Women fearing the worst as U.S. exit planned

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN» Farzana Ahmadi watched as a neighbor in her village in northern Afghanistan

was flogged by Taliban fighters last month. The crime: Her face was uncovered.

“Every woman should cover their eyes,” Ahmadi recalled one Taliban member saying.

People silently watched as the beating dragged on.

Fear — even more potent than in years past — is gripping Afghans now that U.S. and NATO forces will depart the country in the coming months. They will leave behind a publicly triumphant Taliban, who many expect will seize more territory and reinstitute many of the same oppressive rules they enforced under their regime in the 1990s.

The New York Times spoke to many Afghan women — members of civil society,

politicians, journalists and others — about what comes next in their country, and they all said the same thing: Whatever happens will not bode well for them.

Whether the Taliban take back power by force or through a political agreement with the Afghan government, their influence will almost inevitably grow. In a country in which an end to nearly 40 years of conflict is nowhere in sight, many Afghans talk of an approaching civil war.

“All the time, women are the victims of men’s wars,” said Raihana Azad, a member of Afghanistan’s Parliament. “But they will be the victims of their peace, too.”

When the Taliban governed Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, it barred women and girls from taking most jobs or going to school, and practically made them prisoners in their own homes.

After the U.S. invasion to topple the Taliban and defeat alQaeda in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Western rallying cry for bringing women’s rights to the already war-torn country seemed to many a noble undertaking. The cause helped sell the war to Americans who cringed at the sight of a B-52 carpet bombing insurgent positions.

Some schools reopened, giving young women and girls a chance at education and careers that many before them didn’t have. But even before U.S. troops touched Afghan soil, some women had already risked their lives by secretly pursuing an education and teaching themselves.

Over two decades, the United States spent more than $780 million to promote women’s rights in Afghanistan. The result is a generation who came of age in a period of hope for women’s equality.

Although progress has been uneven, girls and women now make up about 40% of students. They have joined the military and police, held political office, become internationally recognized singers, competed in the Olympics and on robotics teams, climbed mountains and more — all things that were nearly impossible at the turn of the century.

As the conflict dragged on over 20 years and setbacks on the battlefield mounted, U.S. officials and lawmakers frequently pointed to the gains of Afghan women and girls as proof of success of the nation-building endeavor — some measure of progress to try to justify the loss of life, both American and Afghan, and billions of dollars spent in the war effort.

Even in the twilight weeks before President Joe Biden made his final decision to pull out all U.S. troops by September, some lawmakers and military officials argued that preserving women’s rights was one reason to keep U.S. forces there.

“I remember when Americans came and they said that they will not leave us alone, and that Afghanistan will be free of oppression, and will be free of war and women’s rights will be protected,” said Shahida Husain, an activist in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province, where the Taliban first rose and now control large stretches of territory. “Now it looks like it was just slogans.”

Across the country, schools are now being forced to contemplate whether they will be able to stay open.

Firoz Uzbek Karimi, the chancellor of Faryab University in the north, oversees 6,000 students — half of them women.

“Female students who live in Taliban areas have been threatened several times, but their families send them secretly,” Karimi said. “If foreign forces leave early, the situation will get worse.”

Human rights groups, nongovernmental organizations, schools and businesses are left trying to figure out contingency plans for female employees and students should the Taliban return to power by force or through an agreement with the Afghan government.

“It was my dream to work in a government office,” said Ahmadi, 27, who graduated from Kunduz University two years ago before moving to a Talibancontrolled village with her husband. “But I will take my dream to the grave.”