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Case Study: Impact of Taliban Rule on the Rights and Daily Lives of Women and Girls in Afghanistan And How Affects Its Stability (2021-Present)

Maryam Rehman

George Mason University

11/05/2024

Case Study: Impact of Taliban Rule on the Rights and Daily Lives of Women and Girls in Afghanistan (2021-Present)

Introduction

The welfare of women in Afghanistan has been a journey of its rights coming forward, and then stepping backward, basically because of the change in power regime. Afghan women's rights and freedoms were not entirely extinguished from the 1960s up to the early 1990s, during which they enjoyed rights to education, work, and public visibility. But the first Taliban rule in the mid-1990s brought about serious limitations and almost reversed these gains and reduced women to subjects of a harsh interpretation of Sharia law that saw them locked out of virtually all spheres of public life. Human Women started to get basic rights when the Taliban regime was toppled in 2001 later internationals helped Afghani people reconstruct their society's education system, economy, and rights for women. Women as a workforce increased gradually by 2021 and about 3.5 million girls were at school (UNICEF).

However, the conservative Taliban came back to the governance of Afghanistan in August 2021 and quickly eroded all these advancements; this prompted remarkable humanitarian apprehensions and uncertain socio-economic prospective in Afghanistan. This switching has critical implications for women and Afghanistan and its evolution into a sound and progressive society and its citizenry's liaison with the rest of the world and its familial units and communities. As a result, there has been some increase in the cry of international organizations and human rights activists for intervention and support adding that the rights of Afghan women are so important in the stability and development of the country. This paper focuses on the role of the Taliban in education, employment opportunities, and related changes in social behavior the immediate effect on Afghan women and girls, and the indirect secondary effect on the Afghan society and economy.

Literature Review and Hypothesis

Studies indicate that the Taliban regime has been responsible for some of the worst violators of women's rights in the world. The Afghan women and girls before August 2021 had many rights and freedoms, which they never had before, such as education, work, and public activities. About 39% of Afghan girls went to school, and women formed only 22% of the workforce (UNICEF, 2021). All these enhancements were as a result of changes in society that helped Afghanistan in its economic boost and stability. They grew to benefit from these opportunities that allowed women and girls in Afghanistan to progress in their person and their careers. Their appearances in schools, workplaces and other sectors paved way to initiating change in society in order to diminish gender stereotyped beliefs that has rooted in every cultures around the world. Some of these changes impacted positively on Afghan society’s cultural diversity; others set the basis for building a stronger, safer, as well as more economically prosperous Afghan nation..

The effects of such limitation go beyond mere rejection or negation of people's rights and liberties; it has led to a variety of socio-economic and psychological implications for Afghans in general. These restrictions severely demographically remove fifty percent of the able workforce from the establishment’s eligible women, education, employment, and public interaction outlawed by the Taliban, thus significantly stunting the development of Afghanistan's economy and productivity. This not only worsens poverty but also hinders growth, as women are denied the ability to bring their talent and ideas into areas such as schooling, medicine, computer sciences, or governance. Additionally, the social cost affects women and girls more extensively since they are subjected to isolation, anxiety, and depression as a result of restricted mobility (UN Women, 2021). These environments have damaged mental health over the years, especially for young girls who have no chance of receiving basic education or socialization. These policies also have impacts at the family level since the culture has culturally negative implications on families since women become forced caregivers and providers under these austerity measures. This growing sense of oppression not only exacerbates the division between the genders but also engulfs society in fear and distrust, eroding the social capital needed for a strong and unified Afghan community.

According to Human Rights Watch listed in 2024 and Amnesty International listed in 2023, Afghanistan has an extreme backslide in women's rights including being barred from education, employment opportunity, and freedom of movement among others. The Taliban's Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice monitors and restricts dress codes, mobility, and interactions of women, diminishing their presence in society and depriving women of rights and opportunities. Such restrictions perpetuate stereotypes and limit female potentiality in society, effectively constricting women.

Munir et al, (2023) described the role of SES in education and life prognosis, where lower SES reported limited assets, low education, and inferior life gains. Likewise, through its policies, the Taliban recreates a low SES experience for Afghan women who cannot be educated, employed, or even shown images of the outside world that might inspire them to break the cycle of poverty and injustice. Munir et al also stressed the importance of family support to education success, however, Taliban limitations erode such support systems for women in Afghanistan depriving them and increasing their rates of anxiety and depression. The authors’ insistence on systemic change to address SES disparities speaks to the international intervention as the remedy to the socio-economic and psychological impact of these restrictions on women and girls in Afghanistan.

