A woman sits in a public space in Kabul. Under new Taliban laws, a wife who visits her relatives without her husband's permission faces up to three months in prison. Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
KABUL, Apr 21 2026 (IPS)

The Taliban have announced new laws that effectively legalise domestic violence against women and children. Afghanistan’s supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, signed a decree introducing a new criminal code in January. It contains three parts, ten chapters, and 119 articles that legalise violence, codify social inequality, and introduce punitive measures widely condemned as a return to slavery.

“The laws are yet another attack on women and they blatantly violate human rights,” says Mitra (name changed for privacy), a women’s rights activist based in Afghanistan.

The laws, which were leaked to the public by various organizations and media outlets, have left people, especially women, in shock. Yet they are unable to act or even raise their voices. Under the new code, opposing or speaking negatively about Taliban rule is considered a crime and can lead to criminal punishment.

According to Article 32 of the Taliban’s penal code, husbands have the right to physically discipline their wives and children. As long as no bones are broken and no visible bleeding occurs, man’s actions are not considered a crime and carry no criminal punishment.

Even if it is proved in court that violence inflicted on a woman has caused visible injuries or broken bones, the man faces a maximum sentence of only 15 days in prison.

This Taliban law has effectively legalized domestic violence and blocked women’s access to justice.

According to Article 32 of the Taliban’s penal code, husbands have the right to physically discipline their wives and children. As long as no bones are broken and no visible bleeding occurs, man’s actions are not considered a crime and carry no criminal punishment

According to Article 34 of the Taliban’s penal code, if a woman repeatedly visits her father’s home or relatives without her husband’s permission and does not return to her husband’s house, this is considered a crime for both the woman and her family members. The punishment can be up to three months in prison.

A husband has the right to violently assault his wife if she disobeys, according to the new law.

This Taliban decree forces women to remain in their homes under all circumstances, even in the face of threats and domestic violence. Women can no longer seek protection or shelter in their own family homes.

According to documents from the human rights organization Rawadari, the Taliban’s penal code, was signed into law by Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada on January 7, 2026, and subsequently distributed to provincial judicial institutions for implementation.

The decrees issued by the Taliban are usually kept secret within their judicial institutions and communicated to the public only through mosques and community elders. The public learns of them only when the media and rights organization gain access and publish them.

Taliban rule has effectively divided Afghan society into four classes, with punishment for a crime determined not by the nature of the crime but by the offender’s social status. At the top are religious scholars, who receive advice and caution rather than criminal punishment.

Next comes the elite, which includes those in the ruling class, such as village elders and wealthy merchants. They are subject to a lighter punishment scale and usually avoid prison sentences, for example.

The middle class faces more severe punishment. At the bottom of the ladder is the lower class whose punishment can include public flogging and harsh prison terms.

The new law also employs a term referring to slaves as distinct from free people. Slavery was officially abolished in Afghanistan in 1923. Under the new code, treating people as slaves is back to normal practice. For example, a master has the legal right to discipline his subordinate and a husband his wife. It effectively dismantles the principle of equality before the law.

Mitra says these Taliban laws are a clear attack on women and violate all their human rights. By enforcing these rules, the Taliban have confined women to the four walls of their homes, forcing them to endure any kind of abuse in silence.

“What the Taliban have stated in Articles 32 and 34 makes your hair stand on end. The Taliban see women only as sexual objects. These laws legitimise all forms of violence against women, and they cannot even seek justice or take refuge in their father’s or brother’s home. In effect, this officially imprisons women under the full weight of domestic violence,” she says.

All these provisions were drafted without discussion and have come into force with little discussion and no public input. Their existence only became known when the human rights organization Rawadari obtained the laws and published them on its Pashtun language website. Soon after being signed, they were immediately sent to the provinces to be processed by Taliban-run courts.

As Maryam, a resident of Ragh District in Badakhshan, points out, once the Taliban’s laws are announced in mosques by the local mullahs, they are immediately enforced in districts and villages, and all cases are judged under those rules.

“Most people in our village are illiterate, and even those who are educated or know about women’s rights cannot say anything out of fear. If they even utter one word, the local people turn against them, and trouble follows. Women are forced to accept whatever their husbands say because they have no other choice,” she says.

Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, they have been issuing and enforcing decrees and laws that have consistently violated human rights, confining women to the four walls of their homes. But this time, they have gone further, granting legal legitimacy to all forms of violence against women.

Mitra is calling on all human rights organizations and the international community to stand against the Taliban’s actions and not allow them to drag women into a system of slavery from the early centuries. She warns that if the world does not stand with Afghan women, they will be pushed toward destruction and face a major humanitarian catastrophe.

Excerpt:

Educated Afghan women in Kabul’s informal economy, working in retail as Taliban rules curb professional opportunities. Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
KABUL, Jan 28 2026 (IPS)

Young women in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, are trying their hands at unfamiliar tasks in embroidery, tailoring and designing beads in market stalls. Many should instead have been sitting at desks writing computer software or reporting news, the fields they trained for.

Since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, highly educated women have been removed from their official positions and shut out of much of the formal workforce, compelling them to take up jobs unrelated to their field of training to cope with economic hardship and to avoid the mental strain of unemployment.

Professional opportunities for women have been drastically limited. Almost all women are barred from working in offices, the media, and other fields related to their education.

Lida, (a pseudonym) a computer science graduate, previously earned a good salary as an IT officer at the Ministry of Economy, a job she held for more than six years. She now lives in southeastern Kabul, working as a tailor and running a small shop. Her late husband, who worked for the Ministry of Rural Development, was killed in a Kabul bombing ten years ago.

Lida now shares a house with the family of her brother along with her five children, and says she is in dire financial straits. To make ends meet, she has sent one of her sons to sell plastic bags on the streets. Her younger son is still at school. Her daughter’s education has been suspended following Taliban’s edicts.

“When the Taliban returned to power I was forced out of my job, says Lida, “and I have not been able to find any within my profession in the last four years and therefore, had no option but to work as a shop assistant”.

The Taliban do not directly grant work permits to women to operate the shops. Instead, either a male family member or another man must first obtain the work permit for the shop

Many women are flocking to Kabul’s informal sector, but it provides limited opportunities, crowding them into shops, which only sell women’s clothing and cosmetics, serving primarily female customers.

The Taliban do not directly grant work permits to women to operate the shops. Instead, either a male family member or another man must first obtain the work permit for the shop. Only then can women work in the shop as salespeople or assistants, receiving a salary or a commission based on an agreed arrangement.

“Working in a tailoring workshop is very difficult and frustrating”, Lida complains adding, “I wish I could at least work in a computer shop, which is related to my field of study”.

Mursal, (a pseudonym) 27, a journalism graduate, has faced a similar fate. She worked as a reporter for eight years in various media outlets and, before the Taliban returned, was employed in an advocacy organization for journalists, where she enjoyed a good income and benefits.

Mursal, like dozens of other educated women, has become a shopkeeper. Private media outlets do not have adequate capacity to absorb many women, so instead of reporting the news, she now sells traditional Afghan clothes and products geared towards women.

Voicing her frustrations Mursal said she initially felt “very undervalued”. “People used to cast strange glances at us and, apart from that, my family wasn’t very happy with the job I was engaged in”. It is uncommon for women to operate shops in Afghanistan,

Mursal sells women’s clothes in southwestern Kabul, where she lives with her parents, both former government employees who are now unemployed.

“I have six sisters and one brother”, says Mursal, adding, “I cannot get married until they are on their feet, because I am responsible for all of them”. Her brother is only ten years old. Mursal makes about ten thousands Afghanis (127 euros) a month selling in the shop, which is hardly sufficient for the family to get by.

Even so, the Taliban’s moral police do not give the women any breathing space under the increasing precarious job situation. According to Mursal, officials from the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice visit their shops three times a week to enforce an all-day rule requiring them to wear masks, which they find suffocating. They are also forced to conceal or remove pictures on women’s sleepwear.

“If the sleepwear is hidden, how would customers know which ones or what to buy?” she points out.

Defiance in the face of adversity

While the women agonize over the likelihood of years of academic effort going to waste, they have nevertheless turned their situation as shopkeepers into a form of resistance to Taliban’s violations of their rights.

Forced to run shops to support their families, they may be glad to earn a little income, but their deeper pain comes from knowing that their skills and dreams in their chosen professions remain unused.

Still, it is a testament to their resilience in the face of severe restrictions imposed by the Taliban that they have readily taken up often unwanted jobs in the informal sector simply to survive and support their families.

The shift is not just about earning a living; it is a silent resistance. By taking on these roles, Afghan women are sending a clear signal that they will not remain silent and be airbrushed from the society.

Even when doors are closed to them in their professions, they find ways to stay active, contribute, and make a difference. They demonstrate that even a small window of opportunity can be transformed into meaningful participation, proving that Afghan women will continue to fight for their rights in any way they can.

Their resilience is a reminder that Taliban restrictions may limit opportunities, but they cannot erase ambition or their determination to create change.

By taking up these jobs, they make sure their presence is felt in society and stand strong in the face of the Taliban, who are trying to erase them from public life. Afghan women refuse to stay silent. They make it clear Afghan women will not disappear, they insist on being seen, heard, and counted.

Excerpt:

“Like countless other women I am tied to domestic work.” Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
BAMIYAN, Afghanistan, Dec 1 2025 (IPS)

I am an educated Afghan woman and a former government employee. I have long been active in women’s rights struggles, education, and community development. For me, living in Afghanistan is fraught with dangers and difficulties. In a context where women are denied the right to study, work, or participate in public life, my previous roles in government institutions and international organizations, and my advocacy for women’s rights, place me at particular risk.

With the fall of the previous government and the Taliban takeover, all my work in women’s rights and civil society issues has effectively turned into a target on my back; I am now being pursued by Taliban operatives and others equally opposed to women’s freedom. I have been repeatedly threatened, both directly and indirectly, by the Taliban and individuals associated with the group.

These threats are not only directed at me as a women’s rights activist, but my husband is also facing similar threats for having worked for the previous government. Thus, our entire family is facing an array of hostile forces; it makes it difficult to continue living in Afghanistan.

Under these circumstances, perhaps it is useful to describe what an average day looks like for me.

My day begins at five in the morning. There is no electricity because our solar panels are old and no longer capture and store enough energy, so the house is dark. I find my way to the kitchen using my phone’s flashlight to prepare breakfast. I ration our flour carefully. Prices are high and wasting food is unthinkable.

The writer is from Bamiyan province in central Afghanistan. Credit: Learning Together.

I also use gas sparingly, only to prepare rice because it is expensive. I heat water using a small makeshift stove that runs on wood and store it away in thermos flasks for tea and other daily needs.

My youngest daughter wakes up and cries. I breastfeed her, and she falls back asleep. Then I take my son to school. Sometimes he is reluctant to go because he is afraid. The road is unsafe, and he does not have pocket money and is increasingly under peer pressure. Despite this, we manage to persuade him.

He often returns from school hungry. Breakfast is usually tea with dry bread or tea with sugar, so he is often undernourished and weak.

After my son has left for school, the rest of the family would then sit down and have our breakfast.

My husband usually goes away to the mountains to meet friends and former work colleagues, so I am often left alone at home with my daughter. By 8 a.m., I have had most of the house chores done before the children’s snack time at 10 a.m.

After finishing with the chores, I feed my daughter and put her down for a nap. It is time to do the laundry, which I do by hand every other day because children’s clothes need frequent washing due to their playing habits in the dirt.

After all the running around, when I can still find a little time, I try to revisit my books. I try to go over my old books or review notes on psychology and education that I studied years ago. It saddens me, because I know that in today’s Afghanistan I cannot continue my education or return to work.

Some days I feel so exhausted and unwell that I lack the energy to do housework or even tend properly to my daughter. But because this innocent child had no choice in being born into this world, I force myself to look after her. On many days, life feels unbearable.

Before noon I return to the kitchen to prepare lunch before my son returns from school at 12.00 p.m. Lunch is usually boiled potatoes and bread, which has become too repetitive for my children’s liking but we have no alternatives. They often cry, but eventually they eat their meal. By 1:30 p.m., the children are done with lunch. After that, I put them down for a nap, wash the dishes and then perform my prayers.

Doing the laundry is part of her daily routine. Credit: Learning Together.

In the afternoons, I teach English and basic literacy to women in the neighbourhood. These lessons help me to stay in contact with the people around us and maintain awareness of their general situation. It also brings some peace to all of us. Most of our conversations revolve around daily struggles – rising prices, lack of money, and worries about our children’s future. None of us has much hope, but sharing our burdens lightens up the gloom engulfing our lives and lifts our spirits.

Our home is outside the city center, in a village where we are not well known. This distance from the provincial center means the Taliban rarely come prowling, which makes the prohibited teaching easier. The women also come in small groups and bring no books or pens that might raise suspicion and likely filter back to the Taliban. I work with them at home, and the literate women take photos of the lessons on their phones, while the others learn on the spot, since they have no further opportunity to study in their own homes.

The learning also involves practicing household skills such as sewing clothes, attaching headscarves, and other practical crafts to maintain their skills.

My husband returns home in the evening, usually tired, disillusioned and very depressed. I try to comfort him, even though I am deeply worried myself. My son struggles with his schoolwork, often showing frustration. I have to sit with him and go over his lessons.

For dinner, I usually cook whatever is immediately available, most often, local rice because it is more affordable.

After dinner, which is usually around 8 p.m., and all the dishes are washed and stacked away, I try to revisit my online psychology studies at the university. Psychology is the subject needed in today’s circumstances, and I am passionate about it. I am truly grateful to those who have supported me in this endeavor, and I thank them for their help. Many of my difficulties are eased, and it brings me happiness.

When everyone goes to sleep, I am left alone lost in thought. I worry about my daughter’s future, knowing she cannot go to school in Afghanistan. I think back to the days when I studied at university and had big dreams. Now, all I can do is pray that someday women will again have the opportunity to study, work, and live freely.

Most nights, these thoughts keep me awake. I lie in bed until morning, exhausted and hopeless. By dawn, I feel as though I have already worked so hard that I cannot even lift myself from the bed. I wake up dizzy, weak, and depressed, yet the day begins again.

It’s important to share that I live this same daily routine every single day. I am no longer a government employee, and like countless other women, I am confined to my home, with no time for rest, leisure, or even a moment of freedom. In the past, days off meant visiting friends or relatives, exploring the city, or enjoying simple outings. Transportation and the possibility of movement made it all possible.

Now, the Taliban have banned women from walking the streets, entering public spaces, or even leaving home for the simplest errands. Every step outside is forbidden, every opportunity to live fully taken away.

I am deeply grateful to those who read these words of mine. Through you, I hope my silenced voice can be heard. I hope it can reach the outside world, not just for me, but for hundreds of women whose lives are trapped under the same restrictions. Together, perhaps, a path can be found to reclaim life, dignity, and hope. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Excerpt:

Roya shares her story with our journalist in Parwan province, describing the fear and uncertainty she faces after being deported from Iran. Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
PARWAN, Afghanistan, Nov 13 2025 (IPS)

When Roya, a former police officer under Afghanistan’s Republic government, left the country with her family, she felt a great sense of relief, having escaped from the horrors of Taliban rule. She never imagined that less than three years later she would be forced back into the same conditions, only worse.

She now spends sleepless nights, terrified of being identified as a former police officer, a label that carries dire consequences.

Roya, 52, is a mother of four. During the Republic years, she worked in the women’s search unit of Parwan province, earning enough to support her family.

When the government collapsed and the Taliban returned to power in 2021, she, like hundreds of other women in uniform, became the target of direct and indirect threats. Fear for her life and dignity pushed her onto the path of migration. She fled to Iran, where she and her six-member family spent a few years in relative safety.

“In Iran, I worked in a tomato paste factory”, she recalls. “We had a house, we ate well, and above all I had peace of mind because we lived in relative security”, says Roya.

Street life in Parwan provice, Afghanistan. Credit: Learning Together.

Her daughters also found work. “Zakia, 23, who had completed her first year at Kabul University prior to our departure, found a job in a large home appliances store as a salesclerk and computer operator. Setayesh, who turned 21 this year, threw herself enthusiastically into a job at a beauty salon, specializing in hair braiding. Everyone had something to do and earned an income.”

But that stability did not last. Escalating political tensions between Iran and Israel soon triggered harsh crackdowns on Afghan migrants in Iran.

“At two in the afternoon, Iranian officials entered our home without any warning”, says Roya. “We had no time to gather our belongings, and even much less to recover the lease for the house we were living in, she says.”

She and her daughters were forcibly deported back to Afghanistan while the men were still at work. A week later, one of her sons called from the Islam Qala border, and the family was finally reunited.

Roya now lives in Afghanistan under extremely difficult conditions. She has no job, no support, and carries a constant fear that her past work with the police could put her and her family in danger.

“Every night I go to sleep in fear, worried that my identity might be exposed. I don’t know what will happen if they find out I previously worked in the police service.”

A market scene in Parwan province, where women navigate restricted public spaces under Taliban rule. Credit: Learning Together.

She is one of several hundred women who were forcibly expelled from Iran, back into a country where women who had previously worked in the security forces are treated like criminals and where the memory of their uniform has become a nightmare of imprisonment.

Under Taliban rule, former military and civil service women are forced to hide their identities. Some have even burned their work documents. Others, like Roya, stay inside their homes, avoid social contact, and spend their nights haunted by the fear of being recognized.

“We decided to escape to Iran to rid ourselves of the strict laws of the Taliban. But now we are caught in the same restrictions again, this time, with empty hands and even more exhausted spirits,” Roya says.

Roya and her family now live temporarily in a relative’s home in Parwan province, facing an uncertain future.

The widespread deportation of Afghan migrants from Iran is particularly consequential for women whose situation has progressively worsened under Taliban rule. Job opportunities for them and participation in public life are shrinking by the day.

The Taliban have stripped women of the right to work, education, travel, and even the simple freedom to visit parks. Women who once served their government are now treated as second-class citizens in their own homes.

Roya’s story mirrors the life experience of hundreds of women – the repercussion of a combination of dysfunctional regional politics across the borders and domestic religious extremist government intolerant of women’s rights.

Roya also recounts the story of her neighbor, Mohammad Yousuf, a 34-year-old construction worker, who was violently beaten by Iranian officials. He was thrown into a vehicle without receiving his wages for several months or allowing him to collect his belongings from the small room where he had been living.

Meanwhile, the pace of deportations of Afghan migrants from Iran has accelerated sharply in 2025, according to several domestic and international media outlets, including Iran Time, Afghanistan International, and Iran International, as well as international organizations.

The International Organization for Migration has reported that since early May 2025, a wave of forced mass deportations has taken place, primarily affecting families unlike previous trends, which mostly involved single men.

In the first five months of 2025, more than 457,100 people returned from Iran. Of these, about 72% were deported forcibly, while the rest returned voluntarily.

In one year, over 1.2 million people were deported from the Islam Qala border into Afghanistan.

The deportation campaign’s peak coincided with a rise in Iran-Israel tensions in June this year. More than 500 000 people were deported in just 16 days between June 24 and July 9. In total, by early July 2025, over 1.1 million people had been forcibly returned. Daily deportation rates of up to 30,000 people were reported.

Iran has employed harsh and often violent methods to expel Afghan migrants. These measures include workplace inspections, nighttime arrests, home raids, and the destruction of legal documents, even passports and valid visas. Numerous cases of violence, mistreatment, and deprivation of basic services such as healthcare and food have been reported.

International humanitarian and human rights organizations have described these actions as violations of the principle of non-refoulement and a serious threat to refugees and have called for an immediate halt to forced deportations and respect for legal rights.

Reports from the United Nations and human rights organizations indicate that Afghan returnees especially women, minorities, and those who worked with the previous government face a high risk of arbitrary detention and torture.

Iran has stated that it intends to deport a total of 4 million Afghan migrants, of which around 1.2 million have already been sent back.

Iranian officials have claimed that the deportations will be “dignified and gradual,” but evidence shows that pressure, threats, and arrests without consent have been widespread.

The health, social, and security consequences of these returns have placed a heavy burden on Afghanistan, overwhelming border crossings and reception camps. Many are enduring extreme heat of up to 50°C, without access to water or shelter.

According to a UN report published in July, 1.35 million Afghan refugees have been forced to leave Iran in recent months. Many were arrested and deported, while others returned voluntarily for fear of arbitrary arrest.

Excerpt:

In Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan province, women move cautiously through public spaces under the watch of the Taliban’s “Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice,” whose patrols have revived a climate of fear and control. Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
FAIZABAD, Afghanistan, Nov 6 2025 (IPS)

The Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, is the name given by the Taliban to their religious police, tasked with enforcing strict Islamist rule on the people of Afghanistan. But for Afghan women, the name evokes only fear and terror, as they bear the harshest consequences of its actions.

Women and girls know too well that venturing intro streets risks artitrary arrest, humiliation, and even torture. The mere mention of the religious police makes them tremble and, fearing for their lives, try to hide wherever they can.

The story of Fahima in the city of Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan province, show how easily women can become victims of this brutality.

Fahima was on her way to her aunt’s home to give Eid greetings and check in on her. On the way, she ran into her aunt’s young son who she casually greeted him, and as courtesy to a known relative, stopped for a brief chat. They had barely exchanged a few words when a white vehicle belonging to the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, pulled up beside them. Inside were armed men with fierce expressions.

They jumped out of the vehicle, shouting insults and threats, and demanded to know Fahima’s relationship with the young man. She told them he was her cousin. Nevertheless, the armed Taliban, seized both of them and forced them into the vehicle before speeding away.

I was there and saw it happen, I later located Fahima’s family after the incident and asked what happened to her. Badakhshan is a small province and people talk about many things that easily upset the mind.

Fahima was detained from noon until eleven at night. Her father went to the station and managed to convince the Taliban of the true relationship between the cousins, and she was eventually released.

The ordeal left Fahima deeply traumatized. She struggles to sleep, wakes trembling with fear, and refuses to leave the house under any circumstance, not even to seek medical help.

