No one cares about us.. we don’t count because we were born in Afghanistan
Billboards of smiling bridal models are frantically torn down, symbolising the fears of women in Afghanistan after the Taliban stormed Kabul.
The extremists are back, so the women can no longer be seen; the price of burkas in occupied areas is reportedly soaring as once again they are forced to cover up.
Students have reported being evacuated from universities, and one told how she and her sisters have had to hide their diplomas and certificates. Few have the option of escaping as the West leaves them to their fate.
In a heartbreaking video posted yesterday, one young woman said: “We don’t count because we were born in Afghanistan.” Wiping away tears, looking little more than a teenager with her hair in plaits, she added: “No one cares about us. We will die slowly in history.”
Women in the capital yesterday reported Taliban going from house to house hunting for females known to work in the media and politics, “making lists”.
One pioneering female journalist hiding in Kabul confirmed the reports and told the Mirror she now could not leave her home.
The journalist, who as a child under the previous Taliban rule attended school dressed as a boy, said: “Today the presence of women in Kabul was very few. I’m obligated to stay at home and I’m afraid about the next days.”
Asking not to be named, she told how women had already encountered hostility from conservative men.
She said: “As my sisters and friends were rushing home today, people shouted, ‘The Taliban are coming because of you! They’re here to discipline you!’”
With two-thirds of Kabul’s population under 30, most women have no memory of the Taliban’s last rule from 1996 to 2001. Then, girls were banned from school and women from work, and they were not allowed out in public without a burka and male escort.
They were even denied healthcare as they could not see a male doctor and women were not allowed to practice.
Things changed after Western forces arrived in Afghanistan in 2001 with 3.3 million girls in education and women making up over a quarter of parliamentarians.
When I visited Camp Bastion in Helmand Province in 2013 ahead
Today the presence of women in Kabul was very few.. I’m afraid
of the withdrawal of British troops, an RAF pilot told of the changes in women’s lives he had seen from the air. He described seeing the re-emergence of their tiny figures walking freely, many uncovered, going to school.
United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres urged the Taliban to uphold human rights, especially for women and girls. He said: “I am particularly concerned by accounts of mounting human rights violations against the women and girls of Afghanistan who fear a return to the darkest days.”
Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban in 2012 in Pakistan after she enraged them with her campaign for girls’ education, warned: “We cannot see a country going centuries back.
“We have to take some bold stances for the protection of women and girls, for the protection of minority groups and for peace and stability in that region.”
In May, the Taliban said it would
JOURNALIST HIDING IN FEAR AFTER TALIBAN STORM KABUL
write laws to ensure women could continue to participate in public life. Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said: “The purpose would be enabling women to contribute to the country in a peaceful and protected environment.”
Yet earlier this year there were already reported instances of girls’ schools being burnt down.
In July, Taliban fighters went to the Azizi Bank in the southern city of Kandahar and ordered nine women working there to leave. They were taken home by armed men and told male relatives would have to take their jobs. The same followed in a bank in Herat.
Since so-called peace talks began, women in jobs such as journalism and law enforcement – even polio vaccination workers – have been killed. The Taliban has denied responsibility.
Reports have also emerged of rapes and forced marriage. Sarah Keeler, of
Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, said: “In areas controlled by Taliban forces there are reports of rapes of girls and edicts issued that families hand over girls of 15 and over, and widows up to 45, for forced marriages to Taliban soldiers.”
In Herat, the Taliban has declared burkas mandatory, and prices of the garments are reportedly rising with demand. Many high-profile women are now in fear for their lives.
Zarifa Ghafari, 27, who in Maidan Wardak province was the country’s first female mayor, said on Sunday: “I’m sitting waiting for them to come. There is no one to help me or my family. They will come for people like me and kill me. I can’t leave my family. And anyway, where would I go?”
Afghanistan’s minister of education, Rangina Hamidi, said: “I might have to face consequences and I guess that’s the price that we pay for trying to make this world a little better.”
Fawzia Koofi, Afghanistan’s first female deputy speaker of parliament, summed it up. The Taliban, she said, is not afraid of the world’s superpowers. But it is afraid of women.