Women of Afghanistan

[LadeOde]

I know this isn't news really but don't understand how a country can do this to its own citizens. This is a regime of total hate towards women;
The latest policy being that women are not allowed to hear other women's voices. This is in addition to an already long bizarre list:

Source: Telegraph.

It’s awful, horrendous, but I think hopelessly naive to say we should invade. On what grounds? It is a sovereign nation. The fact it is horrible to 50% of its citizens is not grounds for invasion.

It's horrendous. Women in Afghanistan in the 1970s vs now.

Yes. I used to write to political prisoners and had a standing order for Amnesty, but I have no faith at all in them nowadays.

Exactly. Western intervention is Western intervention. The West has tried intervening in other countries before. It didn't go well. The people who need to stop this are Afghani men. They are the only ones with agency. If Afghani women try to protest they will likely at best not be listened to and at worst, killed.There are more men in the general public than there are in the Taliban. They seem perfectly content to have their women treated this way. Some are perfectly happy to leave their wives/ sisters and daughters as virtual prisoners in their own home while they take all the family money for themselves to travel to Europe and claim asylum.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g it seems the photo on the right is also vintage - both appear to have heels which is no longer allowed. They also have no male chaperone and could possibly be talking to each other - oh how times change!

Thank you so much for your post, it summarises really well how helpless the whole situation is. The Telegraph article talked about how within the taliban itself there is a restless feeling among them regarding the policies that further restrict women & murmurings against their supreme leader ( I can't imagine how not speaking in public and not being allowed to raise your voice at home works - how do you speak to someone in a different room or if they're upstairs and your downstairs? how do you call out to a child in danger or in a personal emergency?) as it begins to impact not just on women but upon the very men enforcing it and you know how these men love their comforts! i think there will be an insurrection from within the Taliban itself.

If you follow English language afghan news sources like Tolo News or the women centred Rukshana media, the diaspora place the main blame for the Taliban regaining control at their next door neighbour Pakistan and their ISI security services for giving them safe haven and arming them hoping they were a pliant ally . That's backfired.

Here is a list of restrictions in force. Not sure if it's comprehensive

https://www.businesstoday.in/world/story/taliban-bans-women-from-hearing-other-women-here-is-a-list-of-other-bans-on-women-in-afghanistan-452076-2024-10-30

Rukshana media

https://rukhshana.com/en/

The Guardian does cover this: https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/aug/13/my-dear-kabul-review-memoir-year-in-life-of-an-afghan-womens-writing-group

I'm going to buy this book soon.

And Google Afghan women in the 1970s. And worry seriously about Trump winning in America.

For us to swoop in and save these women we'd have to agree that we are culturally superior. At a point when our institutions and history and values are held up to be arrogant and suspect.

So women can't get any medical treatment either. If they can't see a male doctor and women doctors are not allowed to practice. They must be dying like flies.horrific.

so sad

Not to speak of the utter humiliation of being examined intimately by a male doctor you don't want but also in the presence of your male 'chaperone'.

I didn't know music in Afghanistan was altogether banned, so not just women singing. What an utterly joyless and misery filled existence.

Well that list chilled my blood. They are not allowed to do anything bar exist.
Why not hearing other women voices?
Why not singing? In their homes. That harms no one.
It is so sick!
I knew they are not allowed to have their hair, make up, nails or any grooming whatsoever done. This would be only for themselves and the people they live with, like husbands. But they are not allowed to do anything, not even in the privacy of their homes.
I do not think the so called West should send troops though. They, precisely, are in this situation as a consequence of that. But sanctions and international pressure are needed. Whether that will make a difference, I wonder...

In Islam music is haram (not permitted) anyway.

Most Islamic countries do have some sort of musical tradition which has a blind eye turned to it, but it's not just women, strictly speaking all singing and music is not permitted in Islam.

I'm originally from a largely Islamic country and they play music all the time, and make a racket with the calls to prayer throughout the day whilst also singing. Not sure what you mean by having a 'musical tradition', can you explain?

I very much doubt that, sorry. Where in the Quran it says music is sinful?

I cannot get over the existence being forced on these women.
I have two girls and it stuns me to understand only geography separates us from the same.
The little girls and women there are just us.

How far can this go?

Will they decide women and girls should be under lock and key at all times?
All live in a communal locked facility and just taken out for women’s work in all its forms?

Stripped of your face, your work, your voice, your freedom of movement and, with this wicked rule, stripped of your community, not allowed to speak to the other humans who are suffering the same??

Not surprised to read suicide is common, there must feel like there is no hope left in the world.

That comes from a place of privilege. We're a global society and should intervene in some way. If a similar regime took over in Britain, I'd expect other countries to help.

@Jk987 the US forces have only recently pulled out (2021). Biden pulled them out without giving any thought as to the implications of doing so. He pulled the troops out immediately leaving US military weapons and equipment which of course the Taliban took. It was obvious what would happen once the Taliban took over again. Those poor women are in a living hell.

If a similar regime took over us, we would have the UN council, to defend the values written in their rules, which we built alongside our ally nations, all democracies. Plus our own rebellion, because we will rebel against anything leading that way. We would vote whoever out before it gets to that, though, as we still have enough democratic powers left.
USA has the second ammendment precisely for that. And that is why they are armed and will not give up the right to own guns.

If Kamala wins, I doubt they will even look on Afganistan's direction.
If Trump wins, he may remove the Talibans from power. No idea really.
I still cannot comprehend why Biden just removed the troops in that fashion.

It would be good if there were thousands marching in big cities protesting about this. There aren't. There won't be.

You are absolutely right there.

Wouldn't it be nice to see men do this?
Men out in their thousands, supporting women?