Fahima’s case is far from unique. During Eid, dozens of girls and women in Badakhshan faced threats, insults, and beatings from Taliban gunmen patroling the roads. Such incidents are a grim routine for Afghan women, whether it is Eid or an ordinary day.

Women in Afghanistan do not have the right to go to entertainment venues, women do not have the right to go to parks, women do not have the right to go shopping for clothes alone, and they must be accompanied by a male family member. Women do not have the right to study and get an education, and women do not even have the right to go to a male doctor for treatment.

Since the Taliban regained power in August 2021, they have issued at least 118 decrees imposing restrictions on women, dictating how they dress, banning them from employment, education in specialized and technical fields, and even presence in the media.

The increasing pressures and restrictions have led many women in Afghanistan to experience various mental illnesses, including depression, anxiety, and psychological issues. Moreover, despair, poverty, and unemployment among women have contributed to a disproportionate rise in the suicide rate compared to previous times.

The Taliban do not admit it stems from their brutal attacks on women, and there are no official statistics available. But when people gather at weddings or funeral occasions, these issues very often come up in discussions. There is always someone who knows someone else, who has either had mental breakdown, or whose behavior has worryingly changed, or has been subjected to violence.

These pressures have had severe impact on the morale of women, many of whom live in challenging conditions at home. Under these circumstances, any attempt by women to protest these restrictions is always met with serious threats, of imprisonment, sexual assault in prison, and, in extreme cases, women can lose their life for protesting. Afghan women have lost even the ability to speak out or demand their rights.

Excerpt:

Secretary General of CIVICUS, Mandeep Tiwana, at International Civil Society Week 2025. Credit: Civicus

By Zofeen Ebrahim
BANGKOK, Nov 1 2025 (IPS)

It is a bleak global moment—with civil society actors battling assassinations, imprisonment, fabricated charges, and funding cuts to pro-democracy movements in a world gripped by inequality, climate chaos, and rising authoritarianism. Yet, the mood at Bangkok’s Thammasat University was anything but defeated.

Once the site of the 1976 massacre, where pro-democracy students were brutally crushed, the campus—a “hallowed ground” for civil society actors—echoed with renewed voices calling for defending democracy in what Secretary General of CIVICUS, Mandeep Tiwana, described as a “topsy-turvy world” with rising authoritarianism—a poignant reminder that even in places scarred by repression, the struggle for civic space endures.

“Let it resonate,” said Ichal Supriadi, Secretary General, Asian Democracy Network. “Democracy must be defended together,” adding that it was the “shared strength” that confronts authoritarianism.

Despite the hopeful spirit at Thammasat University, where the International Civil Society Week (ICSW) is underway, the conversations often turned to sobering realities. Dr. Gothom Arya of the Asian Cultural Forum on Development and the Peace and Culture Foundation reminded participants that civic freedoms are being curtailed across much of the world.

Citing alarming figures, he spoke bluntly of the global imbalance in priorities—noting how military expenditure continues to soar even as civic space shrinks. He pointedly referred to the United States’ Ministry of Defense as the “Ministry of War,” comparing its USD 968 billion military budget with China’s USD 3 billion and noting that spending on the war in Ukraine had increased tenfold in just three years—a stark illustration of global priorities. “This is where we are with respect to peace and war,” he said gloomily.

Ichal Supriadi, Secretary General, Asian Democracy Network. Credit: Civicus

At another session, similar reflections set the tone for a broader critique of global power dynamics. Walden Bello, a former senator and peace activist from the Philippines, argued that the United States—especially under the Trump administration—had abandoned even the pretense of a free-market system, replacing it with what he called “overt monopolistic hegemony.” American imperialism, he said, “graduated away from camouflage attempts and is now unapologetic in demanding that the world bend to its wishes.”

Dr. Gothom Arya of the Asian Cultural Forum on Development and the Peace and Culture Foundation. Credit: Civicus

Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani physicist and author, echoed the sentiment, expressing outrage at his own country’s leadership. He condemned Pakistan’s decision to nominate a “psychopath, habitual liar, and aggressive warmonger” for the Nobel Peace Prize, saying that the leadership had “no right to barter away minerals and rare earth materials to an American dictator” without public consent.

Hoodbhoy urged the international community to intervene and restart peace talks between Pakistan and India—two nuclear-armed neighbors perpetually teetering on the edge of renewed conflict.

But at no point during the day did the focus shift away from the ongoing humanitarian crises. Arya reminded the audience of the tragic loss of civilian lives in Gaza, the devastating fighting in Sudan that had led to widespread malnutrition, and the global inequality worsened by climate inaction. “Because some big countries refused to follow the Paris Agreement ten years ago,” he warned, “the rest of the world will suffer the consequences.”

That grim reality was brought into even sharper relief by Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, a Palestinian physician and politician, who delivered a harrowing account of Gaza’s devastation. He said that through the use of  American-supplied weapons, Israel had killed an estimated 12 percent of Gaza’s population, destroyed every hospital and university, and left nearly 10,000 bodies buried beneath the rubble.

“Even as these crises unfolded across the world, the conference demonstrated that civil society continues to persevere, as nearly 1,000 people from more than 75 organizations overcame travel bans and visa hurdles to gather at Thammasat University, sharing strategies, solidarity, and hope through over 120 sessions.

Among them was a delegation whose presence carried the weight of an entire nation’s silenced hopes—Hamrah, believed to be the only Afghan civil society group at ICSW.

“Our participation is important at a time when much of the world has turned its gaze away from Afghanistan,” Timor Sharan, co-founder and programme director of the HAMRAH Initiative, told IPS.

“It is vital to remind the global community that Afghan civil society has not disappeared; it’s fighting and holding the line.”

Through networks like HAMRAH, he said, activists, educators, and defenders have continued secret and online schools, documented abuses, and amplified those silenced under the Taliban rule. “Our presence here is both a statement of resilience and a call for solidarity.”

“Visibility matters,” pointed out Riska Carolina, an Indonesian woman and LGBTIQ+ rights advocate working with ASEAN SOGIE Caucus (ASC). “What’s even more powerful is being visible together.”

“It was special because it brought together movements—Dalit, Indigenous, feminist, disability, and queer—that rarely share the same space, creating room for intersectional democracy to take shape,” said Carolina, whose work focuses on regional advocacy for LGBTQIA+ rights within Southeast Asia’s political and human rights frameworks, especially the ASEAN system, which she said has historically been “slow to recognize issues of sexuality and gender diversity.”

“We work to make sure that SOGIESC (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression, and Sex Characteristics) inclusion is not just seen as a niche issue, but as a core part of democracy, governance, and human rights. That means engaging governments, civil society, and regional bodies to ensure queer people’s participation, safety, and dignity is part of how we measure democratic progress.”

She said the ICSW provided ASC with a chance to make “visible” the connection between civic space, democracy, and queer liberation and to remind people that democracy is not only about elections but also about “who is able to live freely and who remains silenced by law or stigma.”

Away from the main sessions, civil society leaders gathered for a candid huddle—part reflection, part reckoning—to examine their role in an era when their space to act was shrinking.

“The dialogue surfaced some tough but necessary questions,” he said. They asked themselves: ‘Have we grasped the full scale of the challenges we face?’ ‘Are our responses strong enough?’ ‘Are we expecting anti-rights forces to respect our rules and values?’ ‘Are we reacting instead of setting the agenda? And are we allies—or accomplices—of those risking everything for justice?’

But if there was one thing crystal clear to everyone present, it was that civil society must stand united, not fragmented, to defend democracy.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Though access is back, throttling and platform blocks persist, reflecting tightened internet restrictions nationwide. Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
KABUL, Oct 14 2025 (IPS)

At the end of September, the Taliban abruptly severed Wi-Fi and fiber-optic internet in Afghanistan for 48 hours without any explanation. The disruption caused consternation and suffering among millions of Afghans, especially those who depend on the internet for education and online commerce.

Closing girls’ schools had not entirely stopped students from pursing education, as many found workarounds through online classes. They therefore, targeted Wi-Fi and fiber-optic internet to close off all those possibilities

Even though the internet blockage has been lifted, its speed is significantly lower than normal, and certain social media sites such as Instagram and Facebook appear to be intentionally restricted, according to foreign journalists reporting from the country.

Nilam, 23, recalls, how her online English language lesson was suddenly disconnected, leaving her desperate. “At that moment, my world went dark. I felt like I had lost everything and all my dreams were destroyed right in front of me”. She recounts the previous decrees issued by the Taliban that closed down schools and universities, “and how many times I was forced to stay home”.

Online English courses, she said, was the only available channel left to her to learn a language and find a job, or study abroad. And when it appeared that it was also blocked she was lost and in total despair.

As she colourfully puts it, “It was as if I were living in the century of carrier pigeons; the Taliban have cut us off from the flow of global progress”, she said.

The Taliban’s stated reason for yanking Afghans off the internet was to curb “immorality,” arguing that widespread access among young people to the internet, and the use of smartphones generate moral corruption.

However, media experts reject that explanation as a cover for the Taliban’s main objective, which is to deny girls’ access to education, the flagship policy of the Islamist group since it returned to power four years ago.

Many women in Afghanistan relied on online study; tightening internet restrictions now make it far more difficult. Credit: Learning Together.

They first began by shutting off wireless internet in the provinces of Balkh, Baghlan, Kandahar, and Paktia. This was extended to fifteen other provinces the next day, denying access to internet to millions of Afghans. Closing girls’ schools had not entirely stopped students from pursing education, as many found workarounds through online classes. They therefore, targeted Wi-Fi and fiber-optic internet to close off all those possibilities.

For many low-income households, Wi-Fi was the most affordable option because several family members could simultaneously use a single connection for study and work at a relatively cheaper cost compared to mobile data.

Nooria, in Mazar-i-Sharif, like many women who had lost jobs due to Taliban edicts, turned to online commerce to support her family.

“After the fall of the republic, I turned to online selling to cover living expenses. Through this work, I could meet my own needs and help support part of my family’s expenses. But now, with wireless internet cut off, continuing this work has become nearly impossible for me”, she complained bitterly.

As she explains, mobile data internet is prohibitively expensive. “By paying 2,000 Afghanis (about 26 Euros), our entire family could use wireless internet” she says. “My little sister would study, my brothers would work on their lessons, and I could continue my online work. But now, if we want to buy mobile data, we would have to pay separately for each person, a cost we simply cannot afford.”

Announcement posted at an internet provider notifying customers of an internet ban under new internet restrictions. Credit: Learning Together.

Ahmad, an internet service provider in Herat, emphasizes that limited access provides hardly meaningful internet use.

“Apart from simple messaging on WhatsApp, nothing else will be allowed. That means no education, no online work, no research, and no free connection with the outside world”, says Ahmad.

Last month’s outage was widely described by local users and providers as the most sweeping multi-province shutdown since the fall of the Afghan Republic on August 15, 2021.

At the beginning of 2025, 13.2 million – around 30.5 percent of the population – had access to the internet in Afghanistan, according to the specialist website DataReportal. Around 4.05 million people were using social media.

Experts believe the Taliban are attempting to completely isolate Afghan society from global communication, allowing only a small group of people connected to business or government to access the internet.

They warn that, if implemented, such restrictions would severely cripple the social, educational, and economic life of ordinary citizens. Analysts warn that this move will deal a severe blow to the education of Afghan women and girls, pushing society further into isolation.

Excerpt:

It is estimated that the Taliban have enforced over 5,000 forced marriages over the past four years. Thousands of girls have not only been stripped of their right to education but compelled into marriages over which they had no choice. Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
KABUL, Oct 3 2025 (IPS)

After the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, they banned girls’ education beyond the sixth grade. Human rights groups say the policy is a major driver of the rise in underage and forced marriages involving Afghan girls.

Zarghona, 42, a widowed mother of four, says her three underage daughters were taken from her and forcibly married to former classmates. After schools and universities for girls were closed, all three daughters, who hoped to become nurses and midwives, were deprived of education and confined to their home.

“To prevent my daughters from becoming depressed, I sent them to a madrasa (religious school) near our house, on the advice of neighbors,” Zarghona says. They received religious education for a year, but things soon began to change.

“One day, a woman came to our house under the pretext of renting a room, and after that, the frequency of her visits increased. I gradually realized that she was targeting my daughters.”

One day a Taliban recruiter, a classmate of theirs at the madrassa, followed the girls to her house and demanded the two younger daughters as wives to his brothers.

“When I rejected their proposal, they told me, either I marry off my daughters to the older men or they would harm my son, they threatened”.

Under pressure, Zarghona says she was forced to consent to the marriages without her daughters’ approval.

“For me and my daughters, the wedding was not a celebration, it was a mourning ceremony” Zarghona lamented, adding, “I had no choice but to surrender.”

The wedding was not a formal Afghan ceremony, but rather a simple religious ceremony conducted by the Mullahs. Her oldest daughter was not forcibly married.

Afterwards, Zarghona was barred from seeing her daughters. She said money had to be secretly sent to them through prepaid mobile transfers. Life became even harder for the daughters.

“Each day came with more restrictions on how they dressed and where they could go. I couldn’t defend them, and my heart was never at peace, she said, sad and embittered.

The older of the two daughters is now 19. She already has one child and is expecting another. The younger daughter has not yet become pregnant and because of that she was permitted to see a doctor, which also enabled Zarghona to meet her secretly in the doctor’s reception area. She said both had lost weight and were shadows of their former selves. Both had bruises and looked scared.

After being forced to marriage many young girls in Afghanistan are not allowed to go out. Credit: Learning Together.

Zarghona decided to go to Iran for a while to ease herself from the painful reality of her daughters’ situation. But when she heard their cries over the phone, she returned to Afghanistan. She says, “Less than three days after I came back, they beat me up and my daughters and even locked us inside our home.”

Zarghona adds that she now has no contact with her daughters and believes their situation remains critical. “All doors for seeking help are closed to me. The government is patriarchal, and no organization supports women’s rights,” she says.

It is estimated that the Taliban have enforced over 5,000 forced marriages over the past four years. Thousands of girls have not only been stripped of their right to education but compelled into marriages over which they had no choice.

Human rights organizations and the United Nations have warned that the ban on girls’ education is fueling domestic violence, poverty, suicides, forced marriages, and Afghanistan’s political isolation.

According to recent assessments by UNICEF and the World Bank, more than one million girls have been denied the right to education since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.

Excerpt:

A powerful 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan late on 31 August 2025, with its epicenter near Jalalabad in Nangarhar province. A shortage of female doctors left women untreated as the quake’s toll mounted. Credit: UNICEF/Amin Meerzad

By External Source
KABUL, Sep 24 2025 (IPS)

In normal times, women in Afghanistan face dire living conditions relative to their counterparts in other parts of the world, given the iron grip of Taliban repression. However, the powerful 6.0-magnitude earthquake that struck the eastern Afghan provinces of Kunar, Nangarhar, and Laghman at the end of August was out of the ordinary.

It was the deadliest quake to hit earthquake-prone Afghanistan in decades, and humanitarian efforts to reach the most vulnerable – usually women, children, and the elderly – were overwhelmed.

In the affected areas, a serious shortage of female doctors led to a higher toll among women because male doctors did not have easy access to female victims due to gender segregation

Nearly 700,000 homes and 500 hectares of farmland were damaged in Kunar alone, according to Afghan authorities.

But the only factor that was not a force of nature is the gender-based restrictions instituted by the Taliban, which aggravated the crisis for Afghan women.

In the affected areas, a serious shortage of female doctors led to a higher toll among women because male doctors did not have easy access to female victims due to gender segregation.

“Taliban edicts bar women from moving freely without a male guardian, ban them from many forms of work and strictly limit access to healthcare,” according to a report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

In the aftermath of the deadly quake, residents from Kunar and Jalalabad told us that women in these areas faced shortages of safe shelter and drinking water, while also battling women’s health issues.

The condition of women and children in other areas such as Kunar, Nangarhar, and Laghman was equally poor.

The total death toll from the earthquake is estimated at 2,200 people. The exact number of women casualties remains unclear, but health workers in the affected areas have reported high death tolls among women and children.

Sharifa Aziz (a pseudonym), a member of the UNICEF relief team who spent three days in various parts of Kunar province, told us over the phone: “The situation is extremely dire. When we first arrived, women cried tears of joy at seeing us. They said, ‘God’s angels have come to us.’” Their jubilation was understandable.

There were insufficient female workers to serve women’s needs, stemming from the Taliban’s overall clampdown on women’s participation in the labour market. Their participation in international humanitarian organizations’ work is also strictly limited.

As the earthquake was still unfolding, Susan Ferguson, the UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan, put out a statement: “Women and girls will again bear the brunt of this disaster, so we must ensure their needs are at the heart of the response and recovery,” she warned.

According to her, after the major earthquake that hit Herat in 2023, “nearly six out of 10 of those who lost their lives were women, and nearly two-thirds of those injured were women.”

After the quake struck, local news sources began reporting that the majority of the victims were women and children.

In some households, as many as five or six children lost their lives, and the death toll among women and the elderly was alarmingly high.

The Taliban eventually dispatched a team of mobile health workers to Kunar only after images from social media circulated on local television showing a shortage of female doctors in the affected area, according to Abdulqadeem Abrar, spokesperson for the Afghan Red Crescent Society.

However, residents say that with the rising number of injured people, they continue to face a shortage of female medical staff.

“After the severe earthquake in our area, we came to the hospital and brought in patients here. There is a serious shortage of female doctors. If there were more female doctors here, we would not have had to transfer our patients elsewhere,” complained Chenar Gul, a resident of Kunar.

As Tajudeen Oyewale, UNICEF’s representative in Afghanistan, pointed out in a posting on X, the role of female doctors is critical in responding to disasters such as earthquakes.

He added that female doctors treat children and women as well as men affected by the earthquake in these provinces. However, in humanitarian agencies without female staff, or where access is restricted, it is feared that women can be left untreated for several hours.

The growing concerns over the shortage of female doctors and healthcare workers—a contributory factor to the high toll exacted on women—should have brought home to the Taliban the negative impact of their policy. But in recent remarks, Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban leader, described the issue of girls’ education as “minor.”

For the fourth consecutive year, the Taliban have kept all universities, institutions, and medical training centers for girls and women closed, including specialized nursing and medical technology centers.

The scale of destruction caused by the 6.0-magnitude earthquake was exacerbated by poor infrastructure and a fragile healthcare system—a legacy of a country emerging from decades of military conflict—which explains the unacceptably high number of casualties.

However, it is within human capability to mitigate the severe impact of such recurring events on women. All it takes is for the international community to stand in solidarity with Afghan women by bringing relentless pressure on the Taliban government.

Excerpt:

IOM teams are assessing damage and delivering life-saving support to those in urgent need after a devastating earthquake in Afghanistan. Credit: IOM

By Jennifer Xin-Tsu Lin Levine
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 5 2025 (IPS)

United Nations aid organizations are rallying after a series of earthquakes and powerful aftershocks wreaked unprecedented havoc across eastern Afghanistan—particularly in the mountainous provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar.

Preliminary reports show that at least 1,400 people were killed and more than 3,100 injured. Widespread destruction of homes and critical infrastructure has displaced thousands more, while rockfalls and landslides have slowed rescue teams’ efforts to reach remote communities.

In response, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released 10 million US Dollars within hours of the earthquake to provide shelter, food, water, child protection, and healthcare.

Countries including the United Kingdom and South Korea have pledged money through the United Nations—the UK does not recognize the Taliban government. Working alongside OCHA, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) is working with local partners to link immediate humanitarian assistance with long-term recovery and resilience-building strategies. The United Nations is also preparing an emergency appeal, with an initial USD 5 million from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) already released.

UNHCR’s partner, AREWO, assesses the needs of the population affected by the earthquake that hit the region on 31 August. Credit: UNHCR/ARWEO

Despite these rapid mobilizations, questions remain about whether the flow of aid can be sustained. Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, warned, “This is the latest crisis to expose the cost of shrinking resources on vital humanitarian work. Massive funding cuts have already brought essential health and nutrition services for millions to a halt, grounded aircraft, which are often the only lifeline to remote communities, and forced aid agencies to reduce their footprint.”

He urged donors to “once again” step up for the people of Afghanistan, rallying resources for those in need.

Against this backdrop of urgency and shrinking resources, UNDP officials have sought to outline a vision for recovery that extends beyond immediate survival.

Stephen Rodriguez, UNDP’s resident representative in Afghanistan, addresses a UN press conference via videolink on the impact of the earthquakes on the country and its people. Credit: Jennifer Xin-Tsu Lin Levine/IPS

Stephen Rodriguez, UNDP’s resident representative in Afghanistan, emphasized that the country is facing a “perfect economic storm.”

In a press briefing, he shared data from the UN’s 25 assessment teams showing that 84,000 people have been affected by the earthquake so far.

Rodriguez also detailed the UNDP’s initiative of “community-driven recovery,” which includes cash support for families clearing rubble and rebuilding homes. Pointing to the success of a similar community-oriented approach after the 2023 earthquake in Herat, he called on member states to join the initiative in “building back better,” improving infrastructure and uniting communities.

Both Rodriguez and other UN representatives also addressed the additional challenges created by restrictions on women and girls in Afghanistan and how they affect UN work.

Aid groups are barred from recruiting female aid workers, and as UN Women Afghanistan Special Representative Susan Ferguson said, “women and girls could miss out on lifesaving assistance or information in the days ahead.”

However, Rodriguez denied any organized effort to block women’s access to humanitarian services and medical aid. He described reports of women being prevented from getting emergency medical care as “isolated incidents… rather than a systematic restriction.”

Despite these concerns and the reluctance of some countries to channel funds through Afghanistan’s authorities, UN officials stressed that the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, and independence remain central to their engagement with the Taliban.

Rodriguez recalled difficulties during the 2023 earthquake recovery that have since been resolved and stated that closer coordination has enabled aid to reach mountainous areas with the Taliban’s helicopters.

He called the “growth” in the relationship between the UN and the Taliban “exemplary,” citing their “full understanding that humanity comes first, tending to those most in need, irrespective of ethnicity, of gender, of anything else.”

