IN AFGHANISTAN, rules imposed by the Taliban on women have grown ever stricter since they seized control of the country last August (News, 20 August 2021). “Afghan women are losing hope by the day,” one female aid worker, who cannot be named for her own safety, told the Church Times. “There is no space for women and girls to see a future for themselves.”
Last month, the Taliban banned women from travelling more than 48 miles without a mahram, a male guardian. In some areas, women report tighter restrictions, including the requirement to have a male relative accompany them to see a doctor or to take a taxi. One female doctor — women doctors and teachers are still allowed to work — reported a patient being beaten by police after arriving unaccompanied.
A promise to reopen schools for teenage girls was reneged on in March, just hours after girls had gone back to the classroom. Women and girls in Kabul are now not allowed to visit parks on the same day as men, and women may no longer fly alone.
After their return to power last year, the Taliban promised to respect women’s rights, but they have increasingly rolled back the freedoms experienced by women over the past two decades.
The aid worker is now restricted to working from home. She said that many girls were terrified. “There is no space for women and girls to see a future for themselves. People are trying to flee the country, especially those women who can afford to go. The number of early marriages is rising.
“The Taliban promised to protect women’s rights, and they are doing completely the opposite. They are breaking Islamic rules which say women and men are allowed to get a higher education. Some girls are terrified; women’s activists have been arrested by the Taliban.”
She urged the international community not to abandon Afghan women. “Ukraine has the world’s attention right now, but Afghanistan is not a scenario that should be forgotten. We are suffering, and the international community should act, for the love of their fellow human beings.
“We have no hope for the time being. Afghan women cannot do anything. We need the influence of the international community to talk to the Taliban about respect for women’s rights.
“Afghan women are hoping for a future for themselves, for their children and grandchildren. Our only hope is in the international community to influence the Taliban to leave some space for women.”
The country was in the grip of an acute food crisis, and life was “getting worse by the day”, she said. “People are selling their household items, lots of women or disabled or older people selling whatever they can in the market. People are even selling their clothes, even their intimate clothes, in the bazaar, despite the shame of it.”
Most people were dependent on aid for food, but even then, when it came to trying to get access to support, women were experiencing discrimination, she said.
“Humanitarian support is not enough; most of the focus of humanitarian assistance is on food and hygiene, but women are being prevented from accessing aid services. The pain and sorrow of Afghan women is enormous.”
A United Nations appeal for Afghanistan has fallen massively short, as countries pledged only $2.44 billion towards the $4.4-billion appeal. The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, had warned that Afghanistan was in a “death spiral”, and that 24.4 million people required humanitarian aid.
The donor conference was overshadowed by the Taliban’s decision to maintain the ban on education for older girls, setting back hopes that the international community might be on a path to giving diplomatic recognition to the Taliban. The World Bank has said that it will freeze projects worth £458 million in light of the ban.
Christian Aid is still working in Afghanistan through local partners, distributing food and emergency aid. It said that its staff had been shocked by the level of destitution now facing many Afghans. The charity described children begging on the street, and women selling clothes and furniture to afford blankets and food.
“We have seen hospitals struggling to keep malnourished and premature babies alive because of a lack of medicine,” a spokeswoman said. “We’ve even seen the media reports of desperate parents offering to sell infant daughters because they can’t afford food for the rest of their family.”
Find out more about Christian Aid’s Afghanistan crisis appeal here