The first time I actively remember hearing about the Taliban and their hate for women happened when I was in secondary school.
Malala Yousafzai, a young Pakistani woman, had been shot by men believed to be men representing the Taliban. Her crime? Wanting an education for herself as a girl.
Words cannot even begin to explain how Malala’s story shook me and lit a feminist rage in me as a teenager. Malala Yousafzai survived thankfully, but the impact her assault made on my mind has not been forgotten. It made me take my education more seriously and to never joke with what would guarantee me access to a life where I would not have to live at the financial mercy of men.
It is because of Malala’s life that I became a feminist who is very interested in advocating for the education of girls and issues of financial security and mentorship programs for women in my home country.
In 2021, I was reminded of Malala Yousafzai when news broke that the Taliban, an extremist Islamist group had regained control of Afghanistan.
With that news came multiple heart breaking stories impeding women’s rights in Afghanistan. Women have been banned from working, have been banned from schooling and have been forced to veil themselves amongst many other horrendous bans.
The most gut wrenching bans for me have been the ban on women talking to each other and women being banned from studying midwifery, while at the same time being disallowed from being treated by a male doctor.
In all this, I am not seeing the necessary outrage and actions that should come from those of us watching. It is almost as if women’s suffering is seen as the norm worldwide such that women facing what can best be described as a gender apartheid is business as usual.
Therein is where the danger lies for women. The honest truth is that just as women bond and share solidarity over issues of sexism, men who are watching the way Afghan women are treated, are also becoming bold in how they treat women as chattel.
It is not far fetched to say that the decline in women’s rights can be linked to the manner in which men copy other men.
The move to repeal the VAPP act in Nigeria, the overturning of abortion rights in America and the move to legalise female genital mutilation in Gambia all spring from the same source. The source that says that women’s advancement in education, media and politics is a threat to traditional values and our ability to be good wives. The source that sees Afghan men insist that Afghan women cover their bodies and faces because to them the woman’s body is not just a sin, but a body whose face and identity should not even be known.
And why does any of this exist? Why are there hardly any international sanctions on Afghanistan? Where is the end to life as we know happens when men are the main victims of violence and brutality? Why is the world silent on gender apartheid happening in Afghanistan?
To better understand this topic, I asked a few women to share their thoughts on the gender apartheid and what it means for women’s rights globally.
Below are their responses.
Mimi
The current condition of Afghan women is saddening, my heart breaks every time I get to think about them. As a Muslim woman, I can feel their pain because what would I do if I was in their shoes? I guess nothing. There is no outrage about it because it’s women, Muslim Afghan women, women who are victims of being under evil men disguised as religious people. It’s only an evil man that will do that to women to prevent men from “temptation”. These women are given the responsibility for men’s sins.
Nobody wants trouble, or maybe people really don’t know what way to help. So everyone is almost quiet about the whole situation. If these women can be treated like this, I wonder if they will have the courage to ever fight back, maybe because of the fear of being killed. These actions were not taken in a day, these women have constantly faced oppression and it is only getting worse. These men have decided to focus on oppressing women because they have no regard for any woman and forget that they are humans. Men have always found different ways to oppress women in their own way. Afghan men have asked women not to speak, move freely, or receive medical attention. Nigerian men will blame rape victims for speaking up, and femicide victims for getting killed; women are oppressed everywhere and this situation of Afghan women will only fuel all forms of violence against women.
So we need to fight back against any slight oppression now more than ever. Afghan women have faced oppression since the Taliban people came to be, will we say that they can be free now? I don’t know, what I know is that women need to stand up for themselves; if we can’t save them, let’s save ourselves from any future oppression by fighting back together.
Margaret
What’s happening in Afghanistan is very very scary. It drove home to me that our liberation is still very far away. If basic human rights can be stripped from women progressively over the years without any outcry or protest from other Muslim countries and people, then we are building on very thin ice.
And it absolutely can and WILL embolden more Muslim countries and even beyond to strip away parts of our rights until they’re all gone, backed by religion.
I really don’t know how Afghan women can come back from this, being treated as subhuman by the so-called fathers and brothers that are supposed to fight for them.
Esohe
I think there’s less outrage because it’s only directly affecting women, not like the general society or international relations.
I think that what is happening in Afghanistan affects every other woman, especially those living in Islamic States because soon after these restrictions started, Iran doubled down on women too. If it endures, other places will be encouraged towards radicalism against women.
I’m not very knowledgeable about politics so these are very simplistic ideas; however, the only solution I see, unfortunately, will come with a lot of death. Afghan women and women groups from other countries have to pull together through activism against the Taliban and work to evacuate as many women as are willing to move from there. I don’t think Afghan men can be counted on to work towards freeing women except it is lumped with the general fall of the Taliban (for those who are interested), so activist groups may want to take the more indirect route, and push for the tear-down of the entire Taliban than just women’s rights.
It’s like with the VAPP Act, no one gave a hoot when it was the violence against women bill, but when it was pushed as an ‘everybody will be safer thing’, it took time but it got signed.
Mary
I think the situation in Afghan and the Taliban has been going on and off for so long that a lot of people have become slightly desensitized to the real consequences of it.
Also I honestly believe there’s a good number of men outside Afghan that agree to some extent with what’s going on there or can excuse it and will never see or understand why it’s so harmful.
As for solutions I honestly don’t see one outside extreme international pressure and (as much as I hate to give them that power) an internal push-back from Afghan men themselves, because obviously no one is listening to or care about women over there.
~
The African American poet and writer Audre Lorde once said: “I am not free while any woman is unfree”.
I would end by saying that so long as any woman is not free, whatever freedoms we have as women from other cultures stands the risk of being taken away.
It is therefore imperative that we build solidarity and work with ourselves as women to ensure that every woman is treated with dignity and has access to the full length of justice and humane care.
Angel Nduka-Nwosu is a writer, journalist and editor. She moonlights occasionally as a podcaster on As Angel Was Sayin’. Catch her on all socials @asangelwassayin.