For now, the focus remains on immediate survival—reaching those trapped beneath debris or isolated from aid, providing food and clean water, and preventing disease outbreaks. But UN officials emphasize that rebuilding shattered homes and livelihoods will require far more than emergency aid—it necessitates sustained support and long-term commitment.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

The television and video recording studio of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Afghan service, Azadi Radio, in Prague, Czech Republic. Azadi Radio broadcasts to Afghanistan in Pashto and Dari languages. Credit: Bashir Ahmad Gwakh/IPS

By Bashir Ahmad Gwakh
PRAGUE, Aug 28 2025 (IPS)

Ahmad Siyar works in road construction in Balkh province. He wears a safety helmet to protect himself from debris constantly falling from the mountain where the road is being built. Once, he wore the same type of helmet for a very different reason. He was reporting from various parts of northern Afghanistan. Back then, his helmet bore the word “Journalist” in both Dari and English.

“We wore journalists’ helmets to protect ourselves and tell the warring sides that I am a journalist. It was a difficult but golden era. I loved reporting and being the voice of the people. But after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the restrictions and financial problems became overwhelming, and I had to quit,” he said. “Now I work as a construction worker. It’s not an easy job, but I must do it, as I have no other option. I am the sole breadwinner of the family.”

Siyar, a father of three, is not the only journalist who has suffered under the Taliban regime. Since returning to power on August 15, 2021, the Taliban government has issued at least 21 directives regulating media activity through June 2025. These directives impose a wide range of restrictions, including a ban on women appearing on state-run television and radio, prohibitions on covering protests, and a ban on music.

These restrictions, along with the ongoing financial crisis and lack of funding, have led to the shutdown of 350 independent media outlets under Taliban rule. Before August 2021, there were over 600 independent media outlets in Afghanistan. According to data reviewed by IPS, these figures are based on weekly and monthly reports from organizations advocating for media freedom, such as the International Federation of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Four years after the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan’s once vibrant free press is a ghost of its former self. The situation of press freedom remains dire in Afghanistan, while exiled Afghan journalists face growing risks of arbitrary arrests, including those in Pakistan and Iran,” Beh Lih Yi, Regional Director, Asia-Pacific at CJP, told IPS.

Afghanistan’s largest independent news network, TOLOnews, had to let go of 25 journalists in June 2024. The layoffs followed an order from the Taliban to shut down certain programmes deemed “misleading” and “propaganda against the Taliban government,” according to a senior editor at TOLOnews. Fearing retaliation, the editor requested anonymity. “Beyond the constant stream of restrictive orders and lack of access to information, our funds are drying up. We can no longer have full and free news broadcasts to our people,” he added.

The Taliban have imposed strict rules on how women must dress and appear in the media. Women are barred from participating in plays and television entertainment. The Taliban have also prohibited interviews with opposition figures. Afghan media are no longer allowed to broadcast international television content. The release of films and TV series has been halted. Collaboration with media outlets in exile is also banned.

Yi believes these are the darkest days for media in Afghanistan. “Since the fall of Kabul, the Taliban have escalated a crackdown on the media in Afghanistan with censorship, assaults, arbitrary arrests, and restrictions on female journalists. The Taliban and its intelligence agency GDI continue to crack down on Afghan journalists on a daily basis,” she said.

Most Afghan women journalists have fled the country. Those who remain live in fear. Farida Habibi (not her real name), a journalist in Kabul, chose not to flee because she could not leave her disabled father behind. She now works in online media after the Taliban declared her on-air voice “un-Islamic”.

“We live in depression, to be honest. The environment is suffocating. I can’t go out freely, and my salary is very low,” she said.

The Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has also banned the publication of images depicting living beings. Since the majority of these rules do not specify penalties, the Taliban forces use this ambiguity to punish journalists arbitrarily.

A 2024 report by the Afghanistan Journalists Centre (AFJC), an independent watchdog, documented 703 cases of human rights violations against media professionals between August 2021 and December 2024. These violations included arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, threats, and intimidation by Taliban forces.

Similarly, a 2024 report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) condemned the Taliban for “systematically dismantling the right to a free press.”

“Journalists and media workers in Afghanistan operate under vague rules, unsure of what they can or cannot report, and constantly risk intimidation and arbitrary detention for perceived criticism,” said Roza Otunbayeva, head of UNAMA. “For any country, a free press is not a choice but a necessity. What we are witnessing in Afghanistan is the systematic dismantling of that necessity.”

Meanwhile, the Taliban government denies any wrongdoing and claims it is committed to supporting journalists. Speaking to reporters in Kabul on July 2, Khabib Ghafran, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Information and Culture, said the Taliban support a free media but warned that “nobody can cross the Islamic red lines,” without providing further details. He added that the government is working on establishing a financial support fund for journalists.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

A bustling Kabul street near the unmarked stairway down to the women-only restaurant—located in a basement to ensure no women can be seen from outside, since they are barred from working or dining in public with men. Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
KABUL, Jun 25 2025 (IPS)

It was a sunny winter day in Kabul. I decided to step out and take a stroll around my surroundings. With my long dress and hijab on, I left the house. Since I was not too far from home, I did not need the company of a Mahram, a male guard, by my side – a strict restriction placed on Afghan women by the Taliban.

Life in the city was bustling, children selling plastic bags by the roadside while ordinary people went about in various ways.

As I walked, my eyes caught a sign that indicated a restaurant for women only, serving a variety of local and national dishes. I was intrigued, given that in a city filled with numerous hotels and restaurants, mostly run by men, this particular one was operated by women catering to only women customers.

I decided to pursue further. The sign took me fifteen stairs deep into the basement of a building, where the women working in the restaurant could not be seen from outside.

From Home-Kitchen Hustle to Full-Blown Restaurant

I was met by a woman who friendly welcomed me. As I sat in the restaurant, memories of the past flooded my mind. I had visited restaurants with my family and friends prior to the Taliban takeover of our country. There used to be laughter, we shared meals and enjoyed each other’s company without fear or restriction.

We could sit together, converse openly, and enjoy life, free from the oppressive atmosphere that now defines our current situation. Those days were full of joy and possibility, and the memories are among the happiest I have ever had; now they feel like a distant, almost unreachable past.

A waitress snapped me back to the present as she took my order. I was curious to know how the women had managed to set up a workplace outside home in the heart of Kabul.

One of the proprietors who wanted to remain anonymous narrated the story: “My daughter and I were driven by unemployment and poverty into preparing delicious food at home and selling it online at low price”.

“The business gradually flourished, even though initially we made many mistakes”, said the young woman, a law degree holder, forced by the Taliban to abandon further studies.

After saving 800,000 Afghanis, and an additional 100,000 European Union support, they decided to start their own restaurant. The rented place has a fully equipped kitchen and a large hall for customers.

Inside the beautifully decorated walls, girls are busy preparing dough for bolani, a thin-crusted flat bread widely consumed in Afghanistan often filled with potatoes, leeks, grated pumpkin, or chives.

Due to the Taliban crack down on women outside home, the restaurant has become a lifeline to most of the women working there, who recently lost their jobs.

Among them is Wahida, a young girl who said she lost her job as an office worker. “It has been over three years since my colleagues and I lost our jobs with the arrival of the Taliban,” she said, adding, “I was left wondering what to do”.

But now with the opening of the women-only restaurant by the two enterprising women, she and ten of her colleagues, have had a salaried job for the past one month.

And that was precisely one of the motivations for Farhard and her mother opening the restaurant – creating jobs and providing financial independence for women who had been thrown out of jobs by the Taliban.

“Women’s work outside the home has brought great hope to the women working in our restaurant, because they can support their families with their salaries”, said Farhard.

“Besides that”, she continued, “a restaurant is a good source of income and reintroduces the culture of cooking authentic Afghan food for people in the most beautiful way possible”.

They are licensed by the Ministry of Commerce and their customer base is steadily increasing. The proprietors provide training in catering and service to applicants before hiring them.

Navigating the Tightrope of Taliban Rules

Ever since the Taliban burst onto the political scene four years ago with indiscriminate ban on women from working outside home, Afghan women are exploring income-generating business options. Tailoring and custom-made dressmaking are among the most common, while the restaurant sector also provides a viable alternative for many others.

This women-only restaurant can only operate because it strictly follows all Taliban rules. It’s located in a basement to ensure that no women can be seen from outside, as women are not allowed to work outside or eat in public with men.

They pay monthly taxes to the Taliban, all staff are women, and they follow hijab and other religious regulations set by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

Yet in spite of the great lengths, which women take to generate incomes, the Taliban are still looming not far behind.

“Officials from the so-called Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice conduct weekly inspection visits to our restaurant,” complains Wahida.

The inspections, she says, “ensure that all the women are wearing their hijabs properly, with their faces covered, and dressed in the appropriate long dress, as the regulations demand”.

Apart from that, they thoroughly check the entire restaurant to ensure no men are working there, since women are strictly forbidden to work in the same place as men.

To the women working in the restaurant, these inspections are undoubtedly viewed as unnecessary harassment. They feel scrutinized and yet powerless to fight against it.

However, Wahida has a message for the brave Afghan women: “Don’t despair, find the small niches the private sector allows, and keep moving forward.”

Excerpt:

Women from Afghanistan’s Purple Saturdays Movement continue to call for rights, justice, and freedom, despite mounting Taliban repression. Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
KABUL, Apr 25 2025 (IPS)

“Even if our murals don’t change much, they will surely leave a mark – at least on the mind of one Taliban member who sees them.” These words from Afghan women activists reflect the bold and creative tactics they continue to use in their resistance against the Taliban’s oppressive regime.

In guerrilla-style operations, a group of young women choose a location together, spending hours surveilling it to ensure Taliban forces are not nearby. Once the location is deemed safe, they write their messages on the walls and immediately disperse in different directions, sometimes avoiding their homes for several hours to throw off any possible surveillance that might have been trailing them.

“Three core principles serve as the motivation in our remobilization, to rid us of tyranny”, declares the Purple Saturdays Movement, name of the group waging the secret campaign. They are encapsulated in a three-word slogan: Right, Justice and Freedom.

Undeterred by the risk of brutal torture or arrest, the movement continues its protests inside Afghanistan in confined places and in different forms.

“Women in Afghanistan have organized widespread protests and activities against the Taliban’s policies over the past three years,”, says Maryam Marouf Arwin, head of the Purple Saturdays Movement. “Their efforts have had a significant impact globally and regionally, preventing many countries from recognizing the Taliban’s self-proclaimed government.”

When barred from protesting in public, Afghan women continue their resistance behind closed doors. Credit: Learning Together.

Established on August 17, 2021, exactly two days after the Taliban took control of the country, Arwin says the Purple Saturday Movement, is the beginning of a new leap of hope at the height of despair. It has raised its voice against all Taliban orders and has held its protests, both on the streets and behind closed doors.

The movement is guided by the conviction that all Afghan people have been victims of the Taliban’s brutal regime. Therefore, their central goal is to achieve equal rights, justice and freedom for all Afghan citizens irrespective of gender, religious convictions and ethnic background.

In their latest street protests, the movement has demanded strong resistance against Taliban policies, and called for approval of the arrest warrant for the leader of the Taliban, Hibatullah Akhundzada and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the head of the Taliban’s Supreme Court issued by the International Criminal Court.

Previously they have organized both individual and group protests in public and behind closed doors, speaking out against the Taliban’s decision to shut down educational institutions and all other repressive policies the brutal Islamist regime has targeted on women.

“We are committed to continue our struggle despite the Taliban’s brutal repression,” the group defiantly declares, “our goal is to end the Taliban’s rule and ensure social justice in the country”.

The movement contends that Sharia law is an excuse to eliminate women, and that the Taliban regressive rule is implemented under the guise of religion to oppress the people of Afghanistan. Nevertheless, they maintain that events in the past three years have proved that women of Afghanistan will not surrender and be isolated.

The Purple Saturdays Movement asserts that, “Considering the actions of the Taliban against the people of Afghanistan, particularly women, vulnerable ethnic groups, and religious minorities over the past 20 years, especially their conduct in the last three years, it is evident that the Taliban are neither susceptible to change nor flexibility.”

As outlined by Arwin, the movement’s activities include street protests, individual and collective demonstrations in confined spaces, wall inscriptions, social media hashtags, crafting declarations and resolutions, publishing reports, writing articles, and making appearances across various media.

She however, states that, “the standard for protests is not designated to take place only on the street. Protests have taken place in many countries for years, she points out, but they weren’t always on the roads, but nevertheless, the world has seen and welcomed such protests and recognized them. However, according to her, the protests of Afghan women have gone unnoticed whether held on the streets, in closed spaces, or on social media.”

The Taliban’s repression has become truly horrific. Recent reports make every family cringe when their daughter goes out to protest. Faced with arrest, rape, and sexual harassment by the Taliban, no one dares to let their daughters onto the streets. “For the safety of our members, we are forced to hold individual protests in closed settings and on social media,” Arwin says.

The women of Afghanistan stand firm: discrimination against women must not be tolerated. Credit: Learning Together.

In that regard, she is appealing for political and diplomatic support from governments of the European Union and the United Nations, to take a clear and decisive stance against crimes against humanity and oppression of Afghan women.

“We ask you to make our voices heard widely in the media and international forums.”

With the Taliban regaining control, the people of Afghanistan, especially women, religious minorities, and vulnerable ethnic groups, have once again returned to the dark and oppressive days in the past when Taliban made their first appearance as rulers in the country.

In the very first days of regaining control of Kabul in August 2021, the Taliban declared war on the women of the country. Since then they have issued dozens of decrees and orders, which have eviscerated all fundamental human rights from women throughout the country.

“From the first moment of oppression, our movement has fought against the darkness and will continue to fight until we achieve freedom,” Arwin concludes.

Excerpt:

Pop singer and education activist Shehzad Roy plays chess with Malala Yousafzai. Courtesy: Shehzad Roy

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan, Jan 13 2025 (IPS)

“She was at her brilliant best, speaking fearlessly and boldly about the treatment of women by the Afghan Taliban, robbing an entire generation of girls their future, and how they want to erase them from society,” said educationist and one of the speakers, Baela Raza Jamil, referring to the speech by Nobel Laureate and education activist Malala Yousafzai.

Jamil heads Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi, an organization promoting progressive education.

Malala addressed the second day of a two-day international conference organized by the Pakistan Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training (MoFE&PT) on January 11 and 12, to discuss the challenges and opportunities for girls’ education in Muslim communities.

“They are violators of human rights, and no cultural or religious excuse can justify them,” said Malala. “Let’s not legitimize them.”

Pop singer and education activist Shehzad Roy was equally impressed.

Roy said, “When she speaks, she speaks from the heart.”

It has been a little over three years since the Taliban banned secondary education for girls in Afghanistan on September 17, shortly after their return to power in August 2021. In 2022, the Taliban put a ban on women studying in colleges, and then in December 2024, this was extended to include women studying nursing, midwifery and dentistry.

In October 2012, at 15, Malala survived a Taliban assassination attempt for advocating girls’ education in Mingora, Pakistan. She was flown to England for treatment and has since settled there with her family while facing continued Taliban threats.

Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a university professor and columnist, acknowledged that the treatment of girls and women in Afghanistan was essentially “primitive and barbaric,” but emphasized that “before the Pakistani government takes on the mantle of being their [Afghan women’s] liberator, there are laws relating to women (in Pakistan) that need to be changed and anti-women practices that need to be dismantled.”

Syani Saheliyan project, which helped nearly 50,000 adolescent girls by providing academic, life skills, vocational training, and technology-driven support to reintegrate Courtesy: Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi

Dismantling many of the colonial laws and legal systems that perpetuate gender inequality at both personal and societal levels was also pointed out by Jamil, who spoke about the important role women can play in peacebuilding. But that was only possible, she said, when society can promote education and lifelong learning without discrimination.

“In Malala, we have a living example of a contemporary young student’s lived experience of responding to deadly violence by becoming a unique peacebuilder,” said Jamil in her speech to the conference.

This high-profile conference deliberately kept low-key till the last minute for “security reasons gathered 150 delegates, including ministers, ambassadors, scholars, and representatives from 44 Muslim and allied countries, as well as international organizations like UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank, and the Saudi-funded Muslim World League.

Hoodbhoy, however, said the summit was “solely purposed to break Pakistan’s isolation with the rest of the world and shore up a wobbly government desperate for legitimacy.”

While some Indian organizations were represented, Afghanistan, despite being invited, was conspicuously absent.

This did not go unnoticed.

“The silence of the Taliban, the world’s worst offender when it comes to girls’ education, was deafening,” pointed out Michael Kugelman, director of the Washington D.C.-based Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute. Given the strained relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said the former may have wanted this conference to bring attention to the Taliban’s horrific record on girls’ education.

“And it has succeeded, to a degree, especially with an iconic figure like Malala using the conference as a platform to condemn gender apartheid in Afghanistan under the Taliban.”

Yusafzai was glad that the conference was taking place in Pakistan. “Because there is still a tremendous amount of work that is ahead of us, so that every Pakistani girl can have access to her education,” she said, referring to the 12 million out-of-school girls.

Kugelman credited Pakistan as the host for not trying “to hide its own failures” on the education front. “It was important that Prime Minister Sharif acknowledged the abysmal state of girls’ education in Pakistan in his conference speech,” he said.

With 26 million out-of-school children in Pakistan, 53 percent of whom are girls, the summit seemed to be in line with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s declaration of an education emergency in Pakistan last year, vowing to “bring them [unschooled children] back to school.”

“The PM is rightly worried about out-of-school kids, but I’m more worried about those who complete ten years of education and fail to develop critical thinking,” said Roy, commenting on the summit. The pop singer has been a very vocal education activist for over two decades.

Hoodbhoy had similar thoughts. “Had there been serious intent to educate girl children, the more effective and far cheaper strategies would be to make coeducation compulsory at the primary and early secondary levels to increase school availability and design curriculum to educate and inform girls (and boys) rather than simply brainwash,” he said.

Pop singer and education activist Shehzad Roy is concerned with the quality of education. Courtesy: Shehzad Roy

Roy stated that Yousafzai has consistently emphasized the importance of quality education. With just 150 government training institutions in Pakistan, he said there was an urgent need for reform through public-private partnerships. He also noted that many private schools hire unqualified teachers and advocated for a teaching license, like medical licenses.

Since forming the Zindagi Trust in 2003, Roy has been advocating for better quality education in public schools. He has also adopted two government girl’s schools in Karachi and turned them around, providing meals to nursery children and teaching chess and musical instruments, both unheard of in public schools, especially for girls.

The Prime Minister acknowledged that enrolling 26 million students in school was a challenging task, with “inadequate infrastructure, safety concerns, as well as deeply entrenched societal norms” acting as barriers, and stated that the real challenge was the “will” to do it.

For 34 years, Jamil has raised questions about the design and process of education in Pakistan through annual reports. She believes that bringing 26 million children back to school is less challenging than ensuring “foundational learning” for those already enrolled. “Forty-five percent of children aged 5-16 fail in reading, comprehension, and arithmetic,” she told IPS. Along with improved funding and well-equipped school infrastructure, Jamil was also concerned about what she termed a runaway population.

Lamenting on a “lack of imagination to solve the education crisis” within the government, she said there was potential to achieve so much more. Jamil’s own organisation’s 2018 Syani Saheliyan project helped nearly 50,000 adolescent girls (ages 9-19) in South Punjab who had dropped out of school. It provided academics, life skills, vocational training, and technology-driven support to reintegrate them into education. The project was recognized by HundrEd Innovation in 2023.

Even Dr. Fozia Parveen, assistant professor at Aga Khan University’s Institute for Educational Development, would like the government to think outside the box and find a “middle ground” by including local wisdom in modern education.

“Instead of western-led education in an already colonial education system, perhaps a more grassroots approach using local methods of education can be looked into,” she suggested, adding: “There is so much local wisdom and knowledge that we will lose if we continue to be inspired by and adopt foreign systems. An education that is localized with all modern forms and technologies is necessary for keeping up with the world,” she said.

Further, Parveen, who looks at environmental and climate education, said “more skill-based learning would be needed in the times to come, which would require updated curriculum and teachers that are capacitated to foster those skills.”

The two-day International Conference on Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities ended with the signing of the Islamabad Declaration, recognizing education as a fundamental right protected by divine laws, Islamic teachings, international charters, and national constitutions. Muslim leaders pledged to ensure girls’ right to education, “without limitations” and “free from restrictive conditions,” in line with Sharia. The declaration highlighted girls’ education as a religious and societal necessity, key to empowerment, stable families, and global peace, while addressing extremism and violence.

It condemned extremist ideologies, fatwas, and cultural norms hindering girls’ education and perpetuating societal biases. Leaders committed to offering scholarships for girls affected by poverty and conflict and developing programs for those with special needs to ensure inclusivity.

The declaration concluded by affirming “it will not be a temporary appeal, an empty declaration, or simply a symbolic stance. Rather, it will represent a qualitative transformation in advocating for girls’ education—bringing prosperity to every deprived girl and to every community in dire need of the contributions of both
its sons and daughters equally”.

A permanent committee was urged to oversee the implementation of these outcomes.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Adenike Oladosu, ECW’s Climate Champion from Nigeria, during an interview with IPS at COP29. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
BAKU, Nov 20 2024 (IPS)

Education is under threat as multiple crises push children out of school and into harms way. COP29 Baku could break historical barriers that hold back education from playing a unique, critical role to accelerate the ambition of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement, protecting people and planet from life-threatening risks of climate change.

“Together with our partners, we have launched a pilot program in Somalia and Afghanistan, working with communities to identify early action activities or anticipatory action to act against the impacts of climate and minimize its disruption on children’s lives and education in those countries,” says Dianah Nelson, Chief of Education, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises within the United Nations. 

Towards embedding education into the climate finance debate, ECW held a series of COP29 side events on such issues as unlocking the potential of anticipatory action through multi-stakeholder collaboration; meeting the challenge of conflict, climate and education; climate change-resilient education systems in the most vulnerable nations; and protecting children’s futures: why loss and damage must prioritise education in emergencies.

