Women’s rights, extreme poverty… Three years after the Taliban returned to power, what is the situation in the country?

Afghan Prime Minister Mohammad Hassan Akhund reaffirmed this on Wednesday, August 14, during the celebrations celebrating three years since the Taliban returned to power: they are counting “stay the course of Islamic law”. In August 2021, as the Americans withdrew from Afghanistan after twenty years of military presence, the Islamic fundamentalist group triumphantly returned to Kabul following a lightning offensive. Since then, the policy implemented has created “the worst women’s rights crisis in the world”denounces the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Between food insecurity and exploding poverty, the country is on the brink. Franceinfo takes stock of this dramatic situation.

Women’s rights removed

“Afghan girls are like those birds that, with broken wings, still try to fly.” In a video screened in June before the UN Human Rights Council, a young Afghan woman shared her distress. “We are not free. We are like slaves”she testified. In March 2023, the European Union recorded “70 decrees containing numerous restrictions or prohibitions” concerning, among other things, “dress codes, segregation in the workplace” And “freedom of movement of women without male guardian (mahram)”.

Secondary schools and then universities have closed their doors to women. Afghan women now have fewer chances of getting a job, and therefore financial independence. They are therefore more at risk of forced marriage and domestic violence, the UN warned in May. They are also no longer allowed to work for NGOs and the closure of beauty salons has led to “the destruction of 60,000 jobs held by women”according to HRW, in its 2023 review.

Women are also being chased out of public spaces. Parks, gyms and hammams are off-limits to them, the UN said. Interviewed in July 2023 by franceinfo, Afghan journalist Hamida Aman accused the Taliban regime “to isolate women by locking them up in their homes” and judged “appalling” that they be forbidden “any means of meeting, discussing and possibly organizing”.

“We expect them to tell us not to go out anymore. We are suffocating the female population.”

Hamida Aman, Afghan journalist

to franceinfo

Those who refuse to comply with the dress code – a loose black garment that must cover the face and the rest of the body – risk being arrested and assaulted. “Women and girls were reportedly held in overcrowded conditions in police stations, receiving only one meal a dayUN experts reported in February. Some of them were allegedly subjected to physical violence, threats and intimidation.”.

The media and the opposition in the sights of the government

The repression of media and journalists has intensified in the country. Dozens of them have been “arbitrarily arrested and harassed for criticizing the Taliban” And “at least 64 journalists were detained (…) between August 2021 and August 2023”Amnesty International believes. Among them: the French-Afghan journalist Mortaza Behboudi, released after nine months of detention.

The opposition is also in the sights of the Taliban forces. Between August 2021 and June 2023, “at least 800 extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests and detentions” former members of the government are attributable to the authorities, as well as “more than 144 cases of torture”according to the UN.

In November 2022, judges were ordered to apply all aspects of Sharia – Islamic law – including public executions for murder and corporal punishments, such as stoning, flogging or amputation of limbs. The latest example: 63 people were publicly flogged in the centre of the country in June. According to the Afghan Witness association, what are punished most are what the Taliban consider to be “moral crimes”, i.e. “illicit relations, adultery or sodomy”.

An explosion of food insecurity

After three years of Taliban rule, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world. “Poverty affects half of the population, with high unemployment and underemployment rates”according to the latest World Bank report. Access to the labor market is increasingly limited for women, “which reduces the sources of income for many families”stressed in September 2023 on its Action Against Hunger website. Furthermore, more than 90% of the population is unable to cover basic food needs, says the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

“Malnutrition rates, especially among children, are increasing, which has long-term consequences for their health.”

Action against hunger

in an article published in September 2023 on its site

According to the UN, the disastrous state of the economy is due, among other things, to: “restrictions imposed on the banking sector”described as “close to collapse”And “the virtual absence of foreign investment”. GDP has contracted by 26% over the past two years, the World Bank wrote in April, for which “Growth will be zero for the next three years [2023-2025] and per capita income will fall under the demographic pressure”.

While the UNDP estimates that humanitarian aid ($3.7 billion) “helped contain the humanitarian catastrophe”the fact remains that donations are slow to arrive. At the beginning of 2024, according to the World Food Programme, “UN appeal for $3.2 billion [2,9 milliards d’euros] was only 40% funded in December [2023]“The United Nations began talks with the Taliban this year, including on increasing and coordinating international engagement in Afghanistan.