To be shocked this isn't getting more coverage?

[Sugarcoldturkey]

Women in Afghanistan are now forbidden from speaking when not inside their homes. A simple "hello" to someone in a shop is now against the law. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/aug/26/taliban-bar-on-afghan-women-speaking-in-public-un-afghanistan

AIBU to think this is some of the most horrific news I've heard in months? I can't wrap my head around it and I can't help thinking - activists/newspapers/politicians are loud when campaigning about the gender pay gap or the state of child care or a woman's rights to her own body but somehow on this topic no one wants to criticise too often or too loudly.

Is it because religion is mixed in? Or guilt over the war? Or do politicians in particular only care about women's rights when it's a vote-winner in their constituency? Or is it just that it's so terrible and we all feel so powerless to prevent it that we just prefer to ignore the situation?

I'm feeling v v shaken.

It's strange how some countries in the world are regressing. Lebanon in the 70's was very westernised with developing women's rights, just look at it now. The same was true of Iran and many other places that are now hardcore Islamic horror shows where women's rights are non-existent.
Wherever hardcore Islam gets a grip the rights of everyone bar men dive to next to nothing.
Even in Bradford recently 3 women were assaulted by a man for not wearing traditional dress (i.e. Pakistani dress)... these attacks on women's rights happen very close to home on our own doorsteps (Andrew Tate via the Internet, extreme Muslim men on the streets).
Much of this regression is caused by Iran who are stoking trouble wherever they can to divide and make the West unstable... and they are succeeding.
The 7th October Hamas raping/murdering incursion into Israel was funded etc by Iran deliberately to destabilise the region and stop the numerous peace treaties that were being put into place over there including Trump's Abraham Peace Accords.
The only MENA country with meaningful womens/gay/human rights is Israel, whereas Iran undermines these rights wherever it can and will cause conflict instead of peace. Yet no one protests against Iran at all but happily protest in the UK regularly "river to the sea" advocating the eradication of Israel exactly as Iran wants.
IMO the sooner Afghanis and Iranians ris up against their givernments the better. I'm involved with a UK based Iranian women's group who want that exact end.

This.

Not our business. Actually, why are you not vocal on the part of Saudi women? Is it because the Saudis are our allies? Or is there anything in particular about the plight of the women in Afghanistan? Or is it because Saudi women are better off financially and are allowed an occasional trip to Selfridges in the UK?

I can't help thinking - activists/newspapers/politicians are loud when campaigning about the gender pay gap or the state of child care or a woman's rights to her own body but somehow on this topic no one wants to criticise too often or too loudly.

ARE activists, newspapers, and politicians "loud" about these issues? I would say nowhere near loud enough, and certainly not loud enough to make any kind of sustained improvement to any of these issues. In fact, globally, we are going back on all of these.

Unfortunately, PPs are correct - when something only or mainly negatively impacts women, society just does not care. "The West", led by the USA, got "our people" out and left everyone else to their fates.

If the taliban cannot feed their people there will be a refugee crisis similar to the Syrian one with millions in the move. When Kabul fell, there was very little refuge for fleeing Afghans. Some people had connections to the countries which had had a presence there and were able to leverage that to get out, and some could leverage other personal connections, but very far from all. Iran eventually did relax its requirements in response to the crisis, but I think it was the only neighbouring country to do so. There was a very strong sense of Afghanistan closing, of a very short window to find a way to go and then - trapped. How can there be a refugee crisis if no one can leave?

We can use our voices for the women who cant. Their rights to a voice have been taken away.

To bring awareness. We can shout about the plight of women.

I am looking at the countries I have lived and grew up in and they are changing before my eyes.

The rights of women is a global issue and topics like what is happening in Afganistan should be spoken about. It should be acknowledged and it isn't (or at least not to the scale it should be).

This news should horrify every woman outside of Afganistan.

We should be holding space for them instead of pretending they don't exist.

If we all bury our heads in the sand we will end up like them, or our daughters, or our granddaughters.

People think the white men sitting in government care what happens to us and that "this will never happen here", and they're deluded.

And if people aren't concerned about the conservative Muslim politicians in the UK and their values about women then they will be in for a shock.

This could be us.

When did the UK - or whatever country you're from - invade and occupy Saudi Arabia?

This is just another form of slavery. The close link between Islam and misogyny is really worrying

taliban are terrorists and you can not negotiate with terrorists. They are extremists and have zero value of human lives, human rights, the west, Christianity, jews, law and order. Condemning them publicly has zero effect, almost impossible to defeat in a war as they are fighting for their sovereignty and what they see as what they want. They take no notice of anybody or anything. Someone said here change has to come from within - 100%. This isn't the fault of Trump/Biden/Boris/Rishi or anyone else. No amount of protests will make any difference even.