Panel discussions brought together a wide range of public and private partners, policymakers, and data experts to highlight the benefits of acting ahead of predicted climate shocks to protect education. “The climate crisis is an education crisis, and education cannot wait. We, therefore, need to center climate action on education and build climate-smart school technology. And most importantly, we need anticipatory action to reduce or eradicate the impact of climate shocks on children. Everyone has a contribution to make, and every child has a dream. Uninterrupted access to education makes their dream a reality. We need to safeguard or protect our schools from being vulnerable, or being attacked in conflict, or even being washed away by flood,” Adenike Oladosu, ECW’s Climate Champion and Nigerian climate justice advocate, told IPS.

Dianah Nelson, Chief of Education at ECW, during one of the sessions hosted by ECW. The sessions highlighted the need to ensure there is funding for education for those on the frontlines of the climate crisis, armed conflict and other emergencies. Credit: ECW

These climatic impacts are already being felt in Pakistan. Zulekha, advisor/program manager of the Gender and Child Cell NDMA Pakistan, spoke about how the country has suffered “severe impacts from extreme weather. More than 24,000 schools were damaged in the 2022 floods, and nearly 3.5 million children were displaced and their educations put at risk. We were still reeling from the effects of the floods in 2023 when we started to launch the refresher of the Pakistan School Safety Framework.”

Oladosu spoke about the multiple, complex challenges confronting Nigeria and that anticipatory action “means bringing in the tools, through climate financing, to reduce the loss and damage. Anticipatory action addresses complex humanitarian crises in a proactive rather than reactive way to reduce the impact of a shock before its most severe effects are felt.”

She stressed that anticipatory actions are critical to avoid “losses that are simply irreplaceable, such as the number of days children spend out of school due to climate events, those left behind the education system, or even those who fall out of the system and into child marriages and militia groups.”

Education must reach every child impacted by a climate crisis they did not make. Credit: UNICEF

Lisa Doughten, Director, Financing and Partnership Division at OCHA, stated that in humanitarian crises, climate change “is significantly disrupting the overall access to education as schools temporarily shut down due to extreme climate events causing significant learning disruptions for millions of students. We have countries in conflict and fragile settings, and the climate crisis creates extremely difficult circumstances for, especially children and women.”

Doughten spoke about the need to leverage data to get ahead of predictable climate disasters and how OCHA works with various partners, including meteorological organizations, to monitor and use climate data. Using models that entail pre-planned programs, pre-determined triggers for weather events such as floods and storms, and pre-financing to ensure that funds are disbursed with speed towards anticipatory actions.

At COP29, ECW reiterated the power of education to unite communities, build consensus, and transform entire societies. In the classroom of the future, children will acquire the green skills they need to thrive in the new economy of the 21st century, and communities will come together to share early warnings and act in advance of climate hazards such as droughts and floods.

Graham Lang, Deputy Director at ECW, at one of the sessions hosted by the Global Fund aimed at ensuring those on the frontlines of the climate crisis, armed conflict and other emergencies are central to climate education action, decisions and commitments. Credit: ECW

Stressing that in this classroom of the future, “an entire generation of future leaders can build the will and commitment to break down the status quo and create true lasting solutions to this unprecedented and truly terrifying crisis. Unfortunately, multilateral climate finance has not prioritized the education sector to date, meaning a tiny proportion, at most 0.03 percent, of all climate finance is spent on education. While children have the most to offer in building long-term solutions to the crisis, they also have the most to lose.”

ECW says the connection between climate action and education is also noticeably underrepresented in NDCs, or national commitments to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Only half of all NDCs are child and youth sensitive, and this is an urgent situation for, in 2022 alone, over 400 million children experienced school closures as the result of extreme weather.

According to the Global Fund, “on the frontlines of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, these disruptions will often push children out of the education system forever. In places like Chad, Nigeria, and Sudan, where millions of children are already out of school, it could impact the future of an entire generation. ECW’s disaster-resilient classrooms, for instance, boosted enrolment rates in Chad.”

Amid Chad’s multidimensional challenges compounded by climate change, climate-resilient classrooms whose construction was funded by ECW and completed in March 2022 meant that classrooms were more durable and accessible for children and adolescents with disabilities. These classrooms withstood the heaviest rainy season in 30 years, triggering widespread flooding. Committing needed finances and acting with speed and urgency means bringing solutions within reach.

Accordingly, ECW says a key step is increasing access to the main climate funds—including the Global Environment Facility and Green Climate Fund—and activating new innovative financing modalities to deliver with speed, depth, and impact, and that the funding needs to be faster, transparent, and fully coordinated across both humanitarian and development sectors.

Looking forward to COP30 in Brazil, ECW stressed that education must play an integral role in the new Loss and Damage Fund. Education losses caused by climate change take unprecedented tolls on societies, especially in countries impacted by conflicts, displacement, and other pressing humanitarian emergencies.

Further emphasizing that the “loss and damage connected with years of lost learning may seem hard to quantify. But we know that for every USD 1 invested in a girl’s education, we see USD 2.80 in return. And we know that education isn’t just a privilege; it’s a human right. Finally, we need to ensure the New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance includes a firm commitment to educating all the world’s children. Not just the easy-to-reach, but the ones that are the most vulnerable, the millions whose lives are being ripped apart by a crisis not of their own making.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Nilab, a student-turned-tailor from Kabul: “I was in the 12th grade when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. With the Taliban takeover, everyone’s dreams in Afghanistan were crushed. I remember the night I heard the news of Herat’s fall, and I cried until morning. Suddenly, fear, terror and despair took hold of my life. I knew I could no longer attend school, all the preparations I had made for my education vanished into thin air. I realized I couldn’t serve my country as a working woman. While girls in other countries go to school every day without any obstacles, for me, this has become nothing more than a dream.” Credit: Sayed Habib Bidell

By Jen Ross
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 11 2024 (IPS)

In line with the 2024 International Day of the Girl theme, ‘Girls’ vision for the future’, a dozen Afghan girls speak up to express their hardships and resilience. They also share their visions for the future.

Negina, a 15-year-old student-turned teacher from Bamyan

“I went through a period of severe depression, but with the help of my family, I managed to regain my spirit and start reading some books again. And for the past six months, I’ve been teaching 12 neighbourhood children who, due to poverty or other reasons, couldn’t go to school. We hold daily one-hour classes in one of the rooms in our house. I’ve been teaching them subjects like math and Dari, and fortunately, they can now read and write. Despite my concerns about my own future, when I see my students, who are able to learn and have a desire for education with my help, it rejuvenates me. Sometimes my worries weigh me down, but I raise my head high and promise myself that I will achieve my dreams. We are girls who have lived with human rights and freedom, and we are still fighting for what rightfully belongs to us, which is freedom and equality.” Credit: Sayed Habib Bidell

Sadaf, an 18-year-old writer from Kapisa

“My journey into the world of writing began when I was nearly 15 years old. I was motivated to use the power of words to address the challenges faced by women. I wanted to write about the Taliban and raise the voice of women and what they are experiencing in Afghanistan, but my father never let me do that and he beat me. I remember burning my stories several times [so he wouldn’t find them]. I encountered difficulties, including financial constraints that made buying a computer impossible. I’ve faced a lot of difficulties because of the Taliban. They’ve brainwashed my father with false ideas about Islam and women’s duties. Now my father doesn’t treat me well because I want to raise my voice for my rights. I’m not someone who gives up when things get tough. Instead, I see these challenges as opportunities to grow and become stronger.” Credit: Sayed Habib Bidell

“Despite all my efforts, sleepless nights studying and working hard to get good grades and learn new things to have my dreams come true, I was forced into marriage [at the age of 17]. From a young age, I have been through a lot. Unfortunately, now I am living through the pain of seeing my future as dark as my son’s ashes. We are walking towards an unknown future with no education, no work, and poverty and violence are at their peak.” Credit: Sayed Habib Bidell

“I thought the best years of my life would be my teenage years. But after the events of 15 August 2021, when I attempted suicide for the second time as an 18-year-old girl and spent the hardest days of my life, I realized that adolescence is not pleasant and wonderful. I was in my last year of high school when education for girls was banned, and my dream of wearing a white coat and becoming a doctor vanished. I faced very difficult conditions, and every night I had nightmares and tremendous fear for the Taliban. When the Taliban first entered the city, I couldn’t leave the house for a month. I witnessed girls being whipped by the Taliban just because they didn’t wear the desired hijab. I look forward to a day when women and men will stand side-by-side again, experiencing equal rights.” Credit: Sayed Habib Bidell

Mahnaz, a forced bride and former university student from Farah

“My hopes were shattered, and I was forced to accept a marriage that would lead my future into darkness. My family, especially my father and brothers, insisted on this marriage. They argued, ‘What else can you do? There are no opportunities for women; all doors to education are closed. We can no longer afford to support your living expenses. It’s better for you to get married and begin your own life.’ Even if the Taliban allows universities to reopen, my family will likely not permit me to attend, and I have lost the motivation to start from scratch. Moreover, it’s unclear what the curriculum will entail under the Taliban regime. Will it emphasize human rights and humanity, or violence and killing?” Credit: Sayed Habib Bidell

Nazmina, a former journalism student from Kapisa

“In the early days of the Republic’s collapse, I endured challenging times, spending months in severe depression. I lost my job and, soon after, the university gates were closed to me. I felt like my dreams, aspirations and identity had been reduced to nothing. It is essential to support those who have been pushed into oblivion under these dreadful and inhumane conditions, facing numerous challenges in their lives. I have sought to provide educational opportunities for girls who survived the disruption of schooling. Today, even if the doors of schools and universities are closed to us women, we have transformed our homes into schools and universities. Women in Afghanistan must receive support from the people and the international community in every possible way. I am certain that the sole path to fighting the Taliban and gender discrimination in Afghanistan is to support women and girls.”

Rabia, a former basketball athlete from Herat

“Before the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, I was a member of the national basketball team. But after the events of 15 August, all my dreams were shattered overnight. Right now, things in the country are very unpredictable. It’s like going to sleep at night, and when you wake up in the morning, you find out that they’ve added new rules for women. The hardest part for me was when they said girls can’t play sports anymore. I had put in so much effort and overcome so many challenges to make it to the National Basketball Team, and suddenly, they took away my job, my freedom and the sport I loved. Now, I train about 50 girls below the sixth grade in one of the orphanages in Herat. I train them in sports like volleyball, soccer and basketball. I also secretly teach some of the older girls.” Credit: Sayed Habib Bidell

Mahbuba, a midwifery student from Sarpol

“After 15 August 2021, the situation took a grim turn. The arrival of the Taliban darkened our lives. They imposed their strict rules and regulations on us, confining us to our homes, effectively taking away our freedoms and rights. … Our lives have become a constant battle between our aspirations and the harsh reality imposed by the Taliban. With every obstacle we face, we are reminded that the fundamental rights and freedoms we once took for granted have slipped away, and our journey through a rapidly changing Afghanistan is fraught with uncertainty and danger. Why is it that just because one is born a girl in this country, they have to pay a lifelong price?” Credit: Sayed Habib Bidell

Motahara, a baker and former nursing student from Logar

“After a few months of wallowing in such despair, I realized that I have to be strong for my children, so I started baking some cakes and cookies at home that my husband could sell at the market. I also have two other women who help me. I hope to one day be able to grow my business so that I can provide more jobs for other women. We must rise, united as one voice, and demonstrate that we can achieve our fundamental rights to work, an education and freedom.” Credit: Sayed Habib Bidell

Note: These profiles and others can be found at After August, the women’s stories were shared with IPS’ readers courtesy of UN Women, Limbo and Zan Times, where Afghan women and girls tell their stories in their own words (with anonymized photos and names and locations changed to protect their identity).

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

Fawziya Koofi, former Deputy Speaker of Parliament in Afghanistan, addresses reporters following the "The Inclusion of Women in the Future of Afghanistan" meeting. Credit: Mark Garten/UN Photo

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 24 2024 (IPS)

Women in Afghanistan have continued to advocate for their rights and have called on the international community to not only stand in solidarity but to take decisive action to prevent the erosion of their rights and presence in public space.

On Monday, the New York missions of Qatar, Indonesia, Ireland and Switzerland, with the Women’s Forum on Afghanistan, convened at a high-level meeting to discuss the current situation for women’s rights.

Since August 2021, the Taliban authorities have systematically reversed the rights of women and girls, all but shrinking and obliterating their ability to participate in Afghan society. Despite repeated calls from the international community to protect women’s rights, the Taliban have only doubled down. Their latest edicts of morality laws further restrict the activities of women and girls, barring them from speaking or singing out in public.

Asila Wardak, from the Women’s Forum on Afghanistan, told the meeting women were being systematically erased from public life.

“The future of Afghanistan cannot be built on the exclusion of half the population,” she said. “Women must be part of the solution, not sidelined.”

The event included messages from notable members of the international community extending solidarity to the women of Afghanistan.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the UN would continue its work to engage women and women-led groups in Afghanistan and ensure their spaces for operation, calling for them to “play a full role, both inside its borders and on the global stage.”

“Without educated women, without women in employment, including in leadership roles, and without recognizing the rights and freedoms of one-half of its population, Afghanistan will never take its rightful place on the global stage,” said Guterres.

UN Undersecretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, reiterated Guterres’ show of support to protect and amplify the voices of Afghan women.

In her statement, she summarized the Doha process, which was intended to increase international engagement with Afghanistan and the Taliban, wherein the Taliban were expected to make governance more inclusive and protect women’s rights, resulting in the international community easing restrictions in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, the news of the morality laws has threatened that process, especially as the Taliban have refused to meet with Afghan civil society in previous meetings.

DiCarlo added that the Taliban “must begin to abide by their international obligations, especially regarding women.”

In the panel, American actor Meryl Streep remarked that Afghanistan granted women the right to vote in 1919, many years before countries like the United States and Switzerland had done the same. Much has changed since then, she observed.

“Today in Kabul, a female cat has more freedoms than a woman. A cat may go sit on her front stoop and feel the sun on her face. She may chase a squirrel into the park. A squirrel has more rights than a girl in Afghanistan today because the public parks have been closed to women and girls,” Streep said.

“The way that this culture, this society, has been upended is a cautionary tale for the rest of the world,” she warned. Streep further noted that the Taliban’s numerous edicts on women had “effectively incarcerated half the population.”

Meryl Streep introduced the screening of a short feature from Roya Sadat’s A Sharp Edge of Peace. Credit: IPS

The documentary follows the four women parliamentarians that participated in the peace talks in 2020 between the international community and the Taliban shortly after the United States withdrew their troops.

The feature highlighted the stakes that were on the line for the women leaders of Afghanistan. It included scenes of the parliamentarians listening to young women during consultations leading up to the peace talks in Doha, Qatar, where the young women pleaded for the Taliban not to take action that would restrict their rights and dignity. Prior to the peace talks, one of the women in the documentary said, “Peace is not a luxury. It is a necessity.”

What the documentary highlighted was that even with the (limited) presence of women leaders and advocates during negotiations, it evidently did not sway the Taliban to act in accordance with the demands from the international community.

The former deputy speaker of Afghanistan’s parliament, Fawzia Koofi, observed that the Taliban and the international community were largely in charge of the peace negotiations after the US pulled out of the country, leaving little room for the Afghan people or their elected government.

Habiba Sarabi, Afghanistan’s former minister for women’s affairs, remarked that the Taliban would only continue to push their agenda for what they perceived as a ‘pure Islamic regime’. She warned that this was already affecting younger generations who were at risk of being brainwashed by Taliban-controlled religious schools.

Sarabi implored the international community to hold up the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), along with applying UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), which calls for the protection of women’s’ and girls’ rights for peace and security.

Koofi also urged that more pressure needed to be placed on the Taliban, as this would be “the only leverage that the international community has.”

She called for the institutions and charters for international law and order to hold onto their solidarity with the people of Afghanistan and assure them that the “culture of impunity would end.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Richard Bennett during his oral statement at the Human Rights Council on June 18, 2024. Credit: Anne-Marie Colombet/Human Rights Council

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI , Jul 1 2024 (IPS)

The UN Special Rapporteur’s annual report on human rights in Afghanistan lays bare the alarming phenomenon of an institutionalized system of discrimination, segregation, disrespect for human dignity and exclusion of women and girls.

In the new report, Richard Bennett, the UN’s Special Rapporteur, provides an intersectional analysis of the establishment and enforcement of this institutionalized system of unparalleled gender oppression. It paints a picture of a worsening situation for women and girls.

“The situation is that the de facto authorities, who control the country but are not yet recognized as a government, are not just failing to implement their obligations to human rights under the human rights treaties that they’ve signed. They are deliberately implementing policies and practices that flout those policies to create a society where women are permanently inferior to men,” says Bennett in an exclusive interview with IPS.

Education Cannot Wait’s #AfghanGirlsVoices global campaign highlights real-life testimonies of hope, courage and resilience by Afghan girls denied their right to education. Credit: ECW

“Of course, there is sexism in every country, some worse than others, but this is very different from any other country.”

Bennett is referring to the distressing pattern of large-scale systematic violations and subjugation of women’s and girls’ fundamental rights that is unfolding, abetted by the Taliban’s discriminatory and misogynist policies and harsh enforcement methods such as gender apartheid and persecution.

“Only in Afghanistan has a government shut schools for girls above the age of 13, above the sixth grade, and does not allow women to go to universities. And this, combined with segregation, means that women are really suffering. For example, women can only get treatment from doctors who are women and the same applies to teaching. It is a very segregated society as a whole. Just today, a businesswoman told me that she could only do business with female customers. This is affecting not just the current situation and the current generation, but the future as well.”

The Special Rapporteur finds that the Taliban’s institutionalized system of discrimination is most visible through its relentless issuance and enforcement of edicts, decrees, declarations and orders that in and of themselves constitute severe deprivations of human rights and violations of international law.

Between June 2023 and March 2024, they issued an estimated 52 edicts. These include banning foreign non-governmental organizations from providing educational programmes, including community-based education. The Taliban banned women from participating in radio and television shows alongside male presenters.

In July 2023, female beauty salons were forced to close. In August 2023, women were prohibited from entering Band-e Amir National Park. In October 2023, women were excluded from holding directorships within non-governmental organizations. In February 2024, women on television were required to wear a black hijab, with their faces covered, leaving only their eyes visible.

“We are concerned about intergenerational issues, but also intersectional issues. There is discrimination against women and girls who are of an ethnic or religious or linguistic marginalized groups,  or persons with disabilities, or a woman heading a household. Travel requires accompaniment by a close male relative and some women do not have such a person available. All of this is extremely restrictive and will also affect future generations as it will lead to a lack of education and professions,” Bennett says.

The report finds that “women and girls are being maneuvered into increasingly narrow roles where the deep-rooted patriarchy, bolstered and legitimized by Taliban ideology, deems them to belong: as bearers and rearers of children, and as objects available for exploitation, including debt bondage, domestic servitude, sexual exploitation and other forms of unremunerated or poorly remunerated labor.”

The UN Special Rapporteur stresses that there was progress in Afghanistan before the return of the Taliban.

“It was not perfect, but for 20 years there was notable progress. As a result, there are very many professional women in Afghanistan, and women who head households as the main income earners—the main breadwinners for their families. The restrictions are having very serious negative effects.”

Richard Bennett, UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan, advocates for the rights of every girl to education in Afghanistan. Credit: ECW

Bennett is among the prominent supporters of the global #AfghanGirlsVoices campaign launched by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises within the United Nations. Now in its second phase, the campaign aims to ensure unrestricted access to education for Afghan girls and young women.

After seizing power in 2021, the Taliban swiftly imposed a ban on secondary education for girls, subsequently expanding this restriction to encompass universities and, more recently, private learning centers. Young women have also been prevented from leaving Afghanistan to pursue tertiary education.

“There has never been universal education in Afghanistan, even in the 20 years preceding the return of the Taliban. However, the education system gradually improved, although not as much in remote or rural areas. Part of this was due to a lack of resources, as well as an ongoing internal conflict. So, it was insecure and difficult to maintain schools. But once the Taliban came back into power after August 2021, an education system built over two decades was quickly unraveling,” he says.

In addition to the school closures, he speaks of concerns about the quality of education from two perspectives. One is the alarm over an ongoing brain drain in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over. Many teachers and university lecturers have left the country.

The other concerns are changes to the curriculum and especially a notable increase in madrasa education. Madrasa education has always been a feature of life in Afghanistan. “But now there seems to be at least anecdotal information that the teaching is much more religious-based than a broad education. Girls can go to madrasas,” he says. 

On recommendations and urgent solutions moving forward, Bennett stresses that “no country should ban schools. We therefore continue to call for the reversal of this policy and the reopening of schools with a good quality education. My recommendations are what I call an all-tools approach, as only one approach or any one tool will not work.”

Overall, he says the report calls for justice and accountability, incorporating human rights and women’s voices in political processes and diplomatic engagement. Emphasizing that bolstering documentation of human rights abuses and violations is critical, as is reinforcing protection and solidarity for Afghan women, girls and human rights defenders.

Bennett has a direct message to the current rulers in Afghanistan, the Taliban, to reverse their policies and to comply with human rights. The second message is to the international community, urging them not to normalize or recognize Afghanistan’s unacceptable and worsening human rights situation.

Further stressing that the global community should strongly resist normalizing diplomatic relations or accepting the Taliban into the UN unless and until they meet concrete, measurable, verifiable benchmarks on human rights and the rights of women and girls.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

ECW Global Champion Somaya Faruqi. Credit: ECW

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Jun 13 2024 (IPS)

The global community is marking a tragic milestone for human rights, children’s rights, and girls’ rights, as it has been 1,000 days since girls were banned from attending secondary school in Afghanistan. The ban has wiped out decades’ worth of education and development gains, as approximately 80 percent of school-aged Afghan girls and young women are out of school.

