as RAWA and Women for Afghan Women continue the struggle for recognition of Afghan women’s human rights and dignity.
We at Large Movements join them and condemn the denial of human dignity that the Taliban is carrying out against our Afghan sisters. We will not leave in silence the inexorable and ultimate decline of women’s freedoms in Afghanistan. We will continue to speak out about what is happening, we will continue to support the Afghan community in their opposition to what could become the “terrorist paradise,” we will continue to expose the abuses against girls and against human rights. That is until there is justice and respect and women can wear what they like, they can go back to schools, universities, the streets, they can travel and finally be free and emancipated.
“With guns you can kill terrorists, with education you can kill terrorism.” – Malala Yousafzai
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