In the aftermath of the Second World War, just over seventy-five years ago the international community embraced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948) as a cornerstone for global peace. The preamble of the UDHR rights starts with this paragraph: ‘Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world’.[1] Human rights encompass amongst others the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education. Everyone is entitled to these rights without discrimination. As noted by Brock-Utne, ‘peace involves equality of rights through which members of a society participate equally in decision-making and distribution of resources’.[2]
The international community cannot both recognize human rights as the foundation for global peace and accept the Taliban regime’s system of gender apartheid. As a member of the United Nations, Afghanistan ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Afghanistan has also ratified most of the major conventions and treaties of human rights, including the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, 1976); the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, 1976); the International Covenant on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICEFORD, 1969); the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, 1981), without any reservation; the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT, 1987); the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1990); the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention (1957); the Geneva Conventions (1949) and protocols; and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD, 2008). In addition, Afghanistan committed to the Beijing Platform of Action, which outlined comprehensive action for the promotion of gender equality, the Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2000, and many other resolutions on women’s participation on different levels of peace building and development. Likewise, Afghanistan endorsed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which establish sustainable goals with the slogan of ‘Leaving no one behind’.[3] However, the Taliban’s opposition to and violation of these human rights, particularly their systematic discrimination against and exclusion of minorities and Afghan women, obstructs Afghanistan’s path to peace.
Historical context and background
Unfortunately, Afghanistan has been at war for 45 years, starting with the Coup d’etat of the pro-USSR factions in 1978. Since then, the people of Afghanistan have been held hostage between the extreme left—the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), the USSR, and its military invasion—the extreme right, and fundamentalists supported by the Western and Arab countries. Islam, our religion, was used as a weapon of war to defeat the USSR and stop the advancement of so-called communism to South Asia. The Taliban is the by-product of this short-sighted Cold War policy.
Because of gross human rights violations, including arbitrary bombing and the arrest of people who were not with the PDPA, millions of people were forced to become refugees in neighbouring countries, particularly Pakistan and Iran. Soon after the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan, Iran experienced the Islamic Revolution. In Pakistan, self-appointed President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq started his Islamization of the country. Afghan refugees who had lost their livelihoods were put in refugee camps. Due to poverty and lack of facilities, refugees were not able to feed and educate their children. Religious schools (madrassas) were established to this end. Access to quality and modern education was denied to Afghan refugee children. madrassas replaced formal education with the brainwashing of male children with extremist world views.
During the war, women’s rights were denied as the men fought against the USSR. After the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan the Mujahedeen factions took power, and soon started fighting among themselves, destroying what was left after 14 years of fighting with the puppet regime and Soviet army. They started to violate the rights of women including restricting their clothing and their appearances. During 1992-96, for example, the government at that time initially declared that women could not show their faces on TV. They replaced women’s faces on the screen with an image of a rose, with their voice in the background. After a few weeks, they ordered that even the voice of women should not be heard by unrelated men. Similarly, they forbade the Afghan delegation from participating in the Cairo Conference on Population and Development in 1994, on the grounds that un-Islamic issues would be discussed.
The country was divided between different political and ethnic groups. Emerging from the madrassas in Pakistan, the Taliban began their existence in 1994 in Kandahar and took Kabul in 1996. They issued their first decree banning women’s education, movement, and presence in all of public life, including forcing people to paint their windows if they had second floors in their houses, to prevent women from being seen from outside and women from seeing the outside. They made Afghanistan an open prison for women from 1996 to 2001. At the same time, Afghanistan became a training camp for terrorist groups and the biggest producer of opium in the world.
The international community placed no priority on women’s rights in their relief programs for refugees. They did little to increase access to education for women and girls or provide reproductive health care or access to contraception. Afghan families ended up with so many children that they were not able to feed or educate them. Poverty increased. Boys ended up in madrassas. Girls became victims of domestic violence, including child marriage and forced marriages.
Advances for Women’s Rights under the Afghan Republic Government
After 9/11 and with US military intervention the Taliban were removed from power. A new interim administration and transitional government was established with high hopes for the promotion of democracy and human rights. Although it faced continued challenges and barriers, the Afghan Republic government (2001-2021) made tremendous achievements to promote and fulfil its international obligations regarding human rights and women’s rights. The Afghan government had sought to create a legal framework in compliance with the country’s international legal obligations. The new constitution ratified in 2004 guaranteed equal rights for men and women. It was the first iteration of the Afghan constitution to contain the word ‘women’. The new constitution allocated 25 percent of Afghanistan’s parliament and provincial councils to women. The constitution also provided for religious liberty, allowing Shias in the country to exercise their personal status law. Many other laws were reformed during this period. Importantly, for the first time domestic violence was criminalized with the Elimination of Violence Against Women Law.