“As a global community, we must reignite our global efforts to ensure that every adolescent girl can exercise her right to an education. Gender discrimination is unacceptable and will only hurt the already war-torn Afghanistan and her long-suffering people. Girls’ right to an education is a fundamental right as outlined in international human rights law,” said Education Cannot Wait (ECW) Executive Director Yasmine Sherif.

“For the people of Afghanistan—men, women, girls and boys—adolescent girls’ education is essential to rebuild Afghanistan and ensure that every Afghan enjoys the universal right to an education.”

Yasmine Sherif, ECW Executive Director. Credit: ECW

Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner. Credit: ECW

It has been a thousand days since Afghan girls were allowed to attend secondary school. Mehnaz Akber Aziz, CEO of Children’s Global Network Pakistan, says, “This is very concerning for us Pakistanis, as neighbors and stakeholders. How can a nation progress with 50 percent of its population deprived of education? Afghanistan’s prosperity depends on equitable opportunities for all its population, both boys and girls.”

To commemorate and reflect on this unacceptable milestone, ECW, the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises within the United Nations, has launched the second phase of its compelling #AfghanGirlsVoices campaign.

The campaign features inspiring artwork, poetry, cartoons and more from some of the world’s leading artists, along with powerful, moving quotes from Afghan girls denied their right to education but who hang on to the hope that their right will be restored.

“Girls in Afghanistan are strong and resilient, and they refuse to give up their hopes and dreams. One thousand days without access to education is a severe injustice for Afghan girls, whose determination should be met with opportunities, not obstacles. Every day that passes, more and more girls find themselves forced into marriage due to lack of prospects for the future. This must stop,” said ECW Global Champion Somaya Faruqi.

Faruqi stressed that the world “must hear the voices of Afghan girls who are only asking for one thing: their most basic right to education to be fulfilled. With access to education, Afghan girls can contribute to building our country and be positive changemakers for our communities. All Afghan girls deserve an equal opportunity to learn and thrive, and it is our undeniable duty to fight for their right to education and their future.”

The gender apartheid in Afghanistan, which denies girls and women their right to education, appalled Antara Ganguli, director of the UN Girls’ Education Initiative. “We stand in solidarity with the Afghan women and girls who are fighting for their fundamental human rights. The international community must do more to end this injustice and ensure all children in Afghanistan can access inclusive, safe and gender-equal education.”

In August 2023, Gordon Brown, the UN Special Envoy for Global Education, Sherif, and Faruqi, the former captain of the Afghan Girls’ Robotics Team, launched the first phase of the #AfghanGirlsVoices campaign. Millions of people around the world have viewed and supported the campaign since its launch.

“The world must unite behind Afghan girls. The denial of the right to a quality education is an abomination and a violation of the UN Charter, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and fundamental human rights. Through the global #AfghanGirlsVoices campaign, people everywhere can stand up for human rights and stand up for gender justice by sharing these stories of courage, hope and resilience,” said Brown, who is also Chair of the ECW High-Level Steering Group.

ECW Global Champion and author of I Am Malala, Christina Lamb. Credit: ECW

Ahmed Hussen, Minister of International Development, Canada. Credit: ECW

This second phase is already rallying additional global leaders and prominent supporters, including bestselling authors such as Khaled Hosseini, who wrote The Kite Runner; ECW Global Champion Christina Lamb of the I Am Malala and co-founder of Malala Fund; Ziauddin Yousafzai, ECW Global Champion and Al-Jazeera TV principal presenter; Folly Bah Thibault, Global Citizen Co-Founder; Mick Sheldrick, 2023 Global Citizen Prize winner and founder of LEARN Afghanistan; Pashtana Durrani, UN Girls’ Education Initiative Director; Antara Ganguli; and many more; including several leading Afghan women activists.

Afghan lawyer and women’s rights activist, Benafsha Efaf Amiri, says education is a fundamental right for all girls and women. The denial of education for Afghan girls violates their human rights and will only harm the progress and future of the nation for generations to come.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, said, “Together, we must all advocate for the right to education for every girl in Afghanistan. Education is not only a human right that cannot wait for them, but it is also a powerful catalyst for a better, more equitable and prosperous world.”

Ahmed Hussein, Minister of International Development in Canada, emphasized that, “Canada stands with all Afghan girls’ right to education. Denying access to education impacts the ability of women and girls to exercise their fundamental human rights and reach their full potential. The consequences of this ban will resonate for generations and must be reversed.”

The situation is already dire. Nearly 30 percent of girls in Afghanistan have never entered primary education and the light of hope to arise from protracted crises and sudden disasters through education is fading further away for Afghan girls and young women.

ECW is urging the global community to respond with speed to preserve gains that are eroding every day the ban stands. Significant gains are at stake. For instance, enrollment increased tenfold across all education levels, from 1 million in 2001 to 10 million in 2018. By August 2021, 4 out of 10 students in Afghanistan’s primary school were girls.

Along with these jumps came social and economic growth and other improvements that benefited vast swaths of Afghan society. The change in leadership sent seismic waves across all aspects of the Afghan economy and society. Today, 23.7 million people—over half the population—require urgent humanitarian support, 6.3 million people are displaced, and basic human rights are under fire.

Girls and boys are at grave risk of gender-based violence, child labour, early marriage and other human rights abuses. Despite the urgent needs of the USD 3 billion total humanitarian response funding request, only USD 221 million has been received to date, according to UNOCHA.

Since ECW launched its investments in Afghanistan in 2017, the fund has invested USD 88.8 million, reaching more than 230,000 children with quality, holistic education support. ECW’s multi-year investments focus on community-based learning that reaches girls and boys through a variety of activities such as the provision of teaching and learning materials, teacher training, and mental health and psychosocial support.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Since the Taliban's return to Afghanistan in 2021, numerous women grapple with profound mental health challenges, often in silence, fearing repercussions for speaking out. Credit: Learning Together

By External Source
May 16 2024 (IPS)

Afghanistan is grappling with a growing crisis of mental illness, particularly among its women, as highlighted in a United Nations report. Officials from the mental health department at Herat regional hospital have observed a concerning uptick in the number of women afflicted by psychological disorders in the province.

According to these officials, nearly eighty percent of individuals seeking treatment for depression are women and girls. The medical center witnesses a daily influx of one hundred patients seeking assistance.

“Every day, 100 people come for treatment, and more than two-thirds of them are women”, according to one of the doctors of the Association of Clinical Psychologists in Herat, who did not want to be named in the report due to security issues.

Nearly 400 people have been sent to further treatment within one month and the numbers continue to increase daily. Most patients are given psychological counseling but those with severe illness are referred to the regional mental hospital in Herat.

Several factors contribute to the surge in mental illness among women. Economic hardships have intensified, while the oppressive rule of the Taliban has cast a shadow over their future prospects. Additionally, a widespread increase in domestic violence against women, coupled with restrictions on female education and employment, compounds the issue.

“I often experience sudden panic attacks,” shared Marjan, a patient at the hospital. “My heart feels weak, and I constantly battle lethargy. The ban on my education has plunged me into depression,” she lamented.

With tears in her eyes and pain in her voice, she complained how long she and other women would continue to be imprisoned within the four walls of their homes and live with uncertainty of the future.

Marjan continues, “I am the third wife of my husband, and I am always subjected to violence and beatings by my husband or my husband’s wives.”

In some regions, such as Herat, polygamous marriages are common, leading to intra-family conflicts where women bear the brunt of the repercussions.

Marjan, a victim of such a marriage, disclosed her failed suicide attempts and attributed her plight to the Taliban. Forced into marriage by her father during the Taliban regime, she was compelled to relinquish her role as a civil activist and former employee of a human rights organization under the previous government.

“Now, I am left with mere memories of a life that no longer exists,” she lamented bitterly.

Nafas Gul, a mother of five also in Herat Province narrates her story. Her daughter, sixteen-year-old Shirin Gul, is severely depressed, judging from her regular cries and calling her home prison, her mother explains. Shirin no longer attends school.

Memories have made most girls and women depressed. A large number of them have stayed at home, unable to work or acquire education.

In Afghanistan, many victims of domestic violence struggle to find assistance in overstretched healthcare systems. Credit: Learning Together

With the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2021, women have been deprived of their rights, especially the right to work and education. The majority of women in Herat are against recognizing the legitimacy of the Taliban government, rather they say that recognition should be given in return for improving the status of women. 

Doctors caution that without intervention, the number of individuals suffering from depression, particularly in Herat province, will continue to escalate.

Excerpt:

Afghan women's resistance and resilience to the Taliban takeover are featured in the new After August website – a collaboration between UN Women Afghanistan, Zan Times, Limbo and independent storytellers. Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell

By IPS Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 6 2023 (IPS)

The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan on 15 August 2021 has devastated millions of Afghans. But women and girls have been particularly affected by progressively restrictive decrees that have created a virtual system of gender apartheid.

The stories of more than 50 women living in Afghanistan are featured on the new After August website – a collaboration between UN Women Afghanistan, Zan Times, Limbo, and independent storytellers. These unvarnished stories capture the fear, hardship, and sense of loss that shapes their lives, but also their strength, resistance, and resilience.

A few excerpts:

Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell

“I sold my daughter out of poverty and desperation. I sold her so that the rest of the family wouldn’t starve to death… If I do not receive any aid, I will have to sell another daughter. I have a one-year-old daughter. I will take her to the city and auction her off in front of the Central Mosque. The older girls are sold off for 100,000 Afghani. I will sell my baby daughter for 50,000.” —Belquis, a mother from Ghor

Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell

“Every day, I hugged my two children. I was afraid that the Taliban would take them from me. But consciously, responsibly, and honestly, I went to the streets every day to fight even harder than the day before … The Taliban surrounded us many times and tried to stop us with electric shocks and pepper spray, but we picked up their rifles with our bare hands and continued marching.” —Adela, a teacher and protester from Kabul

Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell

“In the past, I used to share my feelings on social media with my friends, but today the atmosphere of fear and mistrust has deepened so much that I cannot share my pain with my friends. I have never felt so alone. Many times, I have decided to end my life, but I think about the fate of my son.” —Hira, a former public servant from Kunar

Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell

“It is natural that fighting in the current situation also brings risks, but my life is sweeter as a woman who takes risks and has made sacrifices, even if this leads to my isolation and loss of neutrality. Changing society can only happen with our own awareness and efforts. I want a free life, the right to choose clothing, the right to choose a profession, the right to choose a field of study, the right to work.” —Amina, an engineer and activist from Langman

Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell

“Afghanistan has become the graveyard of buried hopes. This past year was one of the most challenging years of all for people living here, particularly for women and girls. They have turned thousands of young people’s hopes and dreams into ashes, especially women and girls, and I am one of them.” —Ghotai, a computer science student from Baghlan

Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell

“When we were children, children would hit animals and dogs with stones and harass them. Now this is the situation for women in my country. Being insulted and humiliated is the biggest change that we women see in our lives.” —Amina, a psychotherapist from Zabul

Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell

“I am standing up for my sisters who have no support and whose men cannot raise their voices because they fear the Taliban. I want to raise the voices of these innocent women to the international community so that it no will longer just monitor and react, but instead act. Act for the benefit of the brave women of my country, because we do not get anything from reaction!” —Fatana, a protester from Nuristan

Echoing the words of Fatana, this collection aims to raise awareness and incite an international audience to reflect and, hopefully, to act.

Note: These first-person accounts have been anonymized, with names and locations changed to protect their identity. The photographs of women have also been randomly matched to stories.

**The views expressed in these stories belong to the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UN Women and/or any affiliated agencies.
IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Flashback to a time when women and girls were able to attend school. UNICEF supported Zarghuna Girls School with educational supplies, teachers' training, and assists in repairing the infrastructure. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Abigail Van Neely
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 18 2023 (IPS)

Two years have passed since the Taliban re-assumed power in Afghanistan, and women and girls have yet to return to work or school. Can the international justice system now come to their defense? Experts say a case for Afghan women and girls has the potential to change the way the legal community thinks about human rights abuses. Will it?

Crimes Against Humanity

Gordon Brown, the United Nations special envoy for global education, says Taliban leaders should be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for denying Afghan women and girls education and employment.

“Afghan girls and Afghan women … have been fighting the most egregious, vicious, and indefensible violation of women’s rights and girl’s rights in the world today,” Brown told journalists in August.

Such acts constitute crimes against humanity if they meet the ICC’s definitions set forth in Article 7 of the Rome Statute. The acts must be part of a “widespread or systematic civilian attack directed against any civilian population.” The charges must also be brought against an individual or group of individuals, like Taliban authorities, who had knowledge of and perpetrated the crimes. The Taliban’s policies that specifically target all women and girls provide clear evidence of all these elements, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report has found.

According to HRW, Taliban authorities are specifically responsible for gender persecution. This persecution has been imposed through spoken and written decrees that have restricted women’s and girls’ movement, expression, employment, and education.

Persecution must also occur in connection with another recognized crime against humanity to be considered by the ICC. HRW’s report cites instances of women who protested discriminatory policies being detained for up to 40 days without communication as evidence of the crime of “imprisonment.”

David Cohen, Director of the Center for Human Rights at Stanford University, adds that the severe restriction of women’s movement might be seen as “imprisonment” itself.

“A creative argument would be that Taliban increasingly confining women to their homes and preventing their free movement… is a severe deprivation of physical liberty,” Cohen said.

Another type of crime is described as “inhumane acts” that cause “great suffering.”

HRW explains that cutting off women and girls from their livelihoods and opportunities for the future has had a “devastating impact on the mental health of many women and girls” would also qualify.

Expanding Notions of Human Rights Law

Under these grounds for investigation, an ICC case for Afghan women and girls could have broader implications.

For one, the case presents an opportunity for the court to move beyond looking at individualized actions and begin looking at broader policies, Tayyiba Bajwa, a clinical supervising attorney in the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, explains.

“A crime of persecution is a particularly important crime within the ICC’s mandate because it really speaks to systemic discrimination,” HRW’s International Justice Director Elizabeth Evenson said. “We’re talking about actions that are designed to deprive individuals of fundamental rights – in this case by virtue of their gender identity – and so, in a way, it really gets at the worst kinds of discrimination.”

It could also set more precedent for the future. Most ICC cases in the past have focused on crimes like torture, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings. A 2018 case involving forced marriage and sexual violence in Mali was the first in which an ICC prosecutor charged the crime of gender persecution.

However, prosecuting more cases of gender persecution is a priority for ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, Evenson notes. Khan’s office has released multiple publications on gender-based crimes in the past year, including a policy on the crime of gender persecution.

Kelli Muddell, the director of the gender justice program at the International Center for Transitional Justice, suggests that investigating incidents of gender persecution can help the international community consider new aspects of the law.

“I think the sort of innovative and maybe provocative thing about this case, if it were to go forward, is that it really centers around this expanding of crimes against humanity to look at social, political and economic and civil rights,” Muddell said.

Bajwa also recognized that ICC investigations can be leveraged to impose broader sanctions or restrictions. However, she expressed concern that focusing on the prosecution of Taliban leaders as a means of delivering justice may ignore the responsibility of other powerful actors, especially those in the Global North.

“One of the other real concerns I have about this is that prosecuting an individual from within the Taliban, in isolation, to me, ignores the long history and responsibility of Western countries for how and why the Taliban are in government in the first place,” Bajwa said. “If the ICC is truly to have legitimacy, it needs to stop being so myopic.”

Bajwa encouraged the public in influential countries to put pressure on their governments to take tangible actions, like working to make it impossible for Taliban officials to travel.

This is not the first time an ICC case involving Afghanistan has been considered. In 2021, Khan resumed an investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by both the Taliban and United States armed forces. Bajwa said she thinks any potential case on behalf of Afghan women and girls would be an expansion of the preexisting investigation, which doesn’t have an end date.

Still, Cohen says the chances of a case going to trial are “slim.” Even if there was a successful investigation, Taliban authorities would have to respond to an arrest warrant and sit for trial. The ICC prohibits trials in absentia.

Regardless, the symbolic value of an investigation alone may be significant enough, especially for victims seeking justice. Many experts agree that even without a conviction, the discussion facilitated by the global spotlight of the ICC can be a useful advocacy tool.

Beyond the ICC

The education envoy also addressed other ways international institutions have tried to support Afghan women and girls beyond the ICC.

There are workarounds to the education bans, like online learning and underground schools. However, these alternatives are another burden on a budget already spread thin. According to Brown, women and girls in Afghanistan fight for their rights while also facing extreme poverty.

Only 23 percent of the required funds for Afghanistan’s humanitarian response plan have been received, with 50 million people failing to receive the aid they need. As more girls flee to neighboring countries like Pakistan, even more funding will be needed to support refugees.

At the same time, Brown has called on individual governments to sanction the Taliban. UN education aid has been suspended until schools are reopened for girls.

Brown said he believed there was a split in the Taliban regime, with some important voices, especially in the Ministry of Education, still in favor of education for all. He encouraged the leaders of Muslim-majority countries to use their position to persuade Taliban leaders to remove bans on girls’ education and women’s employment, which he said “has no basis in the Quran or the Islamic religion.”

International bodies continue to monitor human abuses under other UN treaties ratified by Afghanistan, like the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Women.

“We know that if we allow oppression to go unchallenged in Afghanistan, it could spread to other countries,” Brown warned.

Still, he spoke about the importance of seeing the resilience of Afghan women and girls as a sign of encouragement: “They can close down the schools girls go to, but they cannot close down their minds.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

IPS – UN Bureau, IPS UN Bureau Report, Afghanistan

The #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign is a compelling and poignant campaign developed in collaboration with ECW Global Champion, Somaya Faruqi. CREDIT: ECW

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Aug 14 2023 (IPS)

Two years ago, the then 19-year-old Somaya Faruqi and the Afghan Robotic Team travelled from Herat City to Kabul, the heart of Afghanistan—the Taliban had taken over Herat city, cutting off electricity and internet. The all-girls team’s great passion for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) had driven them to Kabul to rehearse for a competition.

“After three days, I woke up, looked outside the window, and saw the Taliban in the streets. I was very shocked and could not believe it. I never imagined that the Taliban could take over Kabul. There were thousands and thousands of people trying to flee the country, and after three days of trying, we flew to Qatar with the help of the Qatari government. I wondered what would become of my sister and classmates who were left behind,” Faruqi tells IPS.

It did not take long for the de facto authority to unveil their plans. One month after the takeover, the de facto Taliban authorities banned girls from accessing secondary schools.  In December 2022, university education for women was also suspended until further notice.  After year six, they are to stay at home, says Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW)—the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW)—the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, says the ban on girl’s and women’s education has the effect of forcing them to live once again in the shadows. CREDIT: ECW

“Afghan girls and young women are banned from accessing secondary and tertiary education because of their gender, and this is the most ruthless form of discrimination. They cannot understand why they are not allowed to attend school like their brothers. Their pathway to education has been cut, and they are in pain, suffering and (often) struggling with suicidal thoughts. We must stand in solidarity with them, for in the words of Martin Luther King Jr, injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Their distress should shake us to the core,” Sherif tells IPS.

She says that the situation in Afghanistan is one of the worst in the world. To elevate Afghan girls’ voices on the global stage, ECW has launched the #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign. It is a compelling, poignant campaign developed in collaboration with Faruqi, who is an ECW Global Champion.

Faruqi finished her 12^th grade in Qatar, from where she applied to college and received a scholarship from the Qatar Fund for Development to pursue mechanical engineering studies in the United States. Her astounding progress and brilliance are a testament to the devasting blow being dealt to millions of Afghan girls.

“The situation in Afghanistan gets worse from one day to the next. Women and girls are prisoners in their own homes, in their own country. They cannot leave their homes without a male guardian – a father, brother or relative. They have been denied the freedom to pursue any interest outside their home, and they sit around with nothing to do. Through this campaign, I want the world to know that there is a country today where girls are denied fundamental human rights, forced out of school and into marriages,” Faruqi explains.

The campaign is to be launched on August 15, the second anniversary of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.  Gordon Brown –UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of ECW’s High-Level Steering Group – on the eve of the launch, stressed the need for the international community to hear this poignant call from the heart of Afghan girls and young women.

Faruqi affirms the need to hear from those inside Afghanistan, at the very heart of the ongoing injustice, to hear how their lives have been turned upside down and how a fragile future now hangs in the balance if the global community remains silent.

According to a recent UN experts’ report, the systematic restrictions of the fundamental rights of girls and women and the severe discrimination they experience under the de facto Taliban authorities’ regime could amount to “gender apartheid” and “gender persecution.”

Sherif says the situation is an unacceptable violation of girls’ fundamental right to education, making Afghanistan the only country in the world where girls and young women are forbidden from attending secondary school and higher education institutions.

The ban is a significant setback to the important progress realized for girls’ education in Afghanistan over the last 20 years.  Between 2001 and 2018, the number of girls in primary school in Afghanistan increased from almost zero to 2.5 million.  By August 2021, 40% of students in primary education were girls, and there were over 100,000 female students in Afghan higher education.

The campaign uses moving images by a young Afghan female artist and determined testimonies from Afghan girls. It features a series of equally inspiring, heart-wrenching and determined testimonies from Afghan girls whose lives have been abruptly upended by the ban preventing them to pursue their education and dreams.

Their powerful words are conveyed together with striking illustrations depicting both the profound despair experienced by these Afghan girls and young women, along with their incredible resilience and strength in the face of this unacceptable ban on their education.

ECW invites partners and the wider public to stand in solidarity with Afghan girls by posting messages from Afghan girls across social media every day—from 15 August, the date when the de facto Taliban authorities came into power in Afghanistan 2021, until 18 September, which marks the start of the official ban on school for adolescent girls.

Sherif says the campaign is in line with Sustainable Development Goal 4 and will run through the UN General Assembly and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit. The Summit aims to mark the beginning of a new phase of accelerated progress towards the SDGs with high-level political guidance on transformative and accelerated actions leading up to 2030 – progress that cannot be achieved with Afghan girls left behind.

