Women and the Taliban: A Western, Post 9/11 Perspective

In Afghanistan, Women’s rights were very denied and completely dismissed. Women were treated horribly. They were beaten, abused verbally, and even killed. Under the rule of the Taliban, women were better off staying in the safety of their own homes.

During the mid 90’s, an Islamic fundamentalist group called the “Taliban” took control of central Afghanistan. This sudden regime change caused a catastrophic loss of civil liberties as well as civil disrupt throughout the entire country, causing many surges in Afghani immigrants. Political journalist of “The Taliban: War, Religion, and the New Order in Afghanistan” Peter Marsden, writes about how women in Afghanistan were forced to wear chakri 's in public, and could not leave the home without a male guardian. In afghanistan, women faced many internal barriers that violated their unalienable rights, and this in turn impeded their ability to evade from such violation through

When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, millions of women wanted to flee from their oppressive regime. Even with so many wanting to leave however, several barriers including the Taliban’s extensive civil rights restrictions, and the U.S’s increased immigration restrictions prevented a proportional amount of Afghani women from immigrating. The sudden regime change in Afghanistan caused a catastrophic loss of civil liberties as well as civil disrupt throughout the entire country, causing a sudden surge in Afghani immigration. Political

A Thousand Splendid Suns, a book written by Khaled Hosseini, gives us a unique and informative glimpse into life in Afghanistan in the early 1960’s to the 2000’s. In it we can see many different political and social issues ravaging the country, with the most evident being gender inequality. Though many diverse groups of people were being discriminated against at the time, most of the subordination fell onto women as they had more and more rights taken away from them when various ruling powers took control. The author relays this information to us and educates us as to what happened through compelling and thought-provoking literary devices such as symbolic characters and objects, and allusions. By using these

With the Taliban beginning its reigns on Afghanistan, darkness took over the nation. Terror became a more common installment into the minds of the citizens. Hearing the rumble of the jeeps, the bangs of the AK-47s, and the bombs setting off can send a shiver down anyone’s back. Families are torn apart, children forget what play time is, schools are destroyed. The injustice that the Taliban brought is defined through the cruelest of actions. “There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.” (Hosseini, 1) With their regime, the Taliban established radical rules that limited the country to all but making the essential function of speaking, barely legal. The effect of the Taliban begin to spread specifically towards Amir and his family. With the beginning the war, Amir sees his

Throughout the book “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” there is a growing understanding that focuses on the ideas imposed by biased views prejudice against women. This has made a wide impact on decades of Afghan people as they watch their country slowly shatter. The tough times in this society demonstrates how the Taliban uses fear and violence to control the people within Afghanistan, showing a powerful portrait of female suffering. The story is told in the perspectives of two women, Mariam and Laila.They show that both love and hate are powerful shapers of the human spirit. Both of the women’s cultural and physical surroundings influence the people they become, and shape how they perceive the world. Although Mariam and Laila have different beginnings,

The Taliban implemented laws restricting the movements and actions of women in Afghanistan in public places. While attempting to visit her child in a home for young girls, Laila is beaten within an inch of her life as a consequence of walking outside without a male escort (Hosseini). The extreme course of action, beating a woman for walking alone, demonstrates the illogical and unjustifiable actions the Taliban promotes the practice of in Afghanistan. The women and men have dramatically unequal rights.

In the case of Afghani women’s memoirs and life stories offer new understanding of life under repression and how Afghani women struggled to keep their autonomy despite the oppression they faced. “Zoya’s Story”, “My Forbidden Face”, and “A Bed of Red Flowers” are memoirs written by Afghani women who experienced life under the Soviet Union and the Taliban in Afghanistan. These memoires along with interviews with Afghan women provided a complete picture that Afghani women are not as passive as they are portrayed in the history and book in the media. Women resisted in different shape and form, some engages in violent resistance, while others engaged in non-violent form of opposition. For instance, Zoya joined RAWA and participated in non-violent

