According to a report released by Amnesty International on Wednesday, the Taliban’s “suffocating” crackdown on Afghan women and girls has been destroying their lives since they assumed power almost a year ago.
The Taliban claimed to have become more moderate since their first stint in power in the 1990s after seizing the capital city of Kabul in August 2021 and toppling the government that had received foreign support.
Taliban leaders initially mentioned allowing women to keep working and girls to finish their education.
Instead, they established an all-male government made up of veterans of their draconian rule, which has prohibited girls from attending school after the seventh grade, mandated clothing that covers the entire body except for the eyes, and limited women’s access to the workforce.
According to Amnesty, the Taliban have also severely reduced domestic abuse protections, imprisoned women and girls for relatively minor offences, and contributed to an increase in underage marriages.
The study also included evidence of the Taliban abusing and torturing women who were detained for opposing restrictions.
The report stated that when these practises are combined, they “create a system of repression that discriminates against women and girls in nearly every aspect of their lives.”
This oppressive onslaught on Afghanistan’s female population is getting worse every day.
In March, the team’s researchers travelled to Afghanistan as part of a nine-month investigation that took place between September 2021 and June 2022.
Between the ages of 14 and 74, they spoke with 90 women and 11 girls throughout Afghanistan.
Women jailed for protesting who spoke about being tortured by Taliban guards, including beatings and death threats, were among them.
Women were beaten by guards on their breasts and in the area between their legs.
One woman told Amnesty International, “so that we couldn’t show the world.”
One warned her, “I can kill you right now, and no one would say anything,” according to the woman.
A university student who was detained claimed that while the Taliban yelled abuses at her, she was electrically shocked on her shoulder, face, neck, and other places.
One of them pointed a gun at her and threatened to kill her so that her body couldn’t be found.
According to the survey, under Taliban rule, child, early, and forced marriage rates are skyrocketing in Afghanistan.
Amnesty claimed that the rise is brought on by the economic and humanitarian situation in Afghanistan as well as the dearth of opportunities for women and girls to receive an education and find employment.
The report listed instances where women and girls were compelled to wed Taliban militants under the influence of the Taliban member or the women’s relatives.
One Afghan mother from the country’s central province claimed to Amnesty that she was forced to give 60,000 Afghanis (about $670) for the marriage of her 13-year-old daughter to a 30-year-old neighbour.
Because her daughter “won’t be hungry anymore,” she claimed, she was relieved.
She stated that she was thinking of doing the same for her 10-year-old daughter but was delaying in the hopes that the child would complete her education and thereafter find employment to support the family.
Of course, I will have to marry her off if they don’t open the school, she said.
“War, poverty, a drought, a patriarchal regime, and homeschooling of girls are all present.
Together, these variables made it clear that the rate of child marriage would skyrocket “Director of Too Young to Wed Stephanie Sinclair was quoted in the article.
As U.S. and NATO forces left Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of Kabul, bringing an end to the Taliban insurgency’s almost 20-year struggle.
The Taliban’s rule has been rejected by the international community because it does not uphold human rights and tolerates minority groups.
The United States and its allies have frozen billions in Afghan state assets in addition to cutting off billions in development assistance that kept the government viable.
As a result, the already disintegrated economy fell into a free fall, severely escalating poverty and sparking one of the biggest humanitarian disasters in history.
A major humanitarian effort run by the U.N. keeps millions of people alive who are battling to feed their families.
Amnesty urged the world community to act to safeguard Afghan women and girls.
Less than a year after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, warned, “Their draconian policies are denying millions of women and girls of their right to enjoy safe, free, and meaningful lives.”
She stated that if the international community does not take action, it will be abandoning Afghan women and girls and weakening human rights worldwide.