For decades the Taliban has taken the rights of Afghan women, treating them as mere objects rather than human beings. Afghan women have been banned from having an education, working in government offices, and even forced to be silent in public and can’t look men in the eye.
Over 3 years ago on August 15th, 2021, the Taliban marched back into Afghanistan after almost a 20-year hiatus since the terrorist group fled in October of 2001. The organization quickly took power after the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) withdrew soldiers from bases all across the country as well as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fleeing the country and seeking refuge in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Months later on the first day of Afghan high school, Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada reversed the promise of allowing teenage girls to go to school past the 6th grade, sending all girls that showed up that day back home to help with the housework. Only two months later, The Taliban Virtue and Vice Ministry ordered all women to wear “all-encompassing loose clothing” covering the whole body except for their eyes. The announcement shocked the world creating fear in Afghan women across the country.
According to NPR, the head of a prominent Afghan human rights group Shahazard Akbar tweeted “So much pain & grief for the women of my country, my heart is exploding.” A few weeks later the Taliban banned women from universities, further taking away Afghan women’s rights and breaking their promise to “ honor women’s rights under Islamic law”(CNN). Then only 3 days later on December 24, 2021, the Taliban government on Saturday ordered foreign and domestic non-governmental groups in Afghanistan to suspend employing women (AP News).
For two years, the Taliban continued to take away or ban women’s rights in all different kinds of things from beauty salons or only being allowed to show their eyes, to wearing niqabs and hijabs as head coverings. According to The Guardian, on August 22, 2024, the Taliban announced new vice and virtue laws in which “women must completely veil their bodies – including their faces – in thick clothing at all times in public to avoid leading men into temptation and vice.” Further, the Taliban also announced that “Women’s voices were also deemed as instrument for temptation, preventing them from speaking, singing or reading in public.
In the same announcement, the Taliban prevented women from looking men in the eyes unless they were married or related by blood, leaving the house without a male escort, and many more. This outraged the world, causing thousands of people to protest the Taliban’s new laws and show support for Afghan women. People all over the world were posting videos of them online singing a multitude of different songs and speaking up for the millions of Afghan women who can’t.
