Taliban: NGOs employing women will be banned & building should not have windows that women can be seen

[IwantToRetire]

In the latest crackdown on women’s rights in Afghanistan, the Taliban have announced they will no longer allow any national or foreign NGOs that employ women to operate in the country. In a letter published on social platform X on Sunday night, the Economy Ministry said NGOs that do not comply with the new rule will lose their licenses to operate.
Full article https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20241230-ngos-employ-afghan-women-face-closure-new-taliban-rule

Afghanistan's Taliban leader has ordered that new residential buildings are constructed without windows looking onto "places usually used by women" and said that existing windows with such views should be blocked to prevent "obscene acts".
Full article https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241229-taliban-leader-bans-windows-overlooking-women-s-areas

I think this is a good argument for universal human rights and we need to question the option that all cultures are equally vaild. If you were isolationist in your foreign view you could say 'well that's Afghan culture what right do we have in the West to dictate their government or laws'. However this viewpoint as seen above is morally very difficult to hold.

Perhaps we can't do much I. Afghanistan but we can look at our home culture.

Where do men not have the upper hand?

So, no, it's not.

No because if that was the case all countries would now be the same as Afghanistan.

I have heard the argument that the reason various organisations continue to work with Taliban as they believe that helping to avoid the country suffering severe famine is more important than women’s rights. Given the path the Taliban keep going on I don’t know if I agree.

I assume that if there is famine in Afghanistan then the women and girls would starve first because I can’t see the majority of men in that country sharing food with women and girls if they view us as subhuman.

It’s a terrible quandary: should the rest of the world help avoid famine in Afghanistan and thus keep women alive with no rights or chance of a worthwhile existence? Or should the rest of the world refuse international aid to Afghanistan and potentially watch women and girls die of starvation on a large scale because the rulers of the country don’t value them?

Having said the above, even if we do send international food aid there’s no guarantee that it is routinely shared with women and girls anyway.

The way the Taliban rule Afghanistan is just diabolical and evil.

If the Taliban don't share it with the women and girls, in a generation there will be no Taliban.

Taliban don’t seem to be great forward thinkers given that they keep women trapped indoors and refuse them even basic medical care so they are already greatly reducing their chances of future Taliban.

You can boycott what ever you want the Taliban won’t care because they think they are correct. Boycotting Afghanistan cricket team will only only create more sadness for people living there as news of the cricket team is one of the few things that give people pleasure

Fundamentalist, tribalistic Islam.

What concerns me is how quickly many in the West relativise women's rights when it comes down to it.

The UN was prepared to meet the Taliban and honour their request that no women should take part in the discussions. Already the new leader of Syria has heavily suggested that women will not be permitted to be judges because they are "not biologically and psychologically suited" to such roles. It is only a matter of time before sharia law is fully re-introduced - and many in the West will say it is a price worth paying to be free of Assad.

For some women's rights are a price to pay, or an isue to overlook, when it comes down to the preservation of the campaign of hatred against Israel. Look at the way that the rape of Israeli women was denied and played down. People are perfectly willing to overlook the problematical side of Islamism and fundamentalism in order to preserve their political priorities.

It’s not just Afghanistan, though. Bungalow in my road, in my ‘naice’ leafy university city outskirts, bought two years ago. It has a high hedge. The first thing the new owners did was install window boards on all the front and side windows, completely opaque, held in place by bars. We know there are women in there, because the neighbour heard them in the back garden after dark. They are NEVER seen, although they are occasionally visited by another two women in full niqab.

it is not a pot house, the roof is normal for heat, and the men come and go ‘normally’ in their Mercedes and BMW which are parked in the drive.

but no one can say anything, because it’s ‘not our business’ ( and anyway we’d probably be arrested for racism or something). I worry about it, though

Do you think having the upper hand is the same as having free reign?

Taliban won’t care and banning the Afghan team for the next ten years because they think they are right and they won’t change their mind. (They also think cricket and anything that takes a person’s mind from worshiping Allah is wrong)
they are dong everything they did last time but slightly harsher because women from different houses can’t meet up that is so girl schools can’t be run

Again, men have more power in other countries but they dont have absolute power.

They must at some level realise that they need women to produce more taliban members, do they intend to steal them from other countries when they destroy all of their own women?

Islamists’ Fear of Females - The Roots of Gynophobic Misogyny among the Taliban and Islamic State

https://media.defense.gov/2022/Jan/06/2002918533/-1/-1/1/JIPA%20-%20ALVI%20-%2022.PDF

Not really. The opposite in fact. The less rights women have the more children they have. As they are never allowed to meet, they will have no idea how to avoid pregnancy or possibly even how they are getting pregnant.
If each woman manages 2 or 3 children that's just about enough. But most will have many more as they will likely be pregnant from about 14 until they die. If they die in childbirth, their husband will just get a new one.
I can't see this ending while Iran exists.

With the lack of maternal care for pregnant mothers and lack of medical care for infants, I think many women more will die in childbirth and fewer babies will survive.

It is not just Iran, though, is it.......it is Saudi too. Just because a few upper class women have been allowed to drive cars in recent years I'm not sure how much else has changed for women and their legal status in that country.

But they have in the past

I feel so desperately sad for these women but not sure what the west can do. We tried invading but look what has happened after we left. The only people that can 'help' are the husbands, brothers and fathers of the women there. I'd happily donate to a charity or organisation that could help.

I agree @ThePoshUns - there are some women's organisations, like the long-established RAWA, and others https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RevolutionaryAssociationnoftheeWomenoff_Afghanistan

Most of them are now based outside Afghanistan for obvious reasons.

Maybe it is. Very sobering.

Thank you for the link @Ereshkigalangcleg

meanwhile an English man coaches their cricket team and they will play in the ICC competition in Edgebaston despite Afghanistan cricket not fulfilling any of the criteria to be a member of the ICC.

We can't help the women of Afghanistan. But we can send a message by talking loudly about things like this as much as we can. As often as we can. And maybe picketing.

We can contact, write to, shout at and picket organisations like the UN who don't give a flying fuck about women's rights anywhere, least of all Afghan women.

Pour encourager les autres, and all that.

i don't care if it makes them sad.

I don't think the Taliban approve of cricket anyway, which is why the team live in either Dubai or India (it's not clear to me)

But authorities elsewhere need to send a message to us, the other women in the world, that they are listening. That they actually do care about women.

The Women's Rights Network who are raising awareness and spreading the word about what is happening to Afghan women want us to boycott. I think we should do that. What those women are existing (it is hardly living) through is barbaric. In that position? I would rather starve to death than carry on. A boycott doesn't help them, but it sends a message to all women. But of course: nobody cares about us anyway, to a great extent.