How did these international commitments and their integration into local Afghan laws change Afghan women’s daily lives? What did these policies mean to Afghan women in practical terms? Afghanistan established its first Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) to address and recognize the challenges Afghan women faced. For the first time, an Afghan woman was appointed as a vice president in the Afghan interim government. Afghanistan established a national human rights institution, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), to monitor, promote, and protect human rights in the country. Afghanistan held its first presidential elections to allow average Afghans to participate in political processes and decision making. For the first time, an Afghan woman ran for office as a presidential candidate. Afghan women had some form of representation at high level official positions as ministers, members of the parliament, governors, mayors, university professors, judges, prosecutors, army and police officers, in sports, media, and all other aspects of life. Although some of these gestures were symbolic and mainstream Afghan women still continued to suffer from violations of their fundamental human rights, they were nonetheless huge first steps towards the institutionalization of women’s and human rights in the fabric of Afghan society and its institutions.
With the establishment of the Afghan Interim Administration, people were very hopeful, but in truth the international community and the new Afghan government lacked the strong political will to build a democratic peaceful society. Instead of a long-term multi-dimensional strategy, planning was limited and the approach was incoherent. The international community did not fully understand the history and culture of Afghanistan and its ethnic and religious diversity. Every country that was involved in reconstruction implemented projects in their own way, rather than based on the needs of the people. Contracts were given to companies from their own countries, which then subcontracted to Afghan companies. Rather than employing young Afghans in a labour-intensive project and promoting community ownership of the project, the contractors used machinery and the profits enriched a few individuals.
The majority of the projects were designed by men and were not gender sensitive. For example, the contract to build the main road between Kabul and Kandahar, which is about 450 miles in length, was given to an American company for more than $700 million. Not a single public toilet was built for women who had to travel on this long road.
Unfortunately, the US viewed its intervention in Afghanistan as a success story and in 2003 invaded Iraq. Not only did the US lose its focus on Afghanistan, but the invasion of Iraq also fuelled the recruitment of young Muslim men by terrorist groups and the spread of more militant tactics such as suicide bombings. In Afghanistan, corruption and nepotism took hold in the highly centralized government, including in elections and democratic institutions.
The Taliban never fully disappeared from the country’s political reality, even after their removal from power in 2001. Instead, they spent the next 20 years fighting against the people, the newly formed government, and particularly against modernity and democracy in Afghanistan as represented by women’s participation in society. The lack of international coordination and problems within the Afghan government allowed the Taliban to exploit the deprivation in remote provinces to recruit children and unemployed young men to join the ‘holy war’. The US peace deal with Taliban on 29 February 2020 and lack of effective management by President Ashraf Ghani and his corrupt exclusive team allowed the Taliban to take control of the country. On 15 August 2021, all of the progress that Afghanistan had made in establishing institutions, rule of law, and women’s participation in economic, political, and social sectors of society was lost in a matter of days with the Taliban’s takeover.
The Return of the Taliban and Plight of Afghan Women
With their return to power on 15 August 2021, the Taliban abolished and reversed the hard-earned achievements made in two decades overnight. They made clear through their words and actions that they did not respect any of the laws. The Taliban Prime Minister publicly proclaimed that all the laws made by people are not good enough for the people, and that we need to implement the ‘Law of God’. Afghanistan is now the only country without a constitution.[4] The Taliban violates the women’s basic human rights that Afghanistan had committed to protect and promote, including the fundamental rights guaranteed in UDHR: freedom from any form of discrimination; the right to quality secondary and higher education; the right of access to quality healthcare services, including the ability to choose how many children one wishes to have; economic and employment rights; the right to political participation and decision making; and the right to freedom of movement. In fact, they apply gender apartheid in the country, without any fear of accountability.
The Taliban do not have a strategy for governance. Instead, in the years since 2021 they have issued more than three dozen decrees and statements that violate human rights and restrict women’s freedom, including:[5]
Banning women from most public life, work, teaching at high schools, universities, and employment in local and non-governmental organizations, including UN agencies, in violation of economic and employment rights.
Banning women and girls’ schooling beyond sixth grade, including attending universities and higher education institutions, violating the rights to primary, secondary, and higher education.
Forbidding schools from teaching the standard curriculum, which was replaced with their version of extremist education, violating the right to quality education.
Banning women from entering public parks, public baths, gyms and sports clubs, a basic form of discrimination against women.
Banning women from holding public office including judiciary roles, in violation of the right to choose one’s occupation.
The compulsory veiling of women in public, even among the extremely limited number of permitted female TV anchors, who can be counted on one hand. Failure to adhere to this rule results in punishment for the male family member, ultimately reinforcing patriarchal control more than ever before.
