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Taliban’s Afghanistan: A Country of Only Men

The human rights abuses of the Taliban and re-establishment of gender apartheid in Afghanistan have largely been met with silence by the international community. A trend of normalization of the regime has begun to emerge in the media and in international assessments. Recently, The Washington Post ran an article titled “Taliban vowed to change Kabul. The city may be starting to change the Taliban”, which described a Taliban enthralled with shopping, learning English, and studying abroad. A photo of Taliban enjoying a picnic accompanies the article, but neglects to mention that women are now forbidden from going to the park or anywhere else.

Taliban revels in its male-dominated society, while women languish under house arrest or in jail for daring to defy Taliban decrees. This normalization of the Taliban is devastating to the women and girls of Afghanistan, and portends danger to the rest of the world where attacks on women’s rights have intensified.

In Afghanistan, Women Are Dying on the Way to the Hospital or Inside It

In the Taliban’s Afghanistan, it’s not uncommon for three women to share a hospital bed. Nor is it rare for premature babies to share incubators. Families often cannot afford a trip to the doctor to get help for women or children, and more women are dying on their way to the hospital from pregnancy complications because they need to travel hours or even days to get care.

“It’s a perfect storm: less access to healthcare, less access to reproductive choice, and a declining number of healthcare professionals,” Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch said.

Stop Betraying the Women of Afghanistan

Regardless of whether President Biden inherited the mess in Afghanistan or perpetuated it himself is secondary to what choices the United States will make to fix the situation we are in now. It is past time for the U.S. to live up to the commitments it has made to Afghan women and girls—the U.S. has the power to ensure that Afghan women are equal partners in retaining their rights and lifting their own country from crisis. The U.S. must include Afghan women leaders in decisions about peace, security and humanitarian aid. And the U.S. must not take Afghan assets out of the pockets of private citizens who desperately need those funds to survive and restore their lives. 

As Mary Akrami, an Afghan women’s rights activist noted, “We Afghan women will not allow anyone [to] play with Afghanistan anymore. … Enough is enough for us.”