Not only are the Taliban dictating the lives of women in Afghanistan, but they also want to curb the visibility of lifeless female mannequins from public view.
In one of the most tragic events, Afghan women saw two decades of progress disappear, as the Taliban asserted themselves in the political space of Afghanistan and took back power and control in August 2021. The Taliban are not only asserting themselves as a political force but stifling the very presence of half of Afghan life — its female population.
The degree of rage the Islamist militia has over the female gender and also its frustration is well explained by the bizarre incident of the beheading of female mannequins in the province of Herat in the early part of January this year. Not only are the Taliban dictating the lives of women in Afghanistan, but they also want to destroy the visibility of lifeless female figures from public view.
Such incidents are deeply disturbing, both psychologically and socially. Then obviously, such a heinous act was given Islamic sanctity, as the Taliban are saying that the use of “mannequins” is a breach of the Shariah law. Also, it was stated that first, the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice had ordered all the shops in Herat to get rid of the mannequins. Nonetheless, after shopkeepers complained of heavy losses due to the ruling in the already disturbed times for business, it altered its order and told to behead them instead.
It is vital to understand that the Taliban’s hardline Islamic system is entrenched in the 19th-century Deobandi movement of British colonial India, a prominent strain among Islamists in contemporary Pakistan and Afghanistan that is based on Hanafi Fiqh (jurisprudence) within the Sunni sect — the other three Fiqh are Maliki, Hanbali and Shafi’i. Also, there is a tribal root of the Taliban ‘law’: Pashtunwali, which controls and exemplifies the Pashtun and the Taliban way of life. The Taliban in order to maintain the socio-religious status quo rely very much on various tribal customs and practices. So, basically, the Taliban Code of Law is a dangerous concoction of Hanafi jurisprudence and tribal code of conduct. The Taliban’s enforcement of their criminal laws and their resolution of private disputes are a mixture of the Hanafi fiqh and also of tribal codes. Sadly, these customs and laws are extremely anti-women in nature.
One such recent and horrid incident elucidating the dangerous outcome of this particular ‘concoction’ is the gang rape and murder of eight Afghan women in January this year. In the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, the Taliban captured 40 people, and then ‘allegedly’ gang-raped eight of the women. The women who survived the gang rape were subsequently killed by their families. The fact that the women had been raped violated Pashtunwali, which prohibits women from engaging in sex outside of marriage. The tribal code is so complicated and anti-women that the distinction between zina or zina bil-raza (adultery) and zina-bil-jabr (rape), explained under the Hanafi Fiqh, is hardly taken into consideration, and women are brutally murdered, mostly by their own kith and kin.
As reported on 26 January 2022, the Afghan women are also vehemently protesting against a poster campaign launched by the Taliban, encouraging women to wear a burqa (meaning piece of clothing) or hijab (curtain), although the words used in the Holy Quran for covering of body and not face are: khimar and jilbab. The Afghan Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice plastered posters across Kabul’s cafes and shops to encourage the wearing of the burqa, which according to the Taliban’s interpretation is a full-body veil that also covers the face. In protest against these restrictions, some Afghan women gathered to demonstrate in front of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in January 2022.
In recent months, Afghan women activists are also facing the problem of arbitrary arrest, detention and also disappearance. As reported on 12 February 2022, the Taliban detained 29 women and their families in Kabul, according to a senior US diplomat.
A few such incidents of abduction and disappearances are: On 2 February 2022, Mursal Ayar was ‘arrested’ by the Taliban. Many activists are of the opinion that she was abducted. Around the same time, another female activist, Zahra Mohammadi, also went missing. In the early evening of 19 January 2022, Parwana Ibrahimkhel and her brother-in-law were abducted while travelling in Kabul. Later that same evening, Tamana Paryani and her three sisters were taken from a house in Kabul.
However, after a long period of uncertainty about their whereabouts and safety, these four ‘disappeared’ Afghan women activists, as well as their relatives who also went missing, were released by the de facto authorities, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said on Twitter on 13 February.
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Before the release of four activists and explaining the horrid state of affairs with respect to women’s rights in Afghanistan and the chain of unfortunate events, the US Special Envoy for Afghan women, Rina Amiri, on Twitter said, “These unjust detentions must stop. If the Taliban seek legitimacy from the Afghan people and the world they must respect Afghans’ human rights — especially for women — including the freedom of expression and immediately release these women, their relatives and other activists.”
Interestingly, UNAMA’s Afghanistan 2021 Midyear Update on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict noted that the reasons behind violence against women in Afghanistan included
professional affiliation (Afghan National Police officers, penitentiary staff, judges, media professionals)
accused of supporting the government or Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), spying for ANSF
accused by the Taliban of “immoral conduct”, adultery. Also, illiteracy and low levels of public awareness
outmoded patterns of marriage
corruption and abuse of state positions
women’s limited access to justice
the lack of security and perceptions that violence against women is ‘normal’ resulted in violence against women in Afghanistan
The rights of women in Afghanistan have been decimated since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021. The Taliban did ‘promise’ a softer version of the harsh rule that characterised their first stint in power from 1996 until 2001. But the new regime has been swift to bar women from most government jobs and close the majority of girls’ secondary schools.
Even women working in the private sector complain of being harassed going to and from their offices, while Taliban intelligence operatives regularly visit commercial enterprises to make sure stringent gender segregation is enforced. Thousands of Afghan women have been made jobless by the Taliban’s return, upending two decades of advancement in expanding all aspects of their employment, from the police to judiciary. The Taliban say all girls are entitled to an education, but in reality, the majority of secondary schools at least, for those aged from 13 to 18 have not reopened since August.
Moreover, Taliban forces have been mounting surveillance of women working in various fields and targeting them in various ways. As reported on 21 October 2021, Taliban officials recovered the personal information of more than 200 female judges, who still remain in Afghanistan, from court records. Susan Glazebrook, president of the judges’ association and a justice of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, thus stated: “The women judges of Afghanistan are under threat for applying the law… They are under threat because they have made rulings in favor of women according to the law in family violence, custody and divorce cases.”
The Taliban are also targeting female journalists, who are vehemently raising their voice against Taliban atrocities and misconduct. A survey conducted by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Afghan Independent Journalists Association (AIJA) stated, “A total of 231 media outlets have had to close and more than 6.400 journalists have lost their jobs since 15 August. Women journalists have been hit the hardest, with four out of five no longer working.”
No woman is safe in Afghanistan. Worse, under Taliban 2.0, even the female-like figurines are not safe.
The writer is Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi. Views expressed are personal.