This paper hypothesizes that Taliban policies make women's situation even worse and are responsible for social failure. Social failure here could well be viewed as the degeneration of structures that support social advancement, justice, and personal liberty. When women are neglected in a particular society, the basic institutions disintegrate, meaning education, economic prospects, and social unity that lead to social unrest and economic failure. Such restrictions in the education system that controls the rights of women in Afghanistan, do not allow women in the country to acquire skills required to foster societal growth and when women are barred from engaging in the workforce, the country loses out on economic diversification as well as stability. These policies drive Afghanistan's society backward, preventing its development and ability to adapt.

According to this hypothesis, the actions of the Taliban not only limit people's autonomy, but also weaken the stability of the community by negating the foundations of education, economy, and social organization. In the short term, these policies reduce women and deny them the ability to contribute to such roles within society, they also deplete Afghanistan's potential for growth and stability in the future. Through reduced educational access, employment probabilities are also limited, hindering self-actualization and community progression causing poverty and inhibiting generational advancement. In addition, the limitation of liberty may exert more harm on the psychological well-being of women in Afghanistan and the general social fabric of Afghanistan.

Methodology

The research for this paper adopts both primary and secondary research techniques using a qualitative research design classified as exploratory research. The primary data was collected through interviews and questionnaires which were conducted on Afghan women with the assistance of NGOs and academic institutions. These interviews centered on the effects of the Taliban regime's decisions on the education, employment, and psychological well-being of women. To gather a broad picture, participants of different sex, age, and occupation, from different regions with different political and economic backgrounds, were interviewed which enabled the exploration of a broad range of views regarding the consequences of these policies. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International as well as the U.S Institute of Peace provide helpful information and substantiation of the data gathered. These sources can also support the testimonies as well as extend the discussion by showing overarching dynamics in Afghan society. These sources of information enable a better understanding of how the Taliban affects the lives of women and the consequences of such actions in Afghan society.

Analysis

Education

The Taliban’s policies have remained very unfriendly towards girls as they have downplayed women’s ability to education. Girls were expelled from secondary schools shortly after the Taliban’s rise to power, and women were prohibited from entering universities (Amnesty International, 2023). Moreover, other measures that have been taken by the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice like dressing codes and that a woman cannot travel without a male mate making women more or less abreast with education (Ahmadi, 2023).

According to the report, many girl-child were forced to be engaged as junior wives or house helps due to their inability to go to school (Simanjuntak, 2024). As a result of educational neglect, the right to education is infringed as women lack formal education that would otherwise lead to a better lifestyle or employment and political involvement. This educational repression is part of a worldview that opposes women's education, revealing a societal disposition that condemns the role and potential of women.

These educational restrictions working long term have major impacts not only on the individual's class opportunity but also on the development of Afghanistan's socio-economy. Through a conscious elimination of nearly half of the population from the formal education system, the Taliban deny the country a major part of its human capital. The report also shows that the economy of societies where women remain illiterate slows down because education empowers women and is a determinant of a country's productivity and growth (Human Rights Watch, 2024). Besides, during the evaluation of the opportunities for women's education and employment, the lack of such tendencies as the reduction of workforce diversity and the lack of advances in sectors like healthcare, education, and public administration caused by the absence of educated women is obvious. Societally, the effects are generational – schools provide minimal education to future mothers, and illiterate mothers will not be able to teach their children, leading to poor future generations. This denial of these rights continues to engender gender disparity and brings future developmental complications to Afghanistan’s stability and development in a broader society.

Employment

Women in Afghanistan have also suffered significant restrictions on employment prospects as well. Many women have been fired or at least received a practice called 'female serialization' which means that they need to have a male supervisor. Women constituted about 22% of the workforce in Afghanistan before the Taliban's comeback; almost all such women are out of the job now under the Taliban (Simanjuntak, 2024). Furthermore, the shutdown of beauty parlors, most of which had employed about 60000 women, can also testify to this by how the Taliban ensure that women do not engage in any economic activity. These policies not only dis-employ women, but they also affect the entire economy and increase poverty and societal crises. Thus, depriving women of the capability to work and earn their living, Afghanistan continues the process of economic degeneration and social destabilization.

