Since their return to power last August, the Taliban have gradually eroded the freedoms won by Afghan women these twenty last years.
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“Bread, work, freedom.” About twenty Afghan women demonstrated on Sunday May 29 in Kabul to protest against the restrictions on women’s rights imposed by the Taliban. Since their return to power last August, fundamentalist Islamists have gradually eroded the freedoms won by women over the past twenty years since the fall of their previous regime (1996-2001).
“Education is my right! Reopen the schools!” chanted the demonstrators gathered in front of the Ministry of Education. They walked for a few hundred meters before being stopped by Taliban in civilian clothes, who had come to disperse the demonstration.
“We wanted to read a statement but the Taliban didn’t allow it.said one participant after the march. They took some girls’ cell phones and also stopped us from taking pictures or videos of our protest.”
Since their return to power, the Taliban have largely excluded women from public jobs, restricted their right to travel and barred girls from middle and high school.
The latest restriction dates back to early May, when the government issued an edict, endorsed by the supreme leader of the Taliban and Afghanistan, making it compulsory for women to wear the full veil in public. They also felt that unless women had a pressing reason to go out, it was “better for them to stay at home”.