Some of us ARE talking about Saudi women and women from many other countries.

Making a thread on one topic doesn't mean we don't care about others.

Some of us are screaming about this from the rooftops, but very few people listen or care.

And it IS our business.
What is happening to women across the world is the business of every other woman. No man is coming to save any of us. They never have when we are the only ones suffering from something.

Agree Saudi Arabia should have had more heat on it, but them being our allies has forced them to be more open and relax their rules a bit more. It was this that has caused Iran to dial up their funding of Hamas and Hezbollah, because they didn't want SA to be closer to the West. They are funding this shit and are funding Idlamist extremism in Mosques in the UK. They are there becsuse of the West interfering in Iran yes, but that's done now. We can't go back in time and undo the interfering the US and USSR did in the ME.

Afghanistan has been a mess for so many years, any government can only lose by intervening. I used to wonder why powerful countries didn't just sort out situations like this, but over the last three decades I have seen that countries who go in achieve little and end up hated, while countries who do nothing are not blamed.

Sounds like the story of everything. The reaction to the crime becomes the crime.

Just been reading about how public flogging and stoning to death have been reintroduced a few months ago. It genuinely is handmaids tail stuff. Horrific.

If Hamas wins the current war in Gaza and invades Israel, women in the whole region will lose their rights. Hard line militant Islam extremists want women to put up and shut up. I absolutely hate what's happening in Gaza, but militant Islam must not be allowed to spread or we'll all be at risk of this terrible ideology. Already, we are seeing that MSM is tiptoeing around the threat - they are not explaining why this war must be won by Israel. Don't forget that poor teacher and his family who are still in hiding because he showed a drawing of Muhammed in his RE class. Hard-line Islamists are an appalling threat to the west - and particularly western women.

Biden pulling out was the biggest US foreign policy disaster since the Yanks decided to send troops to Vietnam.

It is predicted, that the UK could be majority Muslim, by 2050.

Let that sink in.

And here come the racists 🙄

Violence against women and girls by men in the UK is endemic and that is by men of all religions and colours (not just Muslim ones!).

OP yes I am shocked this hasn't had more media coverage. Violence against women is not top priority in the UK or anywhere in the world really.

I think at some point Taliban banned high heel noise, and also birdsong (not sure how they were thinking to enforce birds not singing though....) it's all so horrific and absurd that I'm not sure even where to begin doing something about it after all the failed attempts...

Many were shouting about it when US troops were withdrawn, we knew what was going to happen and it was being pushed, I remember some reports showing dads deaperately trying to get their daughters on the planes out of there. It was ignored by the masses.

This is a good article. While the youth scream and protest and blockage universities over Gaza many more atrocities are being ignored.

Netanyahu has distracted the world’s attention from countless other warmongering thugs

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024/08/28/netanyahu-has-distracted-the-worlds-attention-from-countless-other-warmongering-thugs/

Maybe the west need to sit up take notice of how the men of Afghanistan treat the women of the country when they have free reign to do as they please. Maybe the west will then realise this is why they need to stop such men entering the west. These men and their medieval misogynistic attitudes have no place in the Western world.
Stop putting all the blame on the west and blame the pigs that abuse these women and girls.

What are you taking about? Afghan women were allowed to go to university, they walked around wearing mini skirts. In the 60s and 70s, they were gaining ground with women’s rights.
There was still tribal society and all the issues with difference in culture and marriage and everything but it was nothing like it it now.

The taliban didn’t exist before 1994. And they only exist because of the west, because of our invading in and war. The level of extremism from them happened because of the west. We left Afghanistan in a worse state than we found it.

Well they’ve just covered it on the BBC news . I despair , and if I was the family of anybody killed in the last Afghan war I would be pulling my hair out , what a waste of life for nothing . They should be shunned and isolated in the same way as South Africa were during the apartheid years so for a start stop playing cricket with them .

Sure, definitely not just Muslim ones, but unfortunately religion can be a very effective shield against criticism. We've seen that all over the world and across religions.

Really, why can any religion trump women's rights?

People hid behind Christianity to commit atrocities. So too can people with Islam. A situation doesn't stop being deeply unjust simply because someone says "it's my religious belief".

Every time the West has invaded Afghanistan to try and re establish democratic rights, it has gone horribly wrong.
Nonetheless, every woman on MN needs to post support for the Afghan women on here and on other social media.
Women should lead the global denouncement of such barbaric behaviour