Taliban just wished Afghan women a happy Women's Day. This is not satire.
Google has come up with a doodle for International Women’s Day. Women all over the world are getting women’s day wishes and greetings, perhaps from that annoying sexist jerk as well. The day is as normal as it can get in the Internet age. But then comes the surreal bomb - a women’s day message from the Taliban!
Women and Taliban in the same sentence often mean being stoned to death or public flogging (the women, not the Taliban). But this time around, the Taliban is telling Afghan women, “May the International Women’s Day be auspicious.” What does the message hint at? Is the Taliban finally going to accept women as humans?
Take a look at the message yourself:
The Taliban in their message said that they are committed to addressing the plight of Afghan women affected by the years and years of war. Before the world gets too excited about Afghanistan becoming the next west-eastern Sweden for women, take a look at the terms and conditions.
“…in light of the noble religion of Islam and our accepted traditions,” Taliban said.
Bodies covered in head-to-toe sky-blue burqa, this is the picture that paints itself when Afghan women are mentioned in any context post August 2021. These bodies with no faces struggled through nearly 40 years of war. Under the Taliban 1.0, they became almost non-existent, then there was hope and then the hope died. Now, with the Taliban 2.0, women of Afghanistan have once again become an invisible entity, with barely a squeak in public, except perhaps for the women’s day message from their oppressors.
But what do the women of Afghanistan really want? Maybe the Taliban should start their women's day greeting by listening to women!
1. EDUCATION: Taliban 2.0 said that they will allow girls to return to higher secondary schools and universities. In some instances, this has been true, but they have been rare – just a handful. In major parts of Afghanistan, women and girls are still barred from accessing education. During the US troop pullout, they said it was due to the security situation, then, they again said it was due to the security situation, and today too, the excuse remains the same.
Even if some are able to access education, it is limited to religious studies.
2. WORK: A lot of Afghan women working in various fields became jobless or fled the country as the Taliban took over last year. Some reports say were the sole breadwinners for their families, but have lost their jobs now. Taliban 2.0 dictates that women can only work in the healthcare or education sector and nowhere else. Activists are hunted down, and women journalists have been largely taken off the air.
During the American withdrawal, an interview of a Taliban leader by a woman journalist went viral. But soon enough, the journalist fled Afghanistan fearing for her life.
But even for those who are working, a regular income is a far cry. Some nurses and teachers have not been paid for months.
3. PUBLIC LIFE: Women in Afghanistan are not allowed to step out of their homes without a male chaperone from their family. Under these conditions, a woman with a presence in the public sphere is a gone dream.
The Taliban dictates what to wear, how to travel, workplace gender segregation, how to communicate, what kind of phones to own (if at all) and more to women. They definitely don’t have a place in the political and social atmosphere of Afghanistan. And even if some women social activists and volunteers do stick out, they become targets for the religious outfit. And if those rules are defied, even in cases of life and death situations or whatever emergency, women are subjected to public flogging till they can't pick themselves up and walk.
Currently, most Afghans are selling their organs just to put food on the table. Women under the myriad of restrictions are somehow trying to ensure they themselves, their children, and family members are able to eat at least one meal a day.
Having likely lost their fathers, brothers and husbands, some women have been left on their own under the Taliban’s impossible restrictions to function alone. Girl child marriages, likely to much older men, were and are still a common sight in Afghanistan, just for the sake of being able to ‘live’ under the terms and conditions. It doesn't matter if the woman is beaten up black and blue by the husband.
The defaced pictures of women on store signs and walls and the beheaded female form of mannequins are a literal description of the state of human women in Afghanistan. Other basic rights like medical access, the right to vote and more are still an unknown dream for Afghan women who are yet to get the right to just live.
Looking into Afghanistan's history, one would perhaps be surprised to find that the conditions for women and the overall atmosphere weren't always so desperate. Before the Soviet invasion, women in Afghanistan wore what they wanted, went where they wanted, studied what they wanted, had ambitions and passion, and worked where they wanted. Now, that history seems like a wholly different world.