Afghan Women: The Voiceless

WHEN THE TALIBAN returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, women were among the most affected. Three years since, as reports point out, women—and even their representation—have been squeezed out of public view. Girls and women are barred from attending schools and colleges; they are mostly forbidden from working; from travelling outside without male relatives or going to places like parks or gyms; the faces of women on hoardings and posters—put up during the years under US-backed control—have been scratched out or pasted over; and even the heads of female mannequins wrapped in tinfoil and their bodies covered in abayas.

Some may have held on to a little hope that as the new regime settled into power and didn’t feel the need to ratchet up restrictive policies, or were cajoled into it by foreign powers, perhaps the most severe ones would be quietly diluted. But that seems to have vanished now, with the Taliban recently releasing its vice and virtue laws that codifies all of these decrees, and more. This is the first formal declaration of such laws since the Taliban took over and formed a Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

Among these laws is one that bans a woman’s voice outside her house. Female voice, according to this law, is an intimate aspect of her life. It is potentially an instrument of vice; it can corrupt listeners and bring sin. Deprived of speech—and also singing and reading in public—the law all but ensures a woman’s confinement inside the four walls of her house, since she now does not legally even own a voice outside.

There are other rules too that concern women, from prohibiting her from looking at unrelated men, describing what type of clothes are permissible (not thin, tight or short) to making the wearing of veils in public mandatory, and many more. Failure to comply will bring the wrath of officers of the vice and virtue police. These officials, usually seen dressed in white robes and stationed on street corners, have been reported to usually issue verbal warnings when transgressions are spotted. But the new document lists out the punishments the officers can dole out, like detention and the destruction of personal property. “Inshallah, we assure you that this Islamic law will be of great help in the promotion of virtue and the elimination of vice,” Maulvi Abdul Ghafar Farooq, a spokesperson of the ministry was quoted as telling the media.

Human rights campaigners have reacted to the news with horror, and some women in Afghanistan have pushed back by uploading videos of them singing online. To many women, especially those who were born and came of age during the 20-year US occupation, such a cruel reality is incomprehensible. According to some reports, many girls and young women, especially in urban pockets, are known to attend underground classes in private homes, and follow online classes, however erratic the internet connection. But these are few and far between, and they bring immense risk.

While there has been condemnation internationally, it is unlikely to lead to any scaling back of the laws. In the global scheme of things, there are other more pressing concerns, from the ongoing wars between Israel and Hamas, and Russia and Ukraine, to the challenge China’s rise imposes on many countries. Western powers—and especially the US during an election year—have little to gain from reminding the world about its failures in Afghanistan. “American foreign policy has been to keep it out of the headlines and keep it off the president’s desk,” Ashley Jackson from the think-tank Overseas Development Institute told the Economist.

Meanwhile, the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Propagation of Virtue has been hard at work to destroy any cultural remnants of the years from the US occupation. In a report it released recently, it detailed that its morality police have destroyed 21,328 musical instruments, sacked 281 men from the security forces for not growing a beard, and arrested over 13,000 people for ‘immoral acts’ over the last one year.

The new document seeks to further eradicate what it sees as immoral behaviour. It is meant to regulate all forms of personal conduct, for men and women, and there are rules that make the shaving of beards or taking pictures of living things an offence. But it is hardest on women. As much of the world turns its back on Afghanistan, she is now faceless and voiceless, and her erasure seems absolute and complete.

AfghanistanMaulvi Abdul Ghafar FarooqMuslim womenPrevention of Vice and Propagation of VirtueTaliban