Afghan women's voices

[ArabellaScott]

Given the latest attempt by the Taliban to further silence the women of Afghanistan, seek out the writing and words and music of Afghan women.

Here's a long and very well written article on landays - a form of Afghan poetry.

https://static.poetryfoundation.org/o/media/landays.html

'When sisters sit together, they always praise their brothers.
When brothers sit together, they sell their sisters to others.'

'In Afghan culture, poetry is revered, particularly the high literary forms that derive from Persian or Arabic. But the poem above is a folk couplet — a landay — an oral and often anonymous scrap of song created by and for mostly illiterate people: the more than twenty million Pashtun women who span the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan'

https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-women-taliban-demonstration/33116393.html

Amazing courage.

The strength and courage of women always finds a way.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/inside-the-talibans-gender-apartheid/the-death-of-hazaras-is-permissible-what-its-like-to-protest-the-taliban-as-a-minority-woman/

After the Taliban seized control of Kabul in August of 2021, Tamana Rezaei took to the streets to demonstrate against rising gender apartheid in her country. As both a woman and a member of the Hazara minority, she faced double the danger, a story she recounts below.

I’ve participated in protests, from small university demonstrations to larger movements. In 2014, we protested the beheading of an eight-year-old Hazara girl by the Taliban in Zabul.

After my release from prison, I secretly left Afghanistan. It has taken and continues to take a long time to deal with what happened to me. Today, however, the lawsuits and the growing awareness among Afghanistan’s women about the Taliban’s gender apartheid are beginning to heal the wounds they inflicted on our souls and bodies. I believe that international recognition of the Taliban’s gender apartheid will eventually end its rule and open up pathways to bring its members to trial.

https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2024/09/silenced-afghan-women-raise-their-voices-in-hope/

Women gather in Albania in defiance of the Taliban's new "vice and virtue" laws which aim to stop them from being heard

According to Farzana, the priority for the women meeting in Tirana is to unite, and not let political or ethnic divisions distract them. “No matter if I’m Pashtun, I’m Kochi, I’m Uzbek, I’m Hazara, or whatever – we are targeted as women. We are all victims of the same thing.” She hopes the summit will produce a roadmap for Afghan women to present to international governments and the UN. No-one at the summit has any illusions about how long and rocky the road. For the moment, the Taliban feel secure as their opponents bicker about whether to engage or not. But until Afghan women decide how they want to resist, inside and outside the country, nothing will change.

Speech at United Nations - is anyone listening.

https://x.com/IsleLesbos/status/1834463757243691268?t=bvdcDx6pBrlTntJLzM-m2A&s=19

Please listen to Horia Mosadiq who’s an Afghan human rights activist, political analyst and journalist. She is speaking heart breaking honesty about what is happening in Afghanistan to women and girls and the dire consequences if other nations don’t speak out against this now.

Just keeping this together.
This is the speech from UK at that same meeting.

We welcome the Special Rapporteur’s longstanding commitment to shedding light on the human rights situation in Afghanistan. We are deeply disappointed by the Taliban’s decision to ban him from the country.
We have all watched in horror and sadness as the Taliban restrict the rights of women and girls across every sphere of their lives. The latest vice and virtue edicts are appalling. They extend the already severe restrictions and systematic oppression to which Afghan women and girls have been subjected. As our Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, has said, these laws mark another tragic setback for the country.
Mr President, these restrictions are unjust. The sound of a woman’s voice is deemed a moral violation, their bare faces are banned in public, and they are forbidden to look at men to whom they are not related. The impact on women’s wellbeing and livelihoods is unimaginable.
The UK will not stop fighting for the rights of women and girls and will continue to find ways to support them in Afghanistan.
Special Rapporteur,
The Taliban must reverse this edict.
How can we support women and girls in Afghanistan now they are effectively banned from public spaces?

I'm rather underwhelmed these laws are a crime against humanity not a tragic setback.

I am pretty staggered Lammy got made FS, really. He doesn't have the brains or the gravitas.

And yes, 'setback' is an unfortunate accident, not deliberate crimes committed against women and girls.

In case we forget, I really don't like feeling this helpless.

Shocking new directive: Today, the Taliban's Minister of Vice and Virtue announced a ban on adult women's voices in each other's presence. In August, the Taliban banned women's voices in public, deeming it provocative. Women protested to this ban by singing and poetry.

Today’s ban on women’s voices in each other’s presence comes from Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, Taliban’s Minister of Vice&Virtue, who published a 100+ page book of edicts against women last month. Every ban on women has a face behind it & must be held accountable for gender apartheid.

https://x.com/ZubaidaAKBR/status/1850261486188581334?t=8WIKkGLzRn5osYW2YbTd2g&s=19