“ECW, through our in-country partners, has been supporting education in Afghanistan since 2017, first through a mix of formal and non-formal education and now exclusively through programming outside the formal education system. More than 70 percent of the Afghan population is in dire humanitarian need. It is a country on the brink of collapse in terms of people’s well-being. We are therefore calling for urgent funding to continue to fund community-based education through our grassroots partners,” Sherif emphasizes.

The ECW-supported extended Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) in Afghanistan aims to support more than 250,000 children and adolescents across some of the most remote and underserved areas of the country. The programme delivers community-based education, organised at the local level with support from local communities, and is critical to keep education going. Girls account for well over half of all the children and adolescents reached by the MYRP.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Afghan Women refugees undergoing sewing and embroidery training in Peshawar, Pakistan. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Apr 10 2023 (IPS)

“I had my shop in Afghanistan but came here after the Taliban’s warning against stitching women’s clothes. Now, I am working on daily wages in a shop owned by a local tailor master,” Noor Wali, 32, told IPS.

Wali, a resident of Jalalabad province, said that a new order by the Taliban’s vice and virtue authority, male tailors, have been barred from making garments for women in Kabul.

“The order has landed the majority of the male tailors, who have no other option except to leave the country or stay idle and resort to begging,” Wali, a father of three, said.

Before the Taliban takeover in August 2021, he said it was common practice all over Afghanistan that males stitched women’s garments. The male tailors who used to make only women’s garments are the worst hit as the order has made them virtually jobless.

Sharif Gul’s story is no different from Wali’s. Gul, 41, arrived in Peshawar, located close to the Afghan border, and started work at Rs1,500 (about USD 6) per day with a local tailor. “I used to earn at least Rs6,000 (about USD 21) back home and over Rs15,000 a day (about USD 52) in Ramzan (Ramadan) because the people wear new clothes on Eid al-Fitr,” he said.

Eid al-Fitr is celebrated at the end of Ramzan-one month of fasting, and all people stitch new clothes for the festivity.

“A great loss to us. We have been appealing to the Taliban to take pity on us, but they were not receptive to our requests,” Gul said.

Tailor said the order would have a major impact on them financially as many tailor shops cater only to female customers.

Naseer Shah is another Afghan hit hard by the Taliban’s ban on sewing women’s garments. Shah, 39, who migrated to Peshawar last month along with his wife, three sons, and daughter, works as a daily wager with a Pakistani tailor.

“I earn Rs3,000 (about USD 10) a day. My income used to be around Rs10,000 (about UDS 35) during this month of Ramzan. I have been making women’s garments for more than 15 years,” he explains. Most Kabul-based workers have stopped stitching female dresses and started dealing in men’s clothing, but they receive fewer customers.

So he didn’t have to resort to begging; they moved to Pakistan, he said.

Taliban government has already banned women’s education after coming to power. A week ago, they asked women to stop working in UN offices, likely impacting women’s development, healthcare, and population control in the militia-ruled violence-stricken country.

Hussain Ahmad, 50, an Afghan tailor who migrated to Pakistan 30 years ago, told IPS that the influx of Afghan tailors has been problematic because they don’t find lucrative work here.

“We have hired three tailors who came recently after the Taliban’s ban. We have workload in Ramzan, but after Eid al-Fitr, we wouldn’t need their services, and they will be unemployed,” said Hussain, who owns a shop in Muhajir (refugee) Bazaar, in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, located near the Afghan border.

Hussain said the people feared the Taliban for their harsh punishments. “Those arriving here recall how Taliban’s police warned them if they didn’t stop taking women’s garments,” he said.

Ikramullah Shah, an economics teacher, who taught at Kabul University, told IPS that he quit his job because of the ban on women’s education.

“We are here, and my two daughters are studying in private schools here. I want to educate my daughters at any cost,” Shah said. “I have been teaching in two Afghan schools as a part-timer to earn for my family.”

Most of the women who owned dressmaking shops have stopped working after the Taliban’s instructions, he said. Some women tailors had very big shops where they had recruited male and female tailors, but now all have to close shops and work from home.

Among the refugees is Naseema Shah, an Afghan woman who says she will soon start stitching women’s dresses for women in Peshawar. Naseema, 30, is one of 20 Afghan women nearing completion of month-long training in Peshawar, supported by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ).

Dr Samir Khan, a political analyst, told IPS that the Taliban have been facing tremendous pressure from the international community, including the UN, to change their attitude towards women, but the situation remained unchanged.

“We have been listening to news about the ban of women students, workers, and tailors sewing female dresses, which is unacceptable in a civilized society,” he said.

Taliban should do some soul-searching and try to become part of the global efforts and work for women’s development, he said.

“How can the Taliban put the war-devastated country on the path of progress when they disallow women (half of the country’s population) to work,” he said.

Pakistan is an Islamic country where women enjoy equal rights, he said.

He said that women are neither taking part in social activities nor allowed to go to school and work, which is regrettable. The past 16 months since the Taliban came to power have been tough on women.

Sajida Babi, an Afghan teacher in Peshawar that women have been at the receiving end of the Taliban’s ruthlessness. “There are strict dress codes for women who are required to wear an all-encompassing veil while in the market,” Bibi, 55, said. “In my country, women cannot go to schools or parks for entertainment, and they cannot travel without being accompanied by a man, which reminds one of the Stone Age.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Moniza Kakar gets thumb impressions of Afghan women on the legal document called Wakalatnama, which is a document filed by a party in order to appoint a lawyer to plead on their behalf. Credit: Moniza Kakar

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Feb 1 2023 (IPS)

“If I return to Afghanistan, the Taliban will kill me; I’m prepared to stay in a prison in Karachi than face those ruthless people,” said 24-year-old Afghan refugee, Sabrina Zalmai*, referring to the recent crackdown on hundreds of Afghans residing without proper documents in the metropolis, who are being arrested and then deported back to Afghanistan.

Having taken refuge in Pakistan for almost a year without a visa, she said she was feeling extremely unsafe. “We are trying to remain as invisible as possible,” she said.

But, said 45-year-old Naghma Ziauddin*, a former broadcast journalist working in Kabul, and having fled to Karachi, living under the radar, illegally, in the city was difficult. If arrested and deported, she said, she would instantly be recognized since she had been “very vocal in my hatred for the Taliban, and they know my voice.”

She, her husband, two sons, and a sick daughter-in-law came to Karachi in March 2022. “If they put us behind bars, how will we take care of my daughter-in-law?” she said, adding: “Because of the recent arrests, we have become caged in our home. I hardly go out; I am always anxious about being apprehended when I take my daughter-in-law to see the doctor for her monthly check-up.”

According to official reports, about 250,000 Afghans have fled to Pakistan after the Taliban seized power in August 2021.

But the amnesty extended to those fleeing Afghanistan and entering Pakistan with valid visas that have expired, terminated in December 2022.

To renew their visas, they have to re-enter Afghanistan, which they still find a dangerous place.

A majority of those who fled feared they would find themselves in the crosshairs of the Taliban. These included soldiers, judges, journalists, human rights defenders, and those whom the Taliban despised, the Shia Hazaras, the LGBTQIA+, and those who were musicians and singers. The economic immigrants who were without work in Afghanistan were also among the refugees.

Ziauddin finds deportations “very inhuman”.

Not only is it inhuman, said Umer Ijaz Gilani, an Islamabad-based lawyer, it is a violation of the non-refoulement (forcibly returning refugees or asylum seekers where they may be persecuted) principle. Acting on behalf of 100 Afghan human rights defenders seeking asylum, he has urged the government’s National Commission on Human Rights to direct state authorities not to deport them. “We may have to take them to the court otherwise,” he told IPS in a phone interview.

According to Moniza Kakar, a Karachi-based young human rights lawyer, Afghan refugees are being arrested across Pakistan. “They get deported immediately in other provinces, but in Sindh, the arrested Afghans are put behind bars for months, treated badly in prisons, fined, and then deported,” she said.

Kakar is helping in the release of the Afghan refugees in Sindh. “So far, of the 1,400 arrested (including 200 women and 350 children), 600 have been released and deported,” she told IPS.

“If a person lives illegally in any country, the government takes action and deals with them according to the law,” Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Memon said, justifying the arrests. “Nobody has been sentenced to jail for more than two months,” he added. He also denied that children were put behind bars.

Kakar said because Pakistan had not adopted the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, “which stops states from punishing people who enter a country illegally”, it is able to invoke the domestic Foreigners Act 1946 to use against Afghans residing in Pakistan illegally, to punish and deport them.

Of the imprisoned Afghans, Kakar said, nearly 400 had been arrested wrongfully as they had valid documents that allowed them to stay in Pakistan. They remained incarcerated for months till their cases were heard.

“Some Afghans arrested in Jacobabad have been sentenced to as much as six months rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5,000 imposed on all males, and Rs 1,000 each on all minors and females,” she said, contradicting Memon’s statement to media. “Why were minors fined when the government claims they were not offenders or imprisoned?” she asked.

Amnesty International has urged the Pakistani government to stop the deportations and extend support to the refugees so they can live with dignity and free of fear of being returned to Afghanistan. In a letter to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Agnes Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said she found it alarming to note the country lacked national legislation for the protection of refugees and asylum seekers.

Pakistan may not have signed the international refuge protocol, but, argued Lahore-based Sikander Shah, who teaches at the law school at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, there were several international human rights conventions that Pakistan had adopted, like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Interna­t­i­­onal Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Con­ve­n­­tion on the Rights of the Child, the Convention aga­inst Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, that can be “turned to, to help the hapless refugees”.

“My experience has been that the judges in Sindh do not empathize with the Afghan refugees,” pointed out Kakar. “In fact, one judge said in the open court that the refugees did not deserve to be looked at from a humanitarian lens; that they were criminals who were involved in terrorist activities in our country,” said the young rights activist bemoaning the open hostility prevalent not just among other segments of society, but even her own legal fraternity.

She also said the Afghans were especially ill-treated both by prison authorities and the inmates. “They complain of being lugged with more than their share of work and not always provided with meals,” said Kakar.

Many say they face constant discrimination.

Armineh Nasar* 21, another refugee, who came to Karachi last year, in December 2021, with her mother and three siblings, said she had experienced much suspicion. “I have witnessed how Pakistani mothers pull away their children when they find out their kids are playing with Afghan kids. I’ve heard them say, we are terrorists,” she said.

Before the Taliban took over Kabul, Zalmai was working in Kabul in a nongovernmental organization. But the reason she would find herself on the wrong side of the Taliban if she were deported was that, like Ziauddin, she had been “very vocal in my dislike of the Taliban, and they know who I am.” She fled with her grandmother in January 2022 after her family got hold of a hitlist of Taliban which had her name on it as well.

With a BA in economics, her dream of opening a boutique in Kabul’s upscale market has been dashed. “Right now, I work as a domestic help, sweeping floors, earning up to Rs 300 (USD 1.30 cents) for half a day’s work,” because she cannot find any office work as it would require her to show an identification card. “I had never done this kind of work even at home as I was either studying or working outside. “We are a family of seven; I’m the eldest, and I was the main bread earner of my family, earning Afghani 15,000 (USD 166) per month,” she told IPS. Her father, a security guard in an office, earned less.

Like the other two, Nasar, too, cannot find work, so she keeps hopping from one job to the other till the issue of documents comes up. “I’ve worked in an office and in a supermarket, each lasting three months, and then had to leave as I was unable to show any identity card.” Having studied till 12 grade in Kabul, she wanted to enroll in higher studies. “But the university administration wants to see a refugee card before giving me admission. I’ve missed a year because of that!” said Nasar, who wants to study computer sciences and enter the profession of banking.

But it is not just that they cannot work; without documentation, Afghans cannot access housing or open bank accounts (to be able to receive money). They also cannot obtain a SIM card or seek medical treatment at a government facility.

With no one in her family able to earn, Ziauddin said she was worried the family would soon run out of money. The cash they had after selling her jewelry and household items to flee to Pakistan is drying up fast, as are all their savings.

“I am under a lot of anxiety that has caused my blood pressure to rise,” said Ziauddin. Her doctor had suggested she begin walking as a form of exercise, which she did, but she gave it up after she got robbed last month.

“If only the UNHCR could provide us with the documents stating we are refugees, we would not face so many problems,” she said.

But it seems even the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ hands are tied.

Since 2021, the UNHCR has been in discussion with the government on measures and mechanisms to support vulnerable Afghans. “Regrettably, no progress has been made,” said UNHCR spokesperson Qaiser Khan Afridi.

He said the refugee agency was ready to work with the government of Pakistan in identifying Afghans in need of protection and to seek solutions to their plight. But the latter has yet to agree to recognize the newly arriving Afghans as refugees. “It does, however, allow Afghans in possession of a valid passport and visa to cross into Pakistan; the online visa application process is also available to those with passports.”

In addition, said Afridi, in line with its mandate, the UNHCR strives to find durable solutions for refugees. “But the realization of such solutions is beyond its control.” It all depends on countries to offer third-country resettlement opportunities or to allow refugees to naturalize as citizens in the country where they sought asylum. “Resettlement, unfortunately, cannot be available for the entire refugee population as the opportunities are limited,” he agreed but said the refugee agency was urging RST (Refugee Status Determination) countries (like Pakistan) to increase the resettlement quotas.

*Names have been changed to protect their identity. 
IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Some Afghan women put their lives at risk by migrating to Europe. Along the way, and even at the destinations, they face sexual violence at the hands of traffickers, but they often take the risk so that they can live free from the constraints of the Taliban. This photo shows a woman from the Hazara minority in Bamiyan. She used to be a singer and appeared on local TV but is now forced to stay at home. Credit: Sara Perria/IPS

By Sara Perria
KABUL & ATHENS, Dec 22 2022 (IPS)

Maliha looks confident in a café in Athens as she tells the story of her journey from Afghanistan to Europe. But as she starts recounting how a smuggler assaulted her in Turkey two years ago, she pauses, looking the other way and fiddling with her loose hair.

It makes her anxious when she remembers it. She was traveling alone and soon realized she was the only woman on board a bus to the border with Greece.

“[The smuggler] told me to get off. He wanted me to himself.” With unusual strength, the young woman managed to escape as the man was trying to rape her. Still shaken, she tried to report the crime to the local police, but she felt they were more concerned about her status as an illegal migrant than the attempted rape. “Luckily, I had a contact on Facebook [who is] a cousin who I knew lived in Turkey but whom I never met.” He happened to live near that police station, and he convinced the officials to let her go.

Afghan refugees picnic in a park in Athens. Their journeys to Europe are often dangerous. Credit: Sara Perria/IPS

Now Maliha lives in Athens as a “free woman” – a fact that she remarks upon while wearing leggings and no head covering.

The violence experienced by Mahila is not an isolated case. An investigation into the journey of Afghan women from their home country to Europe carried out in Afghanistan, Turkey and Greece has revealed a pattern of systematic violence throughout, their vulnerability heightened by lack of documents and money. Women, some traveling alone or only with their children, pay to get to Europe only to become victims of trafficking and sex slaves.

According to 31-year-old Aila, an Afghan refugee and former Médecins sans Frontières worker in refugee camps in Athens, “some 90% of women suffer a form of violence during the journey.”

“When your life is in the hands of smugglers,” continues Aila, “it’s not up to you to decide whom to stay with, what to do, where to go: it’s the smuggler who decides. Even if you are with your family or the members of your family, he can still threaten you with a weapon, and if he wants to separate you from them, he’ll do it”.

Afghans are now the second largest group of asylum seekers in the EU after Ukrainians, but the flow of asylum seekers started well before the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021. According to the International Organization for Migration, nearly 77,000 women and girls were registered at arrival by sea and by land in Europe between 2018 and 2020, making up 20 percent of total arrivals. Women make up an increasing percentage of asylum requests globally, all facing gender-based risks.

The reasons behind Afghans’ search for a safe place run deep in a country torn by decades of war. Social and financial restrictions within a deeply patriarchal society and the hope for a better life abroad had already pushed many to leave the country even before the arrival of the Taliban.

However, the challenges of the journey can be harrowing. “I remember traveling with a 10-year-old and her grandmother,” Aila recalls. “During the journey, her grandmother died, and she was handed over to the trafficker,” says Aila, describing one of the most traumatic episodes she witnessed.

“Was she raped? Of course. For them, she was a woman”.

Women escaping from the increasingly restrictive Taliban regime in Afghanistan find their journeys to freedom are fraught with dangers. This week the Taliban banned women from universities. They are increasingly forced to remain at home. Credit: Sara Perria/IPS

The risks are so stacked against women that word of mouth has led to the development of ‘survival’ techniques, such as dressing up as a man. Aila says she put on a similar short jacket, jeans, and sneakers to that of other boys. “I kept my hair hidden under my cap. And when the trafficker gave me his hand to get on the boat, he said, “Hey, boy.” I didn’t answer. “Never talk to traffickers,” is the second ‘tip’ dispensed by Aila.

Acceptance rates of Afghan asylum seekers are now high, especially in countries such as Spain and Italy, with 100% and 95% in 2021, respectively, and 80% in Greece, the first EU frontier for the many who come after spending months or years in Turkey or Iran.

Yet getting adequate assistance after suffering abuse, rape and forced prostitution is a different story. The violence suffered often doesn’t get denounced by the police due to cultural or linguistic barriers and the stigma surrounding rape or forced prostitution. Lack of adequate protection in Europe is also a reason, so NGOs set up by fellow Afghans try to step in.

Months of interviews with Afghan asylum seekers in Afghanistan, Turkey, and Europe expose the extent of the danger for women who embark on a journey organized by smugglers. Direct witnesses’ accounts and NGO transcripts, seen exclusively by this reporter, reveal a pattern of how women – and in particular Afghans belonging to ethnic minorities – fall into a ‘trap’ of violence.

Freshta spent years between Iran and Turkey with a sick brother before eventually succeeding in reaching a refugee camp in Greece and then a place in Athens hosted by a friend. However, her attempts to find a job and become independent soon turned into a prolonged series of tortured experiences. The possibility of asking for help was radically reduced by her illegal status and lack of documents.

“One day, I was in a café with my friend, and she introduced me to this man. We only knew that he was a trafficker of Iraqi nationality.” He, himself a refugee, knew very well how vulnerable women like Freshta are. “He started following me and kept saying that I should go with him.” Her constant rejections didn’t work. On the contrary, he threatened to kill her brother, who was still in the refugee camp – a sign of the long reach of influence traffickers can call upon.

One day, despite attempts to protect herself, hiding for days at a friend’s house, the man managed to kidnap her and take her to her apartment. He then hit her on the head, threatening her with a knife pointed at her stomach and forcing her to get into his car. At that moment, Freshta became a slave, first suffering violent rape, with beatings that made her pass out because she also suffered from asthma.

“When I woke up, he wasn’t there. I was full of pain and didn’t know what to do; I was in shock. I went to the bathroom, got washed, dressed, and cried.”

Upon his return, the trafficker told her that she now belonged to him. If she went out and told anyone what had happened, then he would kill her.

Freshta managed to hide at her friend’s again, but again the man managed to take her by force, beating her and locking her up at home for weeks, repeatedly raping her. Freshta got pregnant. “He told me I couldn’t do anything because he had become a Greek citizen, and I was nothing; I didn’t have any document.”

It took many weeks and the help of an association to allow her to report the incident. She had an abortion. The woman has since been moved by the Greek government to a secure facility in an undisclosed location.

To add to Freshta’s tragic testimony is the fact that, as the operator of an NGO in Athens explains, “There are many cases of sexual slavery like this, which are not reported by the victims because they are afraid of being stigmatized and of their lack of documents.” The perpetrators of the violence can be fellow nationals, generally belonging to a different ethnic group and, to a lesser extent, other nationalities.

The lack of support is accentuated by a form of class distinction within the refugee community and by the way resources are thus distributed, according to some of the Afghan women interviewed in Athens. “The refugees who arrived in Europe through the evacuation program [in Kabul] consider themselves ‘different’ from those who arrived here on foot, with the traffickers. And they are also treated differently by the authorities,” says Aila.

While for men, the lack of documents, money, and a family network leads more easily to labor exploitation, women can often fall victim to sexual exploitation. Some women are “passed from trafficker to trafficker,” says Aila, while the local association also reports cases of forced prostitution just outside the camps. But even in the aftermath of a violent attack, NGOs are worried about the short time women are allowed to spend in safe structures, as well as the limited space available there. Resources do not meet the seriousness and extent of the problem.

“When they asked me if I wanted to report the man [who kept me as a slave], I said yes, but only if I had a safe place to stay first,” says Freshta. “I was so desperate that I left behind everything I had.”

This project on trafficking has been developed with the financial support of Journalismfund.eu

https://www.journalismfund.eu/

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Action taken against stall-owners at the Refugees Bazaar in Peshawar. Afghan refugees say they are unfairly targeted by the authorities. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Aug 15 2022 (IPS)

Afghan refugees living in Pakistan face a host of problems, ranging from seeking medical treatment to shelter, business, police harassment and violence. Many of those affected have been there for four decades.

“Whenever we go to the local hospitals for treatment, we don’t get good services. As a result, we bank on unqualified doctors who charge a lower fee, but the treatment they provide us isn’t up to the mark,” Jamila Bibi, 48, told IPS. She lives in the Khyber district near the Torkham border with Afghanistan.

Bibi says she developed a gynaecological problem, but the local hospital denied her treatment.

“Later, we took a loan from our relative and went to a private hospital, but my condition had worsened. Doctors removed my uterus and sent a specimen to exclude cancer as the cause of the complications,” the bed-ridden mother of three said.

Most wealthy Afghans prefer to visit Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of Pakistan’s four provinces, to seek treatment in private hospitals. Many facilities in their home country don’t offer quality treatment because of ongoing conflicts that have plagued the area since 1979.

Afghans living in Pakistan and those seeking treatment and who want to visit Pakistan aren’t satisfied with how they are handled at the border and in the country.

“We reached the border on June 15 to undergo surgery for bilateral kidney stones in Peshawar, but the police kept us waiting for three days. When they cleared our documents and we reached the hospital, we were told that both (of my wife’s) kidneys had been infected and we had to stay for a month to cure the infection,” Muhammad Sattar, a Kabul resident, said.