The Taliban rules the elimination of women from the workforce has a wide ripple effect that results in the deterioration of economic opportunities and the social fabric of Afghanistan. Remove women from the labor market and the nation loses out on a potentially productive and creative portion of its society and thus loses more ground in the different industries. This exclusion deepens poverty levels throughout households as sources of income are lost and also increases the gap between men and women in the economy. In addition, the exclusion of women from the workplace especially in professional positions such as in schools and hospitals means there are service delivery hitches that compromise the well-being of the community. According to the Afghanistan Development Update by the World Bank (2024), employment restrictions based on gender, among other things, negatively affect economic growth and slow down progress in the fight against poverty.

Social Participation

The Taliban has put limits on the mobility of females, and as a result, they rarely visit parks, gyms, and other common places. These are prohibited by law to women and if they attempt to go there, they are harassed or even assaulted (Amnesty International, 2023). In addition, the Taliban imposed the condition that only male translators could be hired, and this impacts even female-only businesses such as beauty parlors limiting such women from assembling freely. Earlier, these places were social havens where women could socialize and turn for solace. Besides isolation and loneliness, this loss also led to worsening mental health issues for Afghan women. With reduced social interaction, and increased pressure from the immigration policies, rates of mental health concerns such as suicide have increased showing the high psychological cost of these policies (Ahmadi, 2023).

The Taliban's limitations on women's social activity have far-reaching connotations for Afghan society. These policies of reducing working women through limiting their mobility changes affect the basic human rights of individual freedom by restricting access to public domains and also damaging the societal structure that allows support for the community to thrive. The banishment of women from parks, gymnasiums, and other combinable places denies them vital locations where they can be able to exercise, play, frolic, and fellow so causing their standards of living to degenerate. Additionally, the effects of the quarantine limited the access that women had to beauty parlors and other businesses that were predominantly targeted at them, erasing spaces that women used to find company and friendship. This forced self-quarantine leads to more mental health disorders, such as anxiety and depression, and even suicides in extreme circumstances. WHO underlines the role of social support in mental health and the impact of social disconnectedness causing considerable psychological problems.

These two are not the only repercussions of restriction as it has socio-economic and psychological consequences on the society especially women in Afghanistan. The Taliban government’s agenda is one that erodes not only women’s rights and freedoms but also the very framework of mental health and social stability. Limitations to mobility significantly impact both male and female individuals with WHO underlining that support structures within communities that are will break up and detrimental to mental health and societal cohesiveness. Modern and progressive, the Taliban of 2021 has reverted to pre-2000s practices that exclude women from public life, deny them personhood, and unravel the social fabric of Afghan society. When social capital is eroded, the ability of the Afghan individuals and society to cope with social instability is reduced, and the roles and responsibilities of individuals in society are reduced significantly.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Taliban regime since its return to power in 2021 has negatively impacted women’s rights in Afghanistan. Women and girls have not been allowed to have education, work and be socially active; they provided gender discrimination the basis for making women and girls substandard in Afghanistan’s society and economy development processes. It also seems these policies with have lasting socio-economic and psychological impacts on the nation, which will lead to the deterioration of the country’s infrastructure and will not make it stable.

Solving these challenges is urgently required to design a more reasonable and efficient future for society. Afghan women and girls require the voice and advocacy of the international community today more than before to listen to them and stand for them. Future ongoing cultural promoting gender equality in Afghanistan focusing on sustained cultural approaches involving communities, international organizations, and the Afghan civil society after the Eleven.

References

Amnesty International. (2023). Women in Afghanistan: The Back Story. Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org.uk/womens-rights-afghanistan-history#:~:text=Our%20latest%20report%20has%20found,through%20the%20UN%20Security%20Council.

Human Rights Watch. (2024). The Taliban and the Global Backlash Against Women's Rights. Retrieved from The Taliban and the Global Backlash Against Women’s Rights | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)

Simanjuntak, T. R. (2024). Monica Mondiale Action in Afghanistan: Representing the struggle of Afghan women post-Taliban return in 2021. International Journal of Social Science and Education Research Studies, 4(2), 108-114. https://doi.org/10.55677/ijssers/V04I2Y2024-03

UN Women. (2021). Gender alert I: Women’s rights in Afghanistan: Where are we now? United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2021/12/gender-alert-womens-rights-in-afghanistan

Ahmadi, B. (2023, December 7). How the Taliban enables violence against women. United States Institute of Peace. https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/12/how-taliban-enables-violence-against-women

World Bank. (2024). Afghanistan development update: April 2024. World Bank Group. https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/18a1ccff0457effb0a456c0d4af7cce2-0310012024/afghanistan-development-update-april-2024