Women fear Taliban’s return

Women who lived under the harsh rule of the Taliban urged senior Afghan politicians to ensure their hard-won freedoms are not bargained away when they talk peace with the insurgents.

The Afghan Women’s Network said their rights should not be used as a political tool in dealings with the Taliban, who barred women from schools and jobs and drastically curtailed their personal liberties when they ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

Their appeal came as the Taliban was meeting with a high-ranking Afghan delegation in Moscow from Tuesday, and a week after the insurgents held unprecedented talks with US negotiators.

The Taliban said the Moscow meeting – their most significant with Afghan politicians in recent memory – would discuss the withdrawal of foreign troops, peace terms and its vision for governance.

The two-day gathering is separate from the US-Taliban negotiations in Doha in January, that ended with both sides touting progress and a draft framework which could pave the way for peace talks.

No representative from President Ashraf Ghani’s government – which the Taliban considers a US puppet – was invited to either occasion, angering officials in Kabul.

Ghani is being pushed to the sidelines as the Taliban ignores his overtures for peace and negotiates instead with his friends, and enemies, over the future of Afghanistan.

Afghan women, also largely excluded from the table, fear seeing their hard-won rights eroded if negotiators seek a hasty truce with the Taliban.

“Women should not be used as a political tool by these politicians,” Mashal Roshan, a co-ordinator from the Kabulbased women’s network, said.

“If the Taliban returns and imposes restrictions on women, we will not accept that.

“In the past 17 years, Afghan women have gained some hard-won achievements.

“We don’t want to lose that. It’s our right to go to school and to work, and everyone should respect that.”

The network said it would not accept peace at the cost of freedoms and urged delegates to defend their rights.

“There is no need to reinterpret women’s lives,” it said.

Under their brutal interpretation of Sharia law, the Taliban confined women to their homes, only allowing them outside with a male escort and hidden beneath a burqa.

Girls were banned from schools and colleges and women prohibited from the workplace save in a few areas such as medicine.

The militants have indicated they would provide a safe environment for women’s work and education under an “Islamic system” they have proposed for Afghanistan’s future.

But involvement of the Taliban in any government frightens many women, who recall the stifling restrictions under the Islamic insurgents.

Ghani and de facto prime minister Abdullah Abdullah have urged the Taliban to negotiate with Kabul, saying all Afghans should agree on the need for peace.

The Taliban are expected to meet with US negotiators again later in the month. –

‘If the Taliban returns and imposes restrictions on women, we will not accept that’ Mashal Roshan

WOMEN’S NETWORK CO-ORDINATOR