Censored: A worker at a beauty salon in Kabul painted a large photo of a woman on a saloon wall on Sunday. Photo: Kyoto / NTP Scanfix
Posters with women’s faces have been painted since the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan.
According to the BBC, the Taliban promised to protect the rights of women after the extremist movement came to power in Afghanistan.
Afghan-Norwegian Samina Ansari (30) suspects and fears that 19 million women in the country will face a very challenging time.
– Reliability is very low. The first thing the Taliban did when they entered Kabul yesterday was to paint posters with pictures of women. Among other things, hair salons. Ansari tells Viji that giving priority to women from the public sphere in the first place is a very bad sign.
Viji did not confirm that the Taliban had painted paintings on posters with women. Store owners do this to avoid problems.
Professor Christian Berg Harbwigen of the Peace Research Institute Prio says probably two things can happen.
Burqa: Women wearing burqas board a taxi in Kabul in July. Photo: Sajjad Hussain / AFP
Sentences “immoral acts”
Samina Ansari worked in Afghanistan for seven years on the role of women in economic development and the formal economy. He had been talking for the past two days with friends, acquaintances and old colleagues in Kabul.
– There are many signs that the Taliban were in the 90s. The information shared with me from sources in Afghanistan indicates that women are still being abused for immoral acts – God knows what it is – and that they are being violently punished for not wearing the burqa. It now comes from northern and southern Afghanistan.
– There is a big gap between what the Taliban delegation said in Doha and what the Taliban have done so far on the ground.
– There are many public declarations that the rights of women are respected in accordance with Islamic principles, but there is little desire to be specific. Unfortunately, I think we will see more stringent controls under the Taliban, Harbwigan agrees.
Contrast: In early August, posters for beauty salons in Kabul showed pictures of undiscovered women. Photo: Sajjad Hussain / AFP
The professor cites practice from areas where the Taliban have long had power, and new promises are not certain.
– The third reason is that no matter how you turn it around, the gender equality system is very traditional. For a significant portion of the population, the Taliban’s policy on freedom of movement was not particularly problematic. There will be many who will protest, but Harbwigen tells Viji that they also know that it is very popular with a significant section of the population.
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“Very poor” quality of life
Mariam Safi from Kabul, Afghanistan Organization for Policy Research and Development Studies Is Via Twitter Recent surveys of thousands of women in Taliban-controlled provinces.
In the survey, women are asked whether the Taliban are forcing them to wear the burqa, whether locals see them marrying their soldiers’ daughters, whether women are being denied work or women are being denied travel.
69 percent answer “all this”.
Fifty-three percent of girls say schools are closed 65 percent Describes quality of life in Taliban-controlled areas as “very poor”.
According to Ansari, the Taliban wrote their own constitution without mentioning the word “women”.
– If That is the constitution they are drafting – because we do not know enough, we do not know what kind of government we will get, so this is the guess I will share with you – it already says a lot about their views on women. Ansari says they are not in the community.
Stay away during conflicts
Aid agencies CARE Norway and MSF believe that women will face more difficulties in Afghanistan in the future. Here we are talking about the country already below in the annual perspective World Economic Forum on Gender Gap.
– The situation is difficult for women. Now we are very worried that it will get worse, and I think I can not even bear what women think, ”Kerstay tells Dale Viji in Norway.
Christian Berg Harbwigen, a researcher in the Department of Peace Research, describes the situation in Afghanistan:
CARE Norway has been working with women’s rights in Afghanistan since 2008. To see the situation, the company has now asked its employees not to come to work for the next 72 hours.
– We are a politically neutral organization, but we depend on access to the areas where we work and those conditions are secure.
Nurse Yngvild Breivik, from the MSF, says they are often allowed to carry out their operations even after the Taliban seize a section.
– But when there are conflicts in the areas, women do not come to the hospitals. They do not come with sick children.
Worse or worse
On Monday, Samina Ansari spoke with alumni of the University of Kabul. That conversation had an impact.
She is afraid of what it means for her and her family that she is associated with an American, educational institution. She is 22 years old and has no experience with the Taliban in government. All she has are the fear stories of her parents and older siblings.
I would like you to add a quote she gave: “Why do we Afghans always have to choose between the worst and the worst?”.
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