In reality, there are no rights left to be taken from Afghan women. The Taliban’s overall strategy is to erase, discriminate against, and eliminate women from public life. They abolished the institutions that made these gains possible. While the former Afghan government and international community attempted to build institutions and enforce the rule of law, the Taliban did the opposite, seeking to deconstruct the legal and institutional bases of the nation. First on the chopping block was MoWA. Although MoWA could not solve all the problems of Afghan women and actions to promote gender equality were needed in all departments, it became an important symbol of the promise of women’s equality. When the Taliban abolished MoWA, they replaced it with the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
The second institution that the Taliban abolished was the AIHRC, which played a central role in the promotion, protection, and fulfilment of human rights in general, and particularly women’s rights. The AIHRC had become a full member of the Asia Pacific Forum and also gained an ‘A’ status as a member of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions. The Taliban’s next step was to destroy the nation’s prospect for peace by undermining the entire concept and value of human rights. One of the basic tenets of Islam is that all human beings are born with equal dignity. However, the Taliban do not respect this equal dignity and view themselves as superior to all. They closed the Independent Election Commission, Election Complaint Commission, Constitution Oversight Commission, and all other institutions necessary for democracy and good governance.
Restrictions on education
Afghanistan’s Constitution of 1964 granted educational rights to all Afghan women and men, noting that:
Education is the right of every Afghan and shall be provided free of charge by the State and citizens of Afghanistan […] Primary education is compulsory for all children in areas where facilities for this purpose are provided by the State.[6]
In addition, the Afghanistan Constitution of 2004 emphasized the creation of educational programs for women and the elimination of illiteracy in the country:
Education is the right of all citizens of Afghanistan, which shall be offered up to the B.A. […] Afghanistan, the state shall design and implement effective programs and prepare the ground for teaching mother tongues in areas where they are spoken.[7]
The 2004 Constitution obliges the government to provide free and mandatory education to its citizens. Beyond the requirements of Afghan laws, the right to education is accepted as a core human right in various international standards. Discrimination based on sex or any other basis in the realization of this right is a violation of human rights. The right to education is recognized in the UDHR and the ICESCR. The CRC obligates states to provide mandatory and free primary education. According to the above conventions and the CEDAW, any form of discrimination against women is a violation of human rights. According the ICESCR:
The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to education. They agree that education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity, and shall strengthen the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. They further agree that education shall enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society, promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations and all racial, ethnic or religious groups, and further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.[8]
As a party to these international standards, Afghanistan is obligated to fulfil its commitments to provide and make education accessible to Afghan girls and boys. However, the Taliban is in full denial and violation of both Afghan national laws and Afghanistan’s international commitments regarding the right to education and behaves contrary to all its obligations. Afghanistan is the only country in the world to bar girls from secondary and higher education. The Taliban has also banned schools from teaching the standard curriculum and forces children to learn extreme interpretations of religion. As a result, the quality of education has deteriorated.
While the Taliban claim that their ban on education is Islamic, both their actions and discourse contradict not only international conventions and human rights norms and values, but also Islamic values for education. The first message to the prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was ‘Iqra’ (‘read’), emphasizing the value of education in Islamic principles. No other Islamic country in the world bans women’s education. Education of girls will not serve the Taliban’s long term political interest as educated women will not allow their sons to fall prey to Taliban recruitment and join their ranks.
The de facto government’s inability to ensure the safety of girls on their way to school, to protect the schools and to create an inclusive and secure environment for them to learn, coupled with a pervasive culture of impunity, has perpetuated a cycle of fear and hindered access to quality education. Women who work in education are being targeted and threatened. Terrorist attacks and bombings of educational institutions have continued to occur under Taliban rule. In one of the suicide bombing incidents on Kaaj Educational Academy in western Kabul, a predominantly Hazara minority neighbourhood, at least 50 people were killed and wounded over 100 others. The majority of victims were girls taking a practice university entrance exam. Burning girls’ schools and poisoning girls are some of the other tactics that the Taliban used to terrorize people. Hazara rights, like those of Hindus and Sikhs, are likewise violated with impunity.
In the aftermath of their transition to power, the Taliban briefly allowed women to attend universities, but later reversed this allowance. The international community’s failure to exert enough pressure to address this issue contributes to an ongoing educational crisis for Afghan girls and women. Afghanistan’s education crisis takes away the fundamental tool for the empowerment of every human being, particularly to the female population of a country. As a result, it contributes to discrimination and to widening the equality gap between men and women. There is an inverse relationship between education, child and maternal health care, and levels of poverty: access to education improves health and reduces poverty.[9] Banning the education of girls and women is not required by Islam; it is a political agenda to control half of the population in Afghanistan without any resistance.
