It’s only been a week now since the Taliban took over Afghanistan and the Jihadist organisation, known for its misogyny and violence against women are back to unleashing atrocities and imposing restrictions on the helpless women of the war-torn nation. The fundamentalists, who had assured the international community that there will be no discrimination against the Afghan women under their rule, have already started backtracking on their commitments.
Co-education banned in Afghanistan
The Islamic fundamentals have, according to reports, already banned co-education in Herat, the third-largest city of Afghanistan now under Taliban rule. They have reportedly described co-education as the ‘root of all evils in society’. This is, in fact, the first ‘fatwa’ issued by the Taliban after its takeover.
Further, it has been decided that women lecturers would be allowed to teach only female students and not male students.
It is being said that the decision was taken after a meeting was held between professors, owners of private institutions and Taliban leaders.
Music banned, female employees not allowed in the local radio stations in Afghanistan
The Taliban, which has their own interpretation of Sharia law, have also banned music and the employment of female employees in the local radio stations in Ghazni, the Afghan media reported. The diktat was passed by the Taliban’s information affairs in charge of the central Ghazni district.
It is pertinent to note here that music is ‘haram’ under Sharia law. During its previous rule, the Taliban use to punish those who played music or danced on songs at parties.
‘Unconducive security situation for women’, Afghan female civil servants sent back home by Taliban
Moreover, the Taliban asked civil servants in Kabul to get back to their offices, but when everyone showed up, they dismissed female workers- justifying it as an unconducive security situation for women.
It was reported how the Taliban, after gaining a quick takeover on Afghanistan, began going door to door, searching for absentee city workers. Hundreds of armed men set up checkpoints across the city. At the entrance to the regional hospital, a new notice appeared on the wall which read: “Employees must return to work or face punishment from the Taliban.”
However, when the civil servants started getting back to work, the jihadists singled out the women employees and sent them back home.
While the Taliban stated that women can continue to attend school and universities and that they will not be compelled to wear a full burqa adding that hijabs, however, will remain mandatory, the jihadist organisation’s public pronouncements are contradicted by reports of the rising burqa sales and prices in Afghanistan after its takeover, women being killed for not wearing burqas or being set on fire for ‘bad cooking’.
Earlier, there were reports that the Taliban gangs are targeting children as young as 12 during their hunt for sex slaves since they took over Afghanistan. Women and girls are among the most at-risk Afghanis under the new Islamist regime after the Jihadist organisation launched a door-to-door search for sex slaves.
From demanding lists of women and girls in different regions to forcing marriages on young girls, reports of the Taliban’s atrocities are making headlines. The unmarried and widowed women and girls between the ages of 12 to 45 are termed as “qhanimat” or spoils of the war by the Taliban. They are reportedly being divided among the members of the group.
According to Shukria Barakzai, Afghan politician and journalist, the stories of the Taliban’s atrocities against women and girls are horrifying. She wrote in The Daily Mail, “The gouging of a woman’s eyes in front of her terrified family; girls as young as 12 wrenched from the arms of their weeping mothers to become sex slaves for Taliban ‘warriors’; men punished or even killed for ‘offences’ as simple as listening to the ‘wrong’ music, or for daring to be ‘educated’.”
