In Pictures

2022: The year Taliban cracked down on women’s rights

The year 2022 saw the Taliban imposing restrictions on women’s rights, bringing back the memory of its past rule.

Amanah Nashenas, 45-year-old an Afghan teacher, cries during an interview. — Amanah Nashenas, a 45-year-old Afghan teacher, cries during an interview with the Associated Press about the state of education, in a school in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, December 22, 2022 [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]

As the year was drawing to a close, the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan dealt what may have been the final blow to women’s education – banning women from universities. Female students above the sixth grade were already confined to their homes by the new rulers’ shutdown of schools, after promising to preserve women’s rights and media freedom.

The Taliban has backtracked on most of the promises it announced immediately after its return to power in August 2021. Tens of thousands of Afghans, including women, fled the country, fearing a repeat of the Taliban’s brutal record in power in the 1990s.

The Taliban had urged Afghans to return and work for the country, assuring them that schools would be opened after infrastructure upgrades and that women would be allowed to work, unlike during its previous rule between 1996-2001.

It asked the international community to recognise its “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” as it remained diplomatically isolated. The international community has urged the group to form an inclusive government and ensure that women’s rights are guaranteed – demands the Taliban seems to have ignored.

The Western sanctions mean that the country’s economy has virtually collapsed, worsening the humanitarian situation in the country. People have been forced to sell their babies and young girls to survive.

More than 90 percent of 38 million people are at risk of poverty and about 23 million people faced acute hunger as the Taliban has struggled to turn around the economy due to its financial isolation.

But instead of addressing the dire humanitarian crisis, for which the Western sanctions and freezing of Afghan bank assets worth nearly $10bn contributed greatly, the Taliban has been accused of investing its energy in curbing women’s rights.

It started with an advisory on dress code for women followed by more specific orders: female journalists were asked to veil on TV, women’s employment opportunities shrank, and then women were gradually squeezed out of the public space.

The group has justified the restrictions on women’s rights based on its interpretations of Islamic law. Women’s education and employment are allowed in Muslim-majority countries, many of whom base their laws on interpretations of Islam. Some senior Taliban leaders have said that Islam guarantees women the right to education and work.

Afghan women have pushed back against the restrictions. They protested to demand education and jobs, many activists worked behind the scenes to work on numerous gender issues facing women in the country. Inspiring stories that deserve mention are the secret school in Bamiyan run by a young woman and an underground book club run in the capital Kabul by a bunch of students. Many of them have faced arrests and harassment for their courage in speaking up.

The group’s claim of establishing security has also been challenged as the local ISIL affiliate, ISKP, has managed to carry out attacks particularly targeting minority Hazaras. In August, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a CIA drone attack in Kabul, with the US accusing the Taliban of violating the 2020 Doha Agreement.

The country has also been a victim of climate change: Flash floods ravaged parts of the country earlier this year. In June, more than 1,000 people were killed when the country was hit by its deadliest earthquake in 20 years.

afghanistan — The Taliban issued a diktat on dress code earlier this year sparking debate about women's attire. Afghan women have traditionally worn the burqa – mostly sold in shades of blue, white and grey. Taliban said it was not mandatory, but activists said it should not have been a priority when the country was facing a deepening economic crisis. [File: Ali Khara/Reuters]

Girls walk to their school along a road in Gardez, Paktia porvince, on September 8, 2022. - Five government secondary schools for girls have resumed classes in eastern Afghanistan after hundreds of students demanded they reopen, provincial officials said on September 8. — Girls walk to their school along a road in Gardez, Paktia province on September 8. Five government secondary schools for girls resumed classes in eastern Afghanistan after hundreds of students demanded they reopen. Officially, the Taliban has banned girls' secondary school education, but the order has been ignored in a few parts of Afghanistan, farther away from the central powerbases of Kabul and Kandahar. [AFP]

A Taliban fighter stand guards in front of protesters condemning President Joe Biden's decision on frozen Afghan assets in Kabul. — A Taliban fighter stands guard in front of protesters condemning President Joe Biden's decision to freeze Afghan assets in Kabul. Biden signed an executive order on February 11 to create a pathway to split $7bn of Afghan assets frozen in the US to fund humanitarian relief in Afghanistan and to create a trust fund to compensate September 11 victims. The move, which came amid a dire humanitarian crisis, has drawn rebuke and accusations of “theft” against Washington. [Hussein Malla/AP Photo]

Khatira Ahmadi, an Afghan presenter at Tolo TV reads news at the studio in Kabul on May 23. Female television presenters and reporters in Afghanistan appeared with their faces covered to comply with a mandate issued by the Taliban. [EPA]

Afghan women march as they chant slogans and hold banners during a women's rights protest in Kabul on January 16. [File: Wakil Kohsar/AFP]

A classroom that previously was used for girls sits empty in Kabul, Afghanistan. — A classroom that previously was used for girls sits empty in Kabul. The Taliban rulers have ordered women nationwide to stop attending private and public universities until further notice. They have banned girls from middle school and high school, barred women from most fields of employment and ordered them to wear head-to-toe clothing in public. Women are also banned from parks and gyms. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]