Limitations on access to healthcare
Access to quality education and the right to health are closely connected. Educated women marry later, which itself reduces their childbearing years and allows them to choose the number of their children. Fewer children are also a tool for reduction of poverty and the empowerment of mothers.
Afghan women have been disproportionately affected by the lack of access to adequate medical services as a result of limited resources, inadequate infrastructure, and a shortage of trained female medical personnel. Women and girls are finding it extremely difficult to access healthcare; the situation is even worse for women in rural areas where clinics have been closed or women are not allowed to be treated by male doctors. Pregnancy-related complications and maternal mortality rates, which reduced between 2001 and 2022, have become alarmingly high in Afghanistan under the Taliban. The Taliban has now instructed pharmacies not to sell contraception. Limitations on accessing contraception and reproductive health care leads to more premature deliveries and an increase in the population, which in turn contributes to increase of poverty, domestic violence, child marriage, and forced marriages. Female children are sold to feed the rest of the family and all the protection mechanisms which were in place have been abolished.
Lack of educated young women will further reduce the female health providers in the country which is already low compared to the need and populations. Increases in the number of uneducated, unemployed, and frustrated young men will create an environment for terrorist and gang groups, including the drug smugglers and armed trades to recruit these men and have more soldiers. Afghanistan has witnessed an increase in child soldiers in some of its regions.
With the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the country is witnessing an empowerment of patriarchy in the region and beyond. A culture of impunity reigns, as violations of the human rights of women are ignored by the international community under the excuse of respect for religion and culture.
Conclusion
To destroy a nation, those in power can take three actions. First, they destroy and undermine quality education. Second, they support patriarchy inside and outside of the family, reducing women to an inferior role. This inequality in the family replicates itself in society. The oppression of women is a source of conflict and violence in the family and country as a whole. Third, they undermine the values of human rights, which has led Afghanistan to its present situation: an exclusive dictatorship comprised of a single gender and single ethnic group. Under the Taliban, Afghanistan is the only country without a constitution and is run based on the mentality of a few people who took power by force.
The current situation in Afghanistan underscores the profound interconnectedness of basic human rights. Without the right to healthcare and education, the empowerment of women is not possible. These elements are all integral pieces of the same puzzle, and the puzzle remains incomplete if any one of the pieces is missing. The ongoing culture of impunity surrounding these issues must be addressed through a coordinated effort involving Afghan women, international organizations, and community. Only by holding those responsible accountable and working toward the empowerment of Afghan women a sustainable peace will be possible.
The silence of the gun is not peace or security. Security and peace should be defined by the security of women from violence and freedom from discrimination. Women should be allowed to live with equal rights and dignity. The violation of women’s human rights in Afghanistan is not the problem of Afghan women only, but a problem of humanity. The lack of accountability and justice for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and gender apartheid currently occurring in Afghanistan fuels the culture of impunity. Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Access to justice is not just a luxury that Afghan women cannot afford, it is a basic human right and central to life with dignity and peace.
The current condition of Afghanistan is a collective failure of the Afghan people, Afghan government, international community, and UN. It requires a collective approach based on human rights principles to solve the problem. As history has shown, the issue won’t remain confined within Afghanistan’s borders; it will inevitably extend to other regions.
Sima Samar
Sima Samar is a Hazara human rights advocate, activist and medical doctor within national and international forums, who served as Minister of Women's Affairs of Afghanistan from December 2001 to 2003. She is the founder of Shuhada Organization and in December 2019 was appointed as a member of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement. She is also a member of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation.
[1] Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) <https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights> accessed 1 August 2024.
[2] See Mary K Burguieres, ‘Feminist Approaches to Peace: Another Step for Peace Studies’ (2014) 19(1) Millennium: Journal of International Studies 2.
[3] See ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ (21 October 2015) <https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n15/291/89/pdf/n1529189.pdf?OpenElement> accessed 1 August 2024.
[4] Ayaz Gul, ‘Taliban PM: Government, Nor Anyone Can Dare Amend Human Rights Set by God’ (Voice of America, 9 July 2022) <https://www.voanews.com/a/6652117.html> accessed 1 August 2024.
[5] Voice Amplified, ‘Taliban Policies Restricting Women’s Rights since August 2021’ (9 August 2022) <https://voiceamplified.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Talibans-restrictions-on-womens-rights-since-August-2021-updated-0822.pdf> accessed 1 August 2024.
[6] Afghanistan Constitution (1964), art. 34.
[7] Afghanistan Constitution (2004), art 43-4.
[8] International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) Part III, art. 13 <https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-economic-social-and-cultural-rights> accessed 1 October 2024.
[9] Nadine Sika, ‘The Millennium Development Goals: Prospects for Gender Equality in the Arab World’ (2011) 12(3) Journal of International Women’s Studies 28.
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