On December 24, the Taliban ordered NGOs to stop working with Afghan women, prompting international condemnation but also strong domestic opposition. This ban once again exposes the dividing lines of the Taliban movement as Afghanistan’s crisis deepens.
The year 2022 could not have ended any worse for Sahar: On December 24, she received a WhatsApp message from one of her colleagues with the latest Taliban decree. The latter provokes “serious complaints about disregard for the headscarf” and calls on “all national and international organizations to stop working with women”. In the event of a refusal to submit to these new rules, recalcitrant NGOs will be stripped of the license that allows them to carry out their activities in Afghanistan.
The shock is great for the 24-year-old humanitarian worker. “I started crying and I couldn’t stop,” says the young woman, whose name and that of her organization are not being given for security reasons. “I never thought that would happen. That day I lost my most important right: to work.”
With this decree, the Taliban cut women’s rights in Afghanistan again, but this decision is also proving to be catastrophic on a socio-economic level. Sahar was the only one able to provide for the needs of her nine family members. “All the men in the family lost their jobs. I was the only one who could pay for my younger brothers’ rent, food, medicine and education.”
While the whole world has just celebrated the start of the new year with bright fireworks, Afghanistan is sinking a little more into obscurantism. The myth of a more modern and pragmatic “Taliban 2.0” constructed during the Doha negotiations with the US has been largely shattered in recent months. The Taliban now appear intent on ruining the lives of their fellow citizens and eradicating women from the public sphere.
Kabul Taliban vs. Kandahar Taliban
In view of this situation, the population’s anger is growing and spontaneous demonstrations are increasing despite the risk of repression. More importantly, signs of divisions within the Taliban are increasingly coming to light.
According to several well-informed sources, banning Afghan women from working for NGOs would indeed have created tensions within the movement. “This decision represents the opinion of a minority among the Taliban. The majority, even among the leaders of the movement, oppose this measure,” affirmed Zalmay Khalilzad, the former United States special envoy in Afghanistan, from Washington’s frontline in 2020 during the Doha talks with the Taliban.
Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar sign a peace agreement on February 29, 2020 in Doha, Qatar. © Hussein Sayed, AP
Born and raised in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad left his post as special envoy in 2021 but remains in close contact with Taliban officials. “I have had contact with them in the past and I still speak to them today and they are largely opposed to this decision,” he said.
According to experts, the movement sits on a fault line between moderate Taliban and an ultra-conservative circle around Hibatullah Akhunzada, a lone emir of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
Hibatullah Akhunzada in a video message sent during the Eid holiday. © Afghan Islamic Press via AP
Nicknamed “Kandaharis” or simply “Shura”, “the Council”, this Taliban old guard from the rural world hides behind the Taliban’s most controversial decrees such as expelling women from secondary schools and then from universities or expelling them from the most public service positions. Since November, they have also been banned from visiting parks, gymnasiums and public baths.
The ministers thanked them
The first signs of division within the movement appeared in spring 2022 with the spectacular about-face in the education of young girls. In late March, the Taliban closed the doors of high schools and colleges to female students, just hours after a long-heralded reopening. A brutal decision that had sparked scenes of desperation among schoolgirls ready to return to school.
Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai then publicly expressed his disagreement during a televised speech during a meeting of Taliban cadres in Kabul.
Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai at a press conference in Moscow, May 28, 2019. © Alexander Zemlianichenko, AP
The movement also appears to have been hesitant about women’s access to universities. Abdul Baqi Haqqani, then Minister of Higher Education, was finally dismissed in October 2022 after he gave the go-ahead for the condition that girls and boys should be strictly separated. Two months later, his successor, the ultra-conservative Nida Mohammad Nadim, banned women from entering university education.
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Meanwhile, the then education minister, Noorullah Munir, suffered a similar fate to Abdul Baqi Haqqani, who promised in September 2021 that women would be allowed to study. He was sacked last year in favor of a close associate of the Kandahar “Council” and Emir Hibatullah Akhunzada.
“A powerful and influential minority has gathered around the Emir,” says Ahmed-Waleed Kakar, founder of The Afghan Eye. “The question now is whether such decisions can be continued despite growing resistance from the population, but also from within the Taliban movement,” he adds.
“I will not give up”
According to Ahmed-Waleed Kakar, however, these divisions stand little chance of causing the Taliban to implode. “The Taliban have an ideological and religious obligation to obey their leader, even if they disagree. He could only disobey if their leader did something un-Islamic.”
“I think the Taliban leadership must come together and oppose this decision. [l’interdiction aux femmes afghanes de travailler pour des ONG], says diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, who says the Taliban he is in contact with say they “understand” his point of view but ask for “patience.” “If they don’t do that, they will alienate the Afghans. Anger is rising in public opinion, offering arguments for those who want to start a war. This is neither what the population wants nor what the Taliban want.”
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As the Taliban beg for time, Afghan women sink into despair as one door after another closes. From Kabul, Sahar looks after the financing of the project for which she is responsible. “We are preparing long-term projects and were optimistic about receiving funds,” she explains. “But with the Taliban’s decision, donors are less confident about continuing their funding.”
But earlier this year, Sahar refuses to give in to fatalism. “I call on people around the world, donors, not to give up on Afghanistan. The situation is very difficult, but I will not give up. I remain optimistic for 2023. Better days will come. The women of Afghanistan will not be forgotten.”
Article translated from English by Grégoire Sauvage. The original can be read here.