Feminism: a made up word in Afghanistan

When talking of feminism in today’s society we seem to only fight for the rights of the western woman. Focusing on issues such as equal pay or male contraception, and as valuable as they are, they are incomparable to the attacks on women's rights in Afghanistan. 

Women in Afghanistan could only dream of a thing as equal pay in a world where they’re not even allowed to work. Since the Taliban took over in 2021, they made it their mission to deny women their basic human rights by imposing their own strict version of the Islamic Sharia law, under which women and girls are banned from:

• going to school, studying;

• working;

• leaving the house without a male chaperone;

• showing their skin in public;

• accessing healthcare delivered by men (with women forbidden from working, healthcare was virtually inaccessible);

• being involved in politics or speaking publicly.

The dehumanisation of women in Afghanistan doesn’t stop there. With a lack of rights comes a lack of protection, in this case primarily from sexual and domestic violence. Afghanistan has some of the highest rates of gender-based violence, with an astounding 92% of women justifying a husband beating his wife for any one of these reasons: going out without telling the husband, neglecting the children, arguing with the husband, refusing sex, and burning the food. 

Hundreds of cases of femicide have also been recorded since the start of the Taliban reign, accompanied by rising numbers of rape. The Taliban decimated the previously built nationwide network of support for women in Afghanistan, safe houses were shut down and The Ministry of Women’s Affairs was abolished.

If sexual violence wasn’t enough, girls comprised 88% of child marriages in Afghanistan since 2021. With the economy deteriorating under the Taliban rule, child marriages have seen a vast increase, and as families struggle to make ends meet they result in selling off their daughters. According to Amnesty International, many women and girls are being forced to marry members of the Taliban. 

More recently, a new law was introduced to even further restrict the freedom of Afghan women. In late August, women in Afghanistan have been banned from speaking or showing their faces outside of their homes. 

The new law states, “Whenever an adult woman leaves her home out of necessity, she is obliged to conceal her voice, face, and body,” meanwhile men are only required to cover their bodies from their navels to their knees. 

Any woman who disobeys the law can be detained and punished in a manner deemed appropriate by the Taliban. The UN condemned the new law, while human rights groups were left outraged.

So when arguing for the case of feminism, we need to remember the nations and pockets of global society that barely understand the meaning of the word. The Taliban’s laws against women are so outdated and inhumane that public flogging and stoning is considered an appropriate punishment.