On her WhatsApp profile photo, Soheila*, 23, runs her hand through her long brown hair and smiles broadly. “I didn’t wear the hijab [voile islamique] before the Taliban make it compulsory,” explains the young Afghan woman, who replied to franceinfo by message. “But now the women have to cover themselves, otherwise they will be beaten,” writes the woman, who still lives in Kabul province, in laconic English year after Islamist fighters took power.
In accordance with the Taliban’s extremely strict interpretation of Sharia (Islamic law), a May 7 decree issued this new dress code for women. The text, drafted by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue, which replaced the Ministry for the Status of Women in September 2021, stipulates that women should wear a full veil “because it is traditional and respectful”.
Soheila, who belongs to Afghanistan’s Tajik minority, worked for the interior ministry before the conquest of Kabul. She can now only go there once a week for day-to-day business. His salary was divided by four, all in the context of the economic crisis and humanitarian catastrophe hitting the country harder than ever.
“I now spend my everyday life at home. Sometimes I go outside, but I can’t move freely anymore.”
Soheila*, 23-year-old Afghan
at franceinfo
Indeed, beyond 72 kilometers from home, women must be accompanied by a “maram”, namely an attendant who may be a husband or a family man.
Before August 15, 2021, the situation of women in this country of almost 39 million people was already not ideal, points out Chantal Véron, education manager of the Negar association, which helps Afghan women. Yes, but “at least women’s rights were recognized,” she recalls. Between 1996 and 2001, Chantal Véron witnessed the first Taliban takeover power without power. After the fundamentalists were overthrown, she had helped rebuild the country by building sports infrastructure or schools. In August 2021 everything collapsed again. “Now there are no more rights for women: they have lost everything,” she laments.
“Our lives as women have descended into the abyss of misery,” confirms Naeema, 26. This Kabul woman, a government employee, lost her job at the Ministry of Education with the regime change. She’s not alone: In the past year, women have been barred from most public jobs and fired from many private companies. In the medical field in particular, there are only a few vacancies left.
Gradually, Naeema’s horizon narrowed and her everyday life was turned upside down. “I’m not living, I’m surviving, and sometimes I secretly cry when I think of all that we’ve lost,” says the young woman-turned-feminist activist. “In a year, everything has changed for Afghan women: access to education, employment, freedom of movement, access to health care, freedom of expression, the right to a safe life, or even access to sports or music…” List Nassim Majidi, director of the Samuel Research Center Hall and expert on Afghanistan interviewed by franceinfo.
Arriving behind the wheel, Kalashnikov in hand, the Islamist fundamentalists initially tried to reassure the international community by promising that they had changed. After the conquest of Kabul, its spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, stated that there will be “many differences” in their way of governing compared to their reign in the late 1990s.
A promise that has not been kept, according to researcher Nassim Majidi, who sees it as evidence of the Taliban’s thirst for power: “For them, women are an opportunity for better control, because they are often the bridge between private life and that by taking them away from community life cut off, they exercise greater control over the families: they further isolate the home and generalize the denunciation,” she analyses. To further isolate women, the Taliban have dismantled the protection system against domestic violence. The researcher points out that the number of forced marriages, especially of children and young girls, is increasing.
“Marriage of girls to Taliban also ensures family security.”
Nassim Majidi, founder of the Samuel Hall Research Center
at franceinfo
“Given the lack of educational and career prospects for women, families want to marry them off because there are fewer mouths to feed,” she says. For a year now, the benches in Afghan schools have been empty: for seven months, girls were banned from middle and high school, before being allowed back briefly on March 23, and then banned a second time. In a study published in April, NGOs Save the Children and Unicef estimated that almost 80% of girls dropped out of secondary education.
The same applies to students who navigate between formal bans and relaxation of the rules. In September 2021, the Taliban announced that they would admit women to private universities. For the first time since the Taliban took power, public universities opened their doors to women again at the beginning of the year, albeit for same-sex courses and under strict conditions. “In fact, many female students are discriminated against by the guards outside the university if they don’t follow the dress code. This deters them and many no longer come to study,” reports the President of Amnesty International France, Jean-Claude Samouiller. According to him, the situation in Afghanistan is “catastrophic”.
“We are witnessing a breakdown in the concept of respect for human rights for the whole population and especially for ethnic minorities and women,” he told franceinfo. In a report published at the end of July, the NGO sounded the alarm: The regime is now taking particularly repressive action, especially against women. “The concept of moral corruption, which is a crime in Taliban legislation, is used to punish women. Its very vague definition makes it possible to arrest almost anyone: for a woman who circulates without a ‘mahram’ or who has put on her shawl badly is prison”, notes Jean-Claude Samouiller, who warns: In detention women can be beaten. “We have the example of a person who suffered psychological torture and electric shocks.” Without quick action by the international community, “the situation will get worse,” he predicts.
A bleak vision of the future for Naeema, who despite the dangers involved and the “difficult atmosphere” nonetheless chose to fight for her rights. “We plan together, we plan dialogue meetings to organize a protest against the misogynistic and backward Taliban,” she says, before being interrupted by an internet failure that has become a daily occurrence in Kabul. Tired but combative, the young woman hopes for a general upswing so that “the women of the world will become aware of the dire situation of Afghan women”.
*The first name of this witness has been changed.