Understand | Afghan nightmare

Since the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, women have gradually lost almost all their rights. Autonomy, jobs and higher education are now forbidden to them in a country where hunger often exceeds any other concern. Respectively professor and student in international law at UQAM, Mirja Trilsch and Butul Mohammad Ishoq offer four sources to better understand the daily lives of Afghan women.

1. Silenced

The issue of gender equality was far from resolved during the 20 years the Taliban were ousted from power in Afghanistan. But before the chaotic withdrawal of American forces, many women, especially in Kabul, exerted an influence on society, from the media to universities and even in politics. Fawzia Koofi, for example, was vice-president of Parliament from 2005 to 2019. Zharifa Ghafari, she was appointed at the age of 26 mayor of Maydan Shahr, a city of 35,000 inhabitants located less than 50 km from the capital, in 2019. For the Taliban, even before taking over the whole country, it was a target to be shot down. Broadcast on Netflix, notably in French version, the documentary In Her Hands, by Tamana Ayazi and Marcel Mettelsiefen, recounts the difficult mandate, then the flight of the politician, who survived a number of assassination attempts and who is now based in Bonn, Germany. By driving a woman with a loud voice out of the country, the Taliban have reduced many others to silence, believes Mirja Trilsch: “To lose your voice is to lose hope, and your power too. »

2. From bad to worse

For millions of Afghan women, exile to freedom is impossible. Amnesty International spoke to around 100 women who remained in the country. The NGO’s report brings together the disturbing testimonies of those who have seen their rights violated, to the point of being harassed, detained and tortured, for having demonstrated or having moved in the street. “At the beginning, some believed that the Taliban had changed, that they were more educated than in 1996,” says Butul Mohammad Ishoq, herself born in Afghanistan. Among the gullible, many people disappointed by Westerners, who have not kept all their promises to rebuild and secure the country. However, the trap of the “new” Taliban has gradually closed on the Afghan women. Quickly prevented from working, they suffer even more than men from the economic crisis caused by the blocking of humanitarian aid decided to punish the regime, observes Amnesty. This has terrible repercussions on child marriage, among others, noted the NGO. “Families are forced to sell their 5, 7 or 9 year old daughters to men 20 or 30 years older just to be able to feed themselves”, underlines Mirja Trilsch.

3. Overview

If reading a report of some 90 pages in English can be discouraging, Mirja Trilsch and Butul Mohammad Ishoq also offer listening to an episode of the podcast It explains, hosted by Alexis De Lancer on OHdio (Radio-Canada). Recorded in May 2022 with RFI correspondent in Kabul, Sonia Ghezali, it covers in less than 30 minutes a multitude of aspects of the current situation of women in Afghanistan. It is thus a question of the disappearance of Afghan women from political life, their infantilization, the travel restrictions imposed, the repression directed against the men who support them in their demands, the obstacles to higher education and, of course , the full veil, which strikes the imagination in the West. However, Butul Mohammad Ishoq is surprised, this veil was already very present, especially in rural areas, before the resurrection of the Taliban regime. The veil as such “is not the most important issue”, she says. What has really changed, according to the student, is that women – veiled or not – no longer have the freedom to have an opinion on the full veil. Another interesting element: the journalist testifies in passing to the anxiety that inhabits her as a (foreign) woman living there.

4. Victims… rebellious

“We tend to speak of Afghan women only as victims, but being victims does not mean being passive”, says Mirja Trilsch. Not all Afghan women are resigned to silence, emphasizes the professor, and a report (in French) by National Geographic spent on a radio station over there shows that. Radio Begum brings women’s voices to 10 of the country’s 34 provinces. “Hamida Aman, the station’s founder who lives in Switzerland, came to Afghanistan to set it up,” says Butul Mohammad Ishoq. She negotiated with the Taliban and found a compromise. Thus, Radio Begum does not engage in activism or play catchy music, but a dozen female journalists there address women’s mental health issues in particular and devote six hours a week to on-air courses. In a country where school is now prohibited for girls after primary school, this is almost revolutionary. “What is ironic is that this radio exists because it is not political, indicates M^me Trilsch. But her very existence is political in a system that controls everything about women. So much the better if the Taliban don’t realize it! »