On a fateful day, Shabnam Darwan went to her office, as she normally does, to resume work but she was denied entrance. This is despite showing her office card.
Darwan is a Muslim lady working as a journalist in Afghanistan for six years and has worked with the country’s national television as a news anchor.
She said the male employees, those with office cards, were allowed to enter the office but she was told she could not continue her duty because the system has been changed.
Darwan is one of the women in Afghanistan who have made some achievements in the past 20 years since the Taliban’s ouster in a deeply conservative, male-dominated society: Girls are now in school, and women are in Parliament, government and business.
But all the progress made in gender equality and women empowerment is about to be lost following recent events in Afghanistan where a deadly Islamic fundamentalist group has overtaken the government of the country.
The Taliban began capturing urban centres (provincial capitals) and captured the capital city of Kabul on 15 August after president Ashraf Ghani fled the country joining a stampede of citizens fleeing the Taliban’s advancement.
Since the group took over, there have been fears that it could unleash a brutal reign and subjugate women in the country. Afghans are worried that the Taliban would reimpose their strict and ruthless interpretation of Islam which trampled on women’s rights.
These concerns are not farfetched. When the fundamentalist group ruled the country for five years until the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, it denied girls education and women the right to work. It refused to let them travel outside their homes without a male relative to accompany them.
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The Taliban also carried out public executions, chopped off the hands of thieves and stoned women accused of adultery.
In the first official press statement of the Taliban after it took over Kabul, it pledged to protect the rights of women within the limits of Islamic law and grant amnesty to its opponents as it sought to strike a moderate tone.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesperson, said women would be permitted to work and study and “will be very active in society but within the framework of Islam.”
But that promised has already been broken since the televised press statement was made. Darwan has lost her job and would not be allowed to work in Afghanistan as long now the status quo remains.
“Those who are listening to me, if the world can hear me, please, help us as our lives are under threat,” she raises alarm in a video she shared online.
Her call is not a fairy tale nor some joke that should be laughed away. Women are actually at risk in Afghanistan. There are already reports about killings and sexual slavery in the country.
The first case of murder by the Taliban happened on the same day the official statement on respecting women’s rights was televised.
Taliban fighters shot and killed a woman for not wearing a burqa in Afghanistan that Tuesday, 17 August.
A photo emerged of the woman in Takhar province lying in a pool of blood, with loved ones scooched around her, after she was killed by insurgents for being in public without a head covering, according to Fox News.
On 9 August, a young woman was allegedly killed by the Taliban for wearing tight clothes and not being accompanied by a male relative in Afghanistan’s northern Balkh province. The woman was shot dead in the village of Samar Qand, which is controlled by the Taliban.
She was just 21 years old.
There have also been disturbing reports emerging from Kabul and other cities about Taliban fighters beating up women while roaming around streets looking for ex-government workers.
More disturbing are the reports that prior to the capture of Kabul, the Taliban issued a statement ordering local religious leaders to give them a list of girls over 15 years of age and widows under 45.
The group promised them marriage to their fighters and they would be taken to Pakistan’s Waziristan, where they will be converted to Islam and reintegrated.
“All imams and mullahs in captured areas should provide the Taliban with a list of girls above 15 and widows under 45 to be married to Taliban fighters,” the letter issued in the name of the Taliban’s Cultural Commission said.
While it cannot be said if this order has been executed, it has sparked fears of forced and child marriage and sexual slavery across the region and globally. Even Malala Yousufzai is worried about her women in the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
As a young girl, Yousafzai defied the Taliban in Pakistan and demanded that girls be allowed to receive an education. She was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in 2012 but survived.
The Taliban — who until losing power 20 years ago barred nearly all girls and women from attending school and doled out harsh punishment to those who defied them — are back in control and this is jolting for her.
“…I fear for my Afghan sisters,” she said.