Sattar, a carpet dealer, says doctors said his wife could have been operated on sooner had she arrived earlier, preventing the spread of the infection.

Dr Umar Amir, who deals with Afghan patients at the border, said that on an average day, 120 patients were allowed to come to Pakistan after checking their medical documents. “There is no delay in processing their documents,” he told IPS.

Pakistan is home to 3.3m registered refugees, most of who arrived after the Soviet Union’s invasion in 1979.

“One million (32 per cent reside in 54 refugees village, and 68 per cent in urban areas across Pakistan,” UNHCR’s spokesman Qaisar Khan Afridi told IPS. In addition to its dedicated refugee programmes, UNHCR has been supporting the Refugee Affected and Hosting Areas (RAHA) initiative, which aims to mitigate the impact of the protracted refugee presence and promote social cohesion between Afghan refugees and their Pakistani host communities.

Since its launch in 2009, the programme has helped over 12 million people (85 per cent of beneficiaries are Pakistanis) across the country through some 4,300 projects worth more than USD 200 million.

Through RAHA, UNHCR has been strengthening the capacity of existing government hospitals and educational institutes.

“We don’t have any option except staying in Pakistan as Afghanistan is in ruins. We cannot go back due to extreme violence, lawlessness, and lack of economic activities,” said Muhammad Suhail (34). A scrap collector in Peshawar’s Karkhano Bazzar (Industrial Market), he says they were looked down upon by host communities.

Most of the refugees do odd jobs. He said they work as vendors, in tandoors (bread baking), rickshaw-driving, fruit, and vegetable-selling.

Only a few wealthy refugees, who own shops dealing in gold, crockery, grocery, cloth and general stores, are happy, and they even send money back home to support their relatives.

“We arrived here in 1988 and have a well-established business of cloth. We have employed 33 Afghans and have no issues with local police and host community,” Said Rehman (62) said. “My three sons and two daughters are married, and their children study in Pakistani educational institutions on seats allocated for Afghan refugees.”

Rehman disagreed with the impression that Pakistani were hostile towards Afghans. “Some residents were friendly, and others weren’t, but can we blame all the local people for disrupting the Afghan’s lives? Many of our relatives have married local men and women,” he said.

In Refugees Bazaar in Peshawar, Afghans say they face harassment from municipal authorities.

“Every day, the officials come and arrest our shopkeepers, which has badly harmed our businesses,” Ghulam Rasool, a cloth merchant, told IPS. Afghans own 95 percent of the shops at the bazaar which specialise in Afghan cultural goods.

“We purchase clothes from the market and get them stitched in Afghan style. We feel convenient in negotiating prices with the Afghan shopkeepers selling cosmetics, foot wears, fruits, meats and so on,” Shaheen Begum, a house woman, told IPS.

“In Pakistani shops, we face difficulties due to language barriers,” she said. “We often find the market closed due to raids by local authorities.”

Municipal officer Javid Khan said that many Afghan shopkeepers and vendors encroach on roads and were arrested for violating the laws. But the vendors were freed when they assured the authorities they would abide by the regulations.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

A man sells poultry in Refugees Market, Peshawar, on 17 June. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Jun 23 2022 (IPS)

“We came here in 1979 after Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. My children and grandchildren have grown up here and they don’t want to go back to that war-ravaged country. I go there occasionally to mourn the deaths of near and dear ones,” says Muhammad Jabbar, 67, a former resident of Kabul, capital of Afghanistan.

This South Asian nation is home to 1.3 million registered refugees and more than double this number of unregistered ones who have fled neighbouring Afghanistan
Jabbar, who sells dry fruits in Muhajir Bazaar (known as the ‘refugees market’), in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of Pakistan’s four provinces, said that he hadn’t been able to convince his family members to visit their country due to the endless violence.

The latest in that series of events was the takeover by Taliban militants in August 2021, which has further heightened Jabbar’s fears that even he may no longer be able to visit his native land. At the same time he acknowledges that Pakistan is now the family’s home and calls the local people ‘friendly’.

This South Asian nation is home to 1.3 million registered refugees and more than double this number of unregistered ones who have fled neighbouring Afghanistan. Most of them run small businesses or do petty jobs and send remittances to their family members who remain across the border.

A vegetable seller in the same market, Hayat Shah, says business is so good that he and his family never think of returning. “We are very happy as here we live in peace and earn money for our survival. In Afghanistan, people are faced with an extremely hard economic situation. My two sons and a daughter study here in a local school,” says Shah, 49.

“We arrived in Peshawar in early 1992 when our home was bombed by unknown people. My parents and two brothers died,” he adds.

An awareness session with Afghan women in Akora Khattak refugee camp, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, 16 June. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

Shah and his family live in Baghlan Camp in Peshawar, one of 3,500 refugee families in the camp (though UNHCR now calls camps ‘refugee villages’). There are 54 refugee camps across Pakistan — 43 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province — housing 32 per cent of refugees. More than two-thirds of refugees live in urban areas, where they are legally permitted to work, according to UNHCR.

Most Afghans interviewed by IPS in the market, said they feel that Pakistan is now home. Ninety percent of merchants in the sprawling market are Afghan businessmen, who run clothing, fish, meat and fruit and vegetable shops. “Refugees bazar is bustling with Afghan women and men buying all sorts of stuff,” says fruit seller Ghafoor Shah. “This market is no different from any market in Afghanistan, where women clad in burkas can be seen shopping,” he adds.

Sultana, 51, says they visit the bazaar frequently to do bulk shopping for the Islamic festival Eidul Fitre, marriage ceremonies and other holidays. “We can find all type of articles we need in accordance with Afghan traditions. Us women can talk to Afghan shopkeepers and tailors easily in our own languages compared to Pakistanis, with whom conversation is difficult.”

UNHCR spokesman for Pakistan Qaisar Khan Afridi told IPS that the arrival of new refugees after the Taliban took charge in Kabul has created major issues.

“Over, 250,000 Afghans have reached here in the last 18 months — that’s just the registered refugees. The UN refugee agency is in talks with the host government to seek a solution to the problem of these people who aren’t registered in Pakistan yet,” he says adding, “Pakistan isn’t accepting new refugees,” he adds.

The UNHCR’s voluntary repatriation programme for refugees to Afghanistan has come to almost a complete halt. Only 185 families have returned since January this year, with each getting US$250 as assistance. About 4.4 million refugees have been repatriated since 2002.

Muhammad Hashim, a reporter for Shamshad TV channel in Jalalabad, told IPS that the Taliban aren’t allowing journalists to work freely and suspect anyone who was employed during the former government’s tenure. “I came with my wife and two daughters to Pakistan using back routes and now we’re trying to seek asylum in the US or any European country. Going back is out of the question,” he told IPS, awaiting registration outside UNHCR’s office in Peshawar.

Hashim, 41, says he survived a murder attempt a day before his departure for Pakistan and left so quickly that his belongings remain in Afghanistan.

Women journalists are sitting at home, he adds. Fearing prosecution by Taliban, hundreds of people who worked in the police or in offices under the former Afghan government have also rushed to Pakistan, he says. “Violence and lack of jobs, education and health facilities are haunting the people.”

Muhammad Abbas Khan, Commissioner for Afghan Refugees Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, speaks at a function marking visits of senior UNHCR officials to Padhana refugee camp, Haripur district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 17 June 2022. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

Schoolteacher Mushtari Begum, 39, is among the fresh refugees. “I did a masters in computer science from Kabul University and used to teach in a private girls school for eight years. Now, the women’s schools have been shut down and teachers and students are sitting in their homes,” says Begum, a mother of two. “We live with relatives in Peshawar temporarily and have run of money,” she added.

On 12 June the Pakistan government approved a policy under which transit visas will be issued to Afghan asylum seekers to enable them to travel to any country of their choice. At the same time, the federal cabinet said that Pakistan has always welcomed refugees and would continue to host them in their trying times.

Gul Rahim, who drives a taxi in Nowshera district near Peshawar, says he arrived here in 2002 and has been lucky to educate his two sons. “Pakistan has proved a blessing for me. In Afghanistan I wouldn’t have been able to raise my sons, who are now teaching at a refugee school and helping me financially.”

Afghan students take classes at the Padhana refugees camp, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan 15 June. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

Fazal Ahmed, a local officer at the Afghan commissionerate in Peshawar, which oversees all refugee camps in the province, says they hold awareness sessions for refugees from time to time, on issues like violence and gender, health and education. “In over 30 refugee camps we also arrange skill development programmes, especially to enable women to earn their livelihoods.

“Sports activities are part of our programme, which we organize in collaboration with the UNHCR,” he says. Afghan students have also been admitted in Pakistani schools, universities and medical colleges, he adds.

However, all is not well. Many refugees complain of being harassed by police, a charge vehemently denied by authorities.

“We arrived here in February 2022 because of fear of reprisals by the Taliban. We have no documents because Pakistan isn’t registering new refugees and police often arrest us and release us only when we pay bribes,” says Usman Ali, who worked as a police constable in the former government in Kabul. Ali, 24, said his elder brother, a former army soldier, was killed by the Taliban in December 2021.

“To save my life, I rushed to Pakistan’s border in a passenger bus and ended up in Peshawar,” he adds.

Local government official Jehanzeb Khan tells IPS that Afghans are treated as guests. “There are isolated cases where Afghans are mistreated by local people but we take action when complaints are filed,” he says.

On Nasir Bagh Road, where Ali sells cosmetics goods from a hand cart, Police Officer Ahmad Nawaz told IPS that they arrest only those Afghans who are involved in crimes and are friendly towards innocent ones. “The Afghans commit robberies and even murders and go back to Afghanistan. We don’t harass Afghans (living here) because they are in trouble,” Nawaz adds.

Local singers and instrumentalists joined rights activists and politicians in a protest against Afghan musicians' arrest in Peshawar. They fear that there could be serious repercussions if the musicians are deported back to Taliban-led Afghanistan. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Jun 1 2022 (IPS)

The arrest of Afghan musicians in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan has elicited protests from local politicians, artists and rights activists who demand their release and say they should be allowed to stay as refugees.

“Four musicians arrested by police in Peshawar, the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, for lack of visa and travel documents have been sent to jail and will be deported under the 14 Foreigners’ Act,” a police officer, Nasrullah Shah, told IPS.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan located on the border with Afghanistan.

Police arrested the artists on May 27. They had been performing on TV and radio for years in Afghanistan, but the Taliban government’s opposition to music silenced them. The group includes Saidullah Wafa, Naveed Hassan, Ajmal and Nadeem Shah.

According to Shah, they crossed into Pakistan illegally.

The musicians, however, insisted that there was a ban on music back home, and as a result, they faced economic problems.

“Since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in August last year, there was an unannounced ban on musical activities, which has landed the singers and musicians in hot water,” Saidullah Wafa, one of the arrested singers, told IPS. Taliban are notorious for killing musicians, and they will murder us if we go back,” Wafa said. Before fleeing to Pakistan, he lived in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

He claimed that Taliban militants consider music against Islam and have killed many singers and others associated with it in the past. Fearing prosecution, we came to Pakistan to seek refuge, the 25-year-old said.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has condemned the arrest and possible deportation.

“HRCP is concerned to learn that four Afghan nationals have been arrested by the KP police under the Foreigners’ Act 1946; the court has ordered they be deported. All four face significant threats from the Taliban government in Kabul,” it tweeted.

Local music journalist Sher Alam Shinwari, who writes for Dawn newspaper, said the seized Afghan musicians are refugees. He said they cannot and should not be deported to the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan.

“Afghan musicians, since they arrived in Peshawar and elsewhere in KP, have never been involved in any unlawful activities. Secondly, they have re-joined their relatives already living in refugee camps or rented homes in and around Peshawar,” Shinwari said.

Most have valid documents or ration cards, while some of them carried artists’ registration cards issued by local artists’ organisations, he said.

Deporting Afghan musicians to the Taliban is tantamount to throwing them to the wolves because the Taliban had murdered several artists in the recent past, Shinwari explained.

Families of most of the musicians were already living in Pakistan, and their deportation would be a human rights violation.

Rashid Ahmed Khan, head of Honary Tolana, an organisation striving for musicians’ rights, told IPS that the arrested musicians would be in danger if sent back.

“They were taken into custody by police without a search warrant, sent to jail and be handed over to the Taliban – which is an inhuman act. These famous artistes moved to Peshawar last year when Taliban seized power in Afghanistan to save their lives,” he said.

On May 30, local artists held a protest demonstration against the arrest of Afghan musicians in Peshawar and urged the government to allow them to stay in Pakistan as refugees.

Politicians also joined the protest.

Sardar Hussain Babak, a local lawmaker, assured them that they would raise the issues on the floor of the parliament.

Some Afghan artists present at the protest said they had come to Pakistan for their safety and could not continue their profession in their own country.

They demanded police stop their action against the artists because they were guests in Pakistan and their lives were at risk in Afghanistan.

Local artists, including Saeeda Bibi and others, condemned the police action against the Afghan musicians and demanded their early release.

“Taliban have resorted to violence against the musicians, destroyed their equipment at different places, and shot dead people even participating in the wedding ceremonies in Nangrahar and other provinces of Afghanistan,” Saeeda Bibi told IPS.

“We have applied for bail of the detained artists with the hope to get them released at the earliest,” she said. “We have set a three-day deadline for police to stop action against the artists. Otherwise, Afghan and Pakistani artists would march on Islamabad and stage a sit-in until their demands were heard.

“We also appealed to UNHCR to take notice of the ordeal of Afghan artists so that they could live in Pakistan as refugees.”

KP Information Minister Muhammad Ali Saif told IPS that the artists should be prosecuted in terms of the law.

“We have been hosting 3 million Afghan refugees for the past four decades, which is the glaring example of hospitality. They will be treated as per the law,” he said.

There were no instructions to police regarding the arrest of Afghan musicians, and the court would decide about their deportation, he said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, is welcomed by teachers and students at a girls’ primary school in Kabul, Afghanistan. Sherif led the first all-women UN mission to Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover to meet with the new de facto education authorities in October 2021. She has called on the de facto authorities to resume adolescent girls’ access to secondary education. Credit: Omid Fazel/ECW

By Naureen Hossain
New York, Mar 28 2022 (IPS)

The late-night reversal of a decision by Taliban authorities in Afghanistan to allow girls from grades 7 to 12 to return to school has been met with distress from within the country and internationally – and fear that it could herald further restrictions.

A Taliban spokesperson from the Ministry of Education on March 23 made the announcement reversing an earlier decision that all students would be expected to return to school, including girls.

Local media in Afghanistan reported protests, including one held outside the Ministry of Education building. At least 87 percent of the population favor girls’ education across all levels, even among those who may say they would not expect the girls in their family to attend school but would not oppose government schooling otherwise.

The abrupt decision has also taken humanitarian organizations by surprise. Sam Mort, Chief of Communications for UNICEF Afghanistan, spoke at a press briefing at the United Nations headquarters, revealing that this announcement came late.

“Among our staff, there was collective disbelief… and anxiety,” Mort said, speaking of the reaction of field officers and national staff to the news. “We are just as confused as everyone else.”

The Taliban’s decision has been met with swift condemnation from the international community. UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell in a statement said the Taliban’s decision was “a major setback for girls and their future” and urging them to “honor their commitment to girls’ education without any further delays”.

Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait, the United Nations’ global fund for children’s education, said: “With this announcement, an entire generation of Afghan children and adolescents could be left behind.”

Sherif said that “ensuring that both girls and boys can return to school – including the resumption of adolescent girls’ access to secondary education – is key for the development of the country.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the Taliban’s decision was “a profound disappointment and deeply damaging for Afghanistan”.

UN agencies, their partners, and other humanitarian organizations have been involved in discussions with the Taliban since their rise to power last August. Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis leaves 24.4 million people – or more than half the population – in dire need of aid and protection.

Both sides have been expected to negotiate the involvement of humanitarian organizations and donors in their capacity to provide the necessary services and protections.

The Taliban have expressed their readiness to comply with international organizations in their bid for formal legitimacy. But they have also asserted their code for governance, which they claim would be according to Islamic law and Afghan culture, something humanitarian organizations with education programs are working to adapt. This same reasoning that senior members of the Taliban have used to justify the ban on secondary education for girls. Where was this concern for a standardized curriculum aligning with Islamic law and Afghan culture when boys returned to secondary school in September?

The right to education has been an oft-discussed, critical human rights issue for Afghanistan, especially when it comes to how, or even if, this right is extended to girls. This concern had already been compounded by the forced closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted all school-going children and adolescents. While alternative learning pathways, including Community-Based Education centers based in rural and remote provinces for children to attend, have been available, girls’ education in government schools remained a lingering question.

The Taliban’s rise to power raised the fear that the right to education would be denied to girls indefinitely, if not permanently. It would only signal increasing measures to control women’s rights and mobility beyond the domestic sphere.

The last-minute decision may likely indicate infighting between factions that are divided on the issue of girls’ education.

As Heather Barr, Associate Director of the Women’s Rights Division in Human Rights Watch, notes, there are factions that recognize the steps the Taliban must take to receive the funding and legitimacy they want from the international community, and there are hardliner members who believe that girls beyond puberty should not be allowed out for their studies. Given their handling of the issue, it is only indicative of how unprepared the Taliban are to govern and provide the necessary services to a population where over half the population relies on international humanitarian aid.

Barr also notes that their decision speaks to the ingrained beliefs that view women through a misogynistic and reductive lens. She expresses concern that the Taliban’s decision does not bode well for the state of human rights in the country and may “herald a further crackdown, of girls and women, and human rights generally”. The decision to revoke girls’ access to secondary school education is only among several examples of the recent actions taken by the Taliban to police women’s movements across the country, with stricter, more frequent enforcements occurring in provinces outside the capital.

“We’ve been seeing more and more different restrictions put in place, including new rules on women’s freedom of movement and them being blocked from traveling without a mahram overseas, being blocked from traveling… over certain distances,” says Barr. “Taxi drivers being told that women need to wear a hijab before they are allowed to drive them.”

When it comes to girls’ education, if the ban on girls’ secondary education continues, this could escalate to the restriction of access to tertiary education for girls and women in the country.

What is harrowing is that even as public pressure and condemnation come from both sides, the Taliban continues to act upon the principles which even they cannot agree on. International leaders and experts have reiterated that education for all can only guarantee that developing or impoverished countries can walk down a path of peace and prosperity. For the girls and women of Afghanistan, they may not get to walk down that path without a chaperone.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, is welcomed by teachers and students at a girls’ primary school in Kabul, Afghanistan. Sherif led the first all-women UN mission to Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover to meet with the new de facto education authorities in October 2021. She has called on the de facto authorities to resume adolescent girls’ access to secondary education. Credit: Omid Fazel/ECW

By Alison Kentish
New York, Nov 5 2021 (IPS)

After leading a landmark, first-ever all-women mission to Afghanistan last week, Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, says that schools must reopen for all children and that girls, in particular, must be able to return to secondary school classrooms.

Sherif visited a girls’ school in Kabul and spoke to students, female teachers, and administrators as part of her Afghan mission. She also met with the de facto education authorities at the Ministry of Education to advocate the right of all children to quality education. The ECW mission comes less than a month after ECW launched a US$4 million First Emergency Response grant to provide ‘quality, flexible learning and psychosocial support for children and adolescents caught in the escalating crisis.

“We need to act fast. When you are in the midst of a humanitarian emergency like Afghanistan, where there is no money in circulation, starvation is a very real fact and poverty is extreme,” Sherif told IPS. “Schools need to continue to reopen and education must be sustained. Not only at primary school levels but through secondary schools – and girls have to go back to secondary schools.”

Sherif, a human rights lawyer, worked in Afghanistan in the early 1990s. She was part of a mission to the country after the first Taliban takeover in 1999 and has visited the country periodically over the last 20 years. She spoke to IPS about her observations from this ground-breaking mission to Kabul a few days ago – the first of its kind since the Taliban take-over in August.

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, meets with de facto education authorities in Afghanistan.
Credit: Omid Fazel/ECW

“There are more women on the streets of Kabul today. I even saw women demonstrating for health care. I visited a girls’ primary school whose teachers and administration were all women,” Sherif said.

“The school’s headmaster is a woman, the school’s doctor is a woman, administrators and teachers are women. There are educated, strong women who are working, but they do not get salaries, because there are no salaries for basic services as a result of the funding freeze to Afghanistan.”

The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Union are just a few of the international bodies that have cut off Afghanistan’s access to financing. According to the World Bank, the country relies on grant funding for more than 75 percent of public spending, with expenditure of US$411 billion and government revenue of US$2.5 billion.

With that grant funding frozen, the country is on the brink of economic collapse.

Sherif is appealing for direct funding through UN agencies like ECW and UNICEF, which has the proven mechanisms in place to ensure that funds are used to support teachers and students.

“Teachers are not being paid. UNICEF has a very strong process on the ground. If money were to be given today or tomorrow to pay all teacher salaries, UNICEF has capacities in place to deliver on that funding, even if this would typically have been done through the World Bank or other development actors, but now we are in humanitarian crisis so you cannot use regular development aid approaches,” Sherif told IPS.

“The same goes for all UN agencies like the World Food Programme and UNHCR, the UN Refugees agency. Funding can be channeled through them directly to implement aid programmes. Nothing needs to, nor will go through, the de facto authorities.”

The ECW Director is cautiously optimistic following her meeting with the de facto education authorities, to whom she appealed for a return to secondary school for girls.

UNICEF Deputy Representative Alice Akunha and Chief of Education Jeannette Vogelaar greet the Education Cannot Wait all-women delegation to Afghanistan, led by Director Yasmine Sherif and her colleagues, Michelle May and Anouk Desgroseilliers.
Credit: Omid Fazel/ECW

“Primary schools have opened for girls’ education and for girls’ secondary education, the de facto authorities told us that they are developing a plan. I stressed that the girls have no time to lose and that the benefits of educating girls are crucial to the future of the country,” she said.