The Taliban is an Islamic fundamentalist political movement which came to power as Afghanistan’s government in 1996 but was overthrown by the U.S. after 9-11 in 2001. The official government put into power by the U.S. after the Taliban overthrow was headed by President Hamid Karzai, but he and his government mostly only had power in Kabul and Kandahar, urban cities. After the Taliban, the misogynistic Mujahedeen regained power in many rural parts of Afghanistan, where they forced women to stay indoors and constantly wear the burqa. Although the Mujahedeen oppose the Taliban, the two organizations are similar in many ways when it comes to women’s rights. The Taliban enforced Sharia law, which is strict Islamic law, according to the Taliban members’ interpretation of the Quran. According to this law, women have little to no rights. Women under the Taliban could never leave their houses unless they had a permit because of an emergency, and even then they had to be accompanied by a close male relative. Women were also forbidden from school and work. This was devastating for many women who didn’t have husbands supporting the family. Countless families were left completely impoverished with no income. On top of that, women were forced to wear the burqa, a garment that completely covers the body except a small screen for the eyes. Even though they had just lost their salary, and did not have enough money for food, numerous women had to buy these garments

The Taliban creates separate facilities for the men and women and does not attempt to hide the fact that working conditions are far worse for the women. During the initial arrival of the Taliban in Kabul, Mariam, Laila, and Rasheed experience a level of hopefulness. They have all heard that the Taliban brings peace to the territories they conquer, and Kabul is ready for relief after years of war. Mariam and Laila’s hope quickly disappears when they learn their lives will have more restrictions now than ever before. According to the Taliban rule, women are no longer allowed in public without a male relative, and they must always wear burqas when traveling.

“Cosmetics are forbidden,” “ You will not make eye contact with men,” “ Women are forbidden from working,” “ You will not paint your nails”- These are just a few harsh rules the Taliban decided to enforce upon the Afghanistan women. The rules here are followed by terrible consequences if not followed. If the women of Afghanistan break a law, the accused are subject to beatings, stoning to death, and even the possibility of having a finger cut off. Women are treated terribly by men. Men are allowed a magnitude of freedom compared to women. And if a man does something or gets in trouble and a women is involved, the majority of the time, the woman is blamed.

In Afghanistan, 94% of uneducated women believe it is acceptable for a man to abuse his wife making the country the highest approval rate than anywhere else in the world (Text 1). 15 to 19 year old Afghan women are more likely to disapprove of these abuses thus exhibiting change within the perspective of women in younger generations. Although younger generations may have a change in perspective, no change can occur unless it is desired throughout many generations and different groups of people. The Afghan culture shaped women’s outlook on change; since their culture is uniquely oppressive to women, women believe this is the way they were meant to be treated. Americans should not help liberate women in Afghanistan because the influence of change has to come from within the country and has to be desired in order for that change to occur.

At the end of the civil war in November of 1994, many men, women, and

This site will be very helpful because it answers my central question, “What are the human rights for a woman in Afghanistan?”. The taliban has had a crisis against women for years. Article 27 of the 1977 Constitution stated, “The entire people of Afghanistan, women and men, without discrimination have equal rights and obligations before the law.” However, the taliban has continued to ignore this rule and mistreated women. In 1992, women in Afghanistan were required to cover their heads, legs and arms. Since the mid 1990’s, the status of women has changed dramatically under the rule of the taliban. This site gives more vast information about this topic and will also help me answer subsidiary questions. I will be using this site for most of my iTCHI

When the Taliban was running the government, women encountered more problems in the field of health. Health care statistics for Afghan women are among the lowest in the world, the Taliban also imposed rules attaching to how women achieve medical attention in 1997, hospitals were closed to women, and Women could only go to a clinic. Taliban regime started systematically enforcing a previously ignored policy segregating male and female medical patients into different hospital in September 1997. All female hospital is personnel including physicians’ nurses, pharmacies, and technicians were prohibited from working in 22 hospital in Kabul. Then men and women must remain segregated in hospitals. This is a discrimination against women