The ECW Director has commended international and national civil society organizations that now work with religious scholars as they negotiate the resumption of secondary school education at the grassroots level. “By bringing an Islamic scholar with them, these NGOs have actually managed to build trust. So secondary schools have opened in some provinces, a few in the north and a few in the south. It is important to stand firm on human rights and girls’ rights, but you must also have the ability to build trust as well,” she said.

ECW is already prepared to swiftly scale up its support and adapt its programming in Afghanistan. New challenges and more children in need of help demand pivoting and quick response. Sherif says ECW was created for crises like these.

“As the UN’s global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, we are agile, quick, and flexible. We use decades of lessons learned across the UN system to respond to crises. Traditional development aid modalities that are not crisis-sensitive are not going to work; not in this situation,” she said.

Sherif says that an estimated $1 billion is urgently required for United Nations agencies and international and local NGOs to meet the pressing education needs across the country.

“It’s about how can we save the Afghan population from a humanitarian catastrophe. How can we ensure that every Afghan girl and boy in the country can go to primary and secondary school? It’s about how we can ensure that teachers receive their salaries, so they are able to continue to teach. It is about providing teaching and learning materials and safe learning environments. It is about ensuring that the rights of adolescent girls to access education are fulfilled. That is why it was important for us to do an all-women mission to Afghanistan and to make clear where we stand on girls’ education.”

Sherif is hoping that the visit can give the world an open window view into life in Afghanistan and provide concrete recommendations for international aid to be immediately scaled up and invested to support quality education for both girls and boys.

“Afghanistan cannot wait. The girls of Afghanistan cannot wait. Education cannot wait.”

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

South Asian countries are grappling with the erosion of democratic norms, growing authoritarianism, the crackdown on freedom of press, speech and dissent, a report by Human Rights Watch says. Credit: 2017 Paula Bronstein for Human Rights Watch

By Heather Barr
LONDON, Oct 29 2021 (IPS)

Secondary schools have reopened for boys but remain closed to the vast majority of girls. Women are banned from most employment; the Taliban government added insult to injury by saying women in their employ could keep their jobs only if they were in a role a man cannot fill—such as being an attendant in a women’s toilet. Women are mostly out of university, and due to new restrictions it is unclear when and how they can return. Many female teachers have been dismissed.

The policy of requiring a mahram, a male family member as chaperone, to accompany any woman leaving her home, is not in place according to a Kabul official but Taliban members on the street are still sometimes enforcing it, as well as harassing women about their clothing. The Taliban have systematically closed down shelters for women and girls fleeing domestic violence. Women’s sports have been banned.

The Taliban have appointed an all-male cabinet. They abolished the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, and handed over the women’s ministry building to the reinstated Ministry of Vice and Virtue, which was responsible for some of the worst abuses against women during the Taliban’s previous period in power from 1996 to 2001.

This was the situation two months after the Taliban had regained control of the Afghan capital, Kabul, as the US and its allies departed, wrapping up their 20-year engagement in Afghanistan’s 40-year war.

Afghan women are fighting for their rights. They tried to negotiate with the Taliban, and when that failed, they protested. The Taliban broke up their protests, beating protesters and the journalists covering the protests, and then banned unauthorized protest.

The US and the whole international community seem a bit stunned and unsure of what to do. It forms a sadly perfect bookend to the days after the 9/11 attacks, when the US and its allies grieved and raged and then emphasized Taliban abuses of women and girls to help them build support for their invasion of Afghanistan.

The US has long had an uneven—and self-serving—track record on defending women’s rights abroad. But the US is not alone being unsure of what to do to protect the rights of women and girls under Taliban rule.

Even governments priding themselves on their commitment to women’s rights have struggled to find solutions. They have also struggled to make the rights of Afghan women and girls a top priority at a moment when troop-contributing nations are licking their wounds, and concerns about Afghanistan again becoming a host to international terrorist operations could overshadow concerns about human rights.

Humanitarian crisis

Taliban attacks on rights are not the only problem women and girls are facing. Afghanistan’s economy is in free fall, set off by widespread lost income, cash shortages, rising food costs, being severed from global financial systems, and an abrupt halt to the development assistance that made up 75 percent of the previous government’s budget.

This crisis, like most humanitarian crises, will cause the most harm to women and girls. Officials with the UN and several foreign governments are warning of economic collapse and risks of worsening acute malnutrition and outright famine. Surveys by the World Food Program (WFP) reveal that over nine in ten Afghan families have insufficient food for daily consumption, with half saying that they ran out of food at least once in the previous two weeks. One in three Afghans is already acutely hungry.

In December 2020, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, had already warned that an estimated 3.1 million children—half of Afghanistan’s children —were acutely malnourished. Other United Nations reports warn that over 1 million more children could face acute malnutrition in the coming year. By mid-2022, 97 percent of Afghans may be below the poverty line.

Healthcare workers and teachers, many of them women, have not been paid for months, and the healthcare system is collapsing. Where schools for girls are open, few students attend, out of fear that they cannot move to and from school safely, along with financial problems, and a sense of despair about their future. And unpaid teachers may or may not teach.

Weak international response

Even as it became increasingly clear over the course of years that cheerful US and NATO statements about their progress in defeating the Taliban were papering over huge and growing cracks, few could imagine a Taliban return as abrupt as the one that took place in August 2021. Few would have predicted this level of humanitarian crisis and collapse of essential services within weeks of the end of a 20-year military, political, and development engagement by at least 42 countries costing an estimated $2.3 trillion.

The early weeks of resumed Taliban rule seemed marked by indecision and slow response by the international community, in spite of a G7 pledge on August 24, following an emergency meeting, that “We will work together, and with our allies and regional countries, through the UN, G20 and more widely, to bring the international community together to address the critical questions facing Afghanistan.”

A special session of the UN Human Rights Council on August 24 produced no meaningful progress. The UN Security Council in September renewed the mandate of the UN mission in Afghanistan but did not take specific steps to strengthen the mission’s human rights work, which faced staffing gaps and problems after some staff left their posts or were evacuated.

A subsequent meeting of the Human Rights Council produced agreement to appoint a special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, with a mandate including monitoring and advocating for the rights of women and girls. This is a less powerful mechanism than the fact-finding mission a broad coalition of human rights organizations had called for.

The resolution creating the role of special rapporteur provided the person with greater staffing resources than most special rapporteurs but did not accelerate the on-boarding process. Under the standard timeline, the rapporteur and their team won’t be in place until mid-2022.

An announcement by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor called into question the role that body will play in protecting human rights in Afghanistan. The court’s Office of the Prosecutor had been considering action in Afghanistan since 2007 and opened an investigation in 2020.

Alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity within the court’s jurisdiction in Afghanistan include: attacks against civil servants including female officials; attacks on schools particularly girls’ schools; and rape and other sexual violence against women and girls. The investigation was suspended nearly as soon as it was opened, however, while the Office of the Prosecutor considered a request from the former Afghan government to defer to national proceedings.

The prosecutor on September 27, 2021, announced that he would seek authorization from the court to resume investigations in the absence of any prospect of genuine national proceedings, but would focus on crimes committed by the Taliban and Islamic State and “deprioritize” other aspects of the investigation.

This approach sends a message that some victims in Afghanistan are more entitled to justice than others, and risks undermining the legitimacy of the court’s investigation.

There is significant variety in the views of key countries about engaging with the new Taliban authorities in Afghanistan. Regional politics are fraught and complex. China and Russia may see themselves as benefitting from a shift in global power dynamics due to the US defeat in Afghanistan, and they and others including Pakistan and Qatar seem more ready than countries that contributed troops to engage with the Taliban. China, Russia and Pakistan were among only five countries that voted against the Human Rights Council resolution to establish a special rapporteur.

“Feminist foreign policy” and the Taliban

Women’s rights activists have made important progress around the world in the 20 years since the Taliban were previously in power, from 1996 to 2001. These advances make the Taliban’s violations of the rights of women and girls even more cruel and intolerable than they were in 2001 and should help spur action by countries that have made progress to right these wrongs.

In recent years, several countries—including Sweden, Canada, Mexico, and France—proclaimed that they have a “feminist foreign policy.” According to the Swedish government, a feminist foreign policy “means applying a systematic gender equality perspective throughout the whole foreign policy agenda.”

Feminist foreign policy is also a recognition that you cannot have human security when half the population is oppressed and living in fear. As Germany’s foreign minister wrote in 2020, “Numerous studies demonstrate that societies in which women and men are on equal footing are more secure, stable, peaceful, and prosperous.”

What Concerned Governments Should Do

How should a world increasingly embracing “feminist foreign policy” respond to Taliban violations of the rights of women and girls in 2021?

The first step is to muster political will. Lack of political may be a particular challenge in the wake of the withdrawal of foreign troops, but it is not a new problem. During the decades of international presence, troop-contributing nations paid lip service and contributed funding toward women’s rights, but rarely political capital, and over time the lip service and cash dwindled too.

In 2011, the Washington Post reported that efforts to support women’s rights were being stripped out of US programs, quoting an official who said, “All those pet rocks in our rucksack were taking us down.” In a disturbing indication of lack of focus on women’s rights, many government and aid organizations have in recent weeks sent all-male delegations to meet with the Taliban, undermining any efforts they are making to press for greater respect for women’s rights.

Then there is a need for the international community to reach as much consensus as possible about what the problems are and what should be done. There are signs that even countries that have been more open to engaging with the Taliban have been disappointed by their unwillingness to appoint an inclusive government and their violations of women’s and girls’ rights.

The Taliban government excludes not just women but also largely excludes religious minorities and most non-Pashtun ethnic groups. Even China, Russia, Pakistan and Iran have all called for the Taliban to form an “inclusive government.” Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that banning girls from education in Afghanistan would be “un-Islamic.” Qatar’s foreign minister called the Taliban’s ban on girls’ education “very disappointing.”

The Taliban’s unbending stance on the rights of women and girls is so extreme that this, and its opposition to an inclusive government, may drive broad concern about their actions and help the international community build consensus about how to engage. The US may not be the most able leader for this process and may prefer not to lead.

Other countries and institutions, including countries that have pledged to have a feminist foreign policy, majority Muslim countries, and organizations like the EU, should consider taking on greater leadership than they have so far, in response to a weak response from the US.

Next comes the need for a plan. Whatever the plan is, it should avoid any actions that would worsen Afghanistan’s deepening humanitarian crisis and disproportionately affect women and girls. There are signs of emerging agreement for humanitarian assistance and essential services, with the United Nations Development Program having made arrangements to pay salaries of healthcare workers on a temporary basis.

But major issues remain unresolved, suffering from a lack consensus by the international community, including how to respond to Taliban efforts to exclude women from working for aid agencies . Women workers are essential to ensure that aid reaches women and women-headed households. so permitting women humanitarian workers to do their jobs is not setting a condition on humanitarian assistance so much as an operational necessity to be able to deliver that assistance.

The international community has struggled to identify what leverage they have that can be used to influence the Taliban. The situation has been complicated by opaqueness on the Taliban side. Governments and donors need to figure out what the Taliban want from the international community, how much and where the Taliban are willing to compromise to get what they want. And they need to identify what other pressures—including the demands of their own members and the risk of Taliban fighters defecting to the Islamic State—constrain the Taliban from compromise.

Equipped with this knowledge, the international community should recognize that almost every country on the planet—except six, conspicuously including the US, plus Iran, Palau, Somalia, Sudan, and Tonga—has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Afghanistan ratified the convention in 2003. The convention requires countries to “pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating discrimination against women.”

This promise has not been fulfilled in any country; no country has achieved full gender equality and disparities in access to education and employment, wage gaps, and failure to adequately respond to gender-based violence are common around the world. But even in that context, Taliban violations of the rights of women and girls are uniquely extreme.

No other country openly bars girls from studying on the basis of gender. It is shocking to see a country intentionally destroy its system for responding to gender-based violence and dismantle institutions such as the Ministry of Women’s Affairs that were designed to strengthen compliance with CEDAW.

The leverage the international community has to influence the Taliban needs to be deployed in defense of the rights of women and girls. Doing this will be a complex, difficult, and long-term task. But as

CEDAW members, and, in many cases, countries that used women’s rights to sell a war and spent 20 years promising eternal solidarity to Afghan women and girls, the international community owes them this effort.

Excerpt:

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, is welcomed by a student at a girls’ primary school in Kabul, Afghanistan. Credit: Omid Fazel/ECW

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 27 2021 (IPS)

Education Cannot Wait Director Yasmine Sherif urged the world to support their efforts to provide education to children living in Afghanistan – in what she called the “biggest humanitarian crisis” on earth.

“Their education cannot wait. Action cannot wait across all sectors. Financing and funding cannot wait. And our own humanity cannot wait,” Sherif said at a press briefing from Islamabad Airport at the conclusion of an all-women UN delegation to Afghanistan to assess the educational needs in the country.

The ECW mission was a joint effort with UNICEF Afghanistan to assess the situation and the capacity for UN agencies and their partners based in the country to respond to issues.

Sherif stated that to support education efforts in Afghanistan, attention must also be given to the other crises within the country. Afghanistan was at risk of an “economic meltdown” and on the “brink of collapse” that would disproportionately impact its citizens. To add to their woes, they were about to go into a devastating winter, and so dire was the situation that teachers had not been paid.

“About 20 years of development and the gains we have made are about to be lost if we don’t take immediate action,” Sherif said. There is an urgency to provide aid and continue running the programmes that work directly with the affected populations, including communities in the hardest-to-reach regions.

She emphasized the need to increase funding for UN agencies, NGOs and regional partners to carry out their work. UN agencies such as UNICEF, UNHCR, and UNWOMEN can negotiate access for children, especially girls, to attend school across all education levels and even pay for teachers’ salaries. UN field agents based in Afghanistan already have the experience and awareness to navigate the systems that would allow them to negotiate access.

Yasmine Sherif is welcomed by teachers and students at a girls’ primary school in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Credit: Omid Fazel/ECW

The ECW has previously provided US$45 million to support education for boys and girls, including a first response emergency grant of US$4 million in the wake of changes in ruling authorities. Sherif stated that an estimated US$1 billion would be needed to cover the cost to run programmes by the UN agencies, including ECW. In addition to education, this would also be distributed to programmes targeting other areas, including but not limited to food security and water sanitation. In this regard, she stated that food insecurity and access to hygiene would influence citizens and impact their quality of life. It would also affect women and children and their access to specialized health.

Sherif urged that it was more important than ever to continue implementing the SDGs in the middle of the current humanitarian crisis. “Education sits at the heart of all the SDGs,” she said.

She advised that a “direct execution modality” approach that would send funds directly to the UN agencies and partners would be critical as it would ensure funding went directly to the agencies that worked with affected communities. Sherif said it was important to maintain an “apolitical approach” to reach the people affected by humanitarian crises.

Access to education in Afghanistan has been challenged due to pre-existing factors such as accessibility to schools, lack of infrastructure and particularly challenging topography, which mean that many live in hard to access rural areas. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic also posed an issue for schools and communities, forcing schools to close in 2020.

A study from UNICEF found that 3.7 million children in Afghanistan are out of school, 60% of which are girls. Sherif stated that shrinking this significant gap would require a collective effort from UN agencies on the field with civil society organizations, non-government organizations, the private sector, and local, regional, and national authorities.

Sherif revealed at the press briefing that some primary schools in Kabul and the northern and southern regions of Afghanistan had reopened to both boys and girls. Some high schools have also had mixed classes with both boys and girls. In rural areas, partner agencies such as UNICEF will continue to support the Community-Based Education (CBE) programmes, which help establish Community-Based Schools and other alternative pathways to learning for children and adolescents based in hard-to-reach regions.

Concerns over girls’ access to education were raised when the Taliban assumed power on August 15, 2021. While they established a channel for communication with foreign groups, they have sent conflicting messages regarding education. They declared that high schools would reopen for their male students but did not mention when girls would return. This was interpreted as an effective ban on girls’ right to school.

The ECW-UNICEF team met with the authorities to determine the steps needed to promote access to education for girls. The authorities have allegedly expressed an interest in preserving women’s rights and access to education. They have stated that they are formulating plans but would need time. Sherif expressed that she was “cautiously optimistic” about the Taliban’s openness to negotiation.

The extent of the reforms and actions needed to improve access to education will remain to be seen. What is more urgent at this stage, Sherif reiterated, is immediate action and funding to agencies and partners to address different issues before it is too late.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Flashback: Women journalists in Kabul June 2019. Now they are calling for assistance after the Taliban takeover. Credit: UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)/Fardin Waezi

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan, Sep 3 2021 (IPS)

“If I fall into the hands of the Taliban, not only me but my family will be killed,” said AB, 23*, who worked as a broadcast journalist for the past seven years and is a well-known face on the television screen.

Speaking on WhatsApp from her hideout in a city close to the capital Kabul, she said the Taliban came looking for her and were asking about her whereabouts from her neighbours, who, in turn, warned her family.

“The Taliban have started house-to-house search and when they could not find me, left a warning with our neighbours to inform us that they will find me and deal with me accordingly,” said AB. Her life is in double jeopardy – firstly, being a woman writing against the Taliban. Secondly, she belongs to the ethnic Hazara community, whom the new rulers believe are infidels and need to be persecuted.

Her circumstances were confirmed by Kiran Nazish, founder and director of the New York-based Coalition for Women In Journalism (CFWIJ), a worldwide support organisation for female journalists.

“Our sources in Afghanistan have informed the Taliban are carrying out house-to-house searches for people on their hit list,” she said, adding: “Imagine the fear these women are living under in their own country.”

“The Taliban must cease searching the homes of journalists, commit to ending the use of violence against them, and allow them to operate freely and without interference,” said Steven Butler, Asia programme coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Because of the grave danger, AB and her family have been in hiding now for the last several weeks.

Like AB, CD*, 26, editor of a weekly publication and a journalist working for a news agency for the past four years, is hiding with her family after her office was ransacked by the Taliban three weeks ago.
If found, she is sure she “will be stoned to death”.

“The world must help me,” she pleaded. “Please email one of the embassies, such as Canada or the United States, and tell them to get me out.”

Her fear of the Taliban was palpable, and she said she could not talk over the phone as they were monitoring the “telecommunications networks”.

Headlines tell of the targeting of women journalists in Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover.

If this continues and they cannot leave their hideouts soon, CD said they might die of “poverty and hunger” even before the Taliban locate them.

“We have no bread to eat at all, and we cannot go out to earn for fear of being discovered,” she said.
The Taliban leadership have said women will have the right to work, seek education and be mobile, but on the condition that it will have to be under Sharia [Islamic law] but have not elaborated what this would entail.

However, they have requested women to stay home as some from the Taliban have not been trained on how to behave with women.

“It’s a very temporary procedure,” defended the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

Their proclamation of going soft on women has been met with scepticism by many Afghan women.

“I do not believe them, nor do I trust the Taliban, because they have a bad past,” said CD, adding: “They do not keep their word; women are not safe, and if they go outside, they will be flogged.”

She said she had heard reports of violence on women in other provinces.

“No Afghan woman believes their living condition will be good under the Taliban rule,” CD said. “By silencing the female journalists, the Taliban want to silence the voice of Afghan women.”

She said the Taliban had continued targeting and killing journalists and human rights activists for the last 20 years, even during Ashraf Ghani’s regime. “That is why we are afraid and feel so unsafe,” she emphasised.

“Their [Taliban] interviews are in complete contrast with what they are doing on the ground,” said Kiran.

“Shocking to see the huge effort being put into tracking down people when they [Taliban] should be spending the same in rebuilding the country, putting a government together and finding ways to reassure people that they are safe, especially the Afghan women,” she said in a WhatsApp interview from Vancouver, Canada, where she is currently based. She is working non-stop to help the women journalists find safety.

As soon as Kabul fell into the hands of the Taliban, the media outlets had asked all their women employees to stay home and not report for work. “I was told to stay home till further notice,” said AB.

CD said she could not work as her equipment had been looted when her office was ransacked.

According to a 2020 survey by the Centre for the Protection of Afghan Women Journalists (CPAWJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF), more than 1 700 women were working for media outlets in the three provinces of Kabul, Herat, and Balkh.

Kabul had 108 media outlets with a total of 4 940 employees in 2020. They included 1 080 female employees, of whom 700 were journalists. Of these 700 females, only 100 continue work and just a handful work from home in the other two provinces. Of the 510 women who worked for eight of the biggest media outlets and press groups, only 76 (including 39 journalists) are still working.

“…women journalists are in the process of disappearing from the capital,” states the RSF website.

AB said most of the journalists who are still working belong to the international media and are supported by their organisations.

“Local journalists are denied these privileges,” she pointed out. “As a journalist, I cannot continue to report if there are restrictions placed on me.”

“My dreams and aspirations and wishes have been destroyed. The Taliban not only took my city, but they also took my life too.”

Until recently, the young journalist did not have to cover her head at the office, “loved wearing fashionable clothes and wore make-up,” being born and educated in the “era of democracy”.

Today, she feared she might be resigned to shroud herself in the chadri [blue burqa] when venturing out of her home under the new Taliban regime.

“Stripping public media of prominent women news presenters is an ominous sign that Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have no intention of living up their promise of respecting women’s rights, in the media or elsewhere,” The Guardian quoted CPJ’s Butler. “The Taliban should let women news anchors return to work and allow all journalists to work safely and without interference.”

But even before Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, it was not easy being a female journalist there, said Kiran.

The CFWIJ has been researching 92-countries documenting the threats women journalists face.
“Of the 92 countries we are documenting, Afghanistan has been among the top three where women journalists (among other vulnerable groups) have continued to face serious attacks and harassment from non-state actors, including the Taliban,” said Kiran talking about the findings of the past three years.

Over the last year and a half, the coalition has relocated many female journalists from different parts of Afghanistan and even out of Afghanistan.

It has doubled its efforts in drumming up support to get several hundred women evacuated out of Afghanistan.

“We have evacuated 90 for now from the several hundred women [including journalists, sportswomen, activists and academics] who requested our support. Still, there are 100 super-urgent ones who we fear are on Taliban’s hit lists and are being hunted.”

*Names withheld for their protection.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau