Afghanistan, after the Taliban takeover, is a waiting game. And for Afghan women, the waiting game is agonizing. <\/p>\n
The last time the Taliban held power, in the late \u201990s and early 2000s, repression was a feature of their rule. This was especially true for women. Girls could not attend school; women could not hold jobs or leave their homes without a male relative accompanying them. Those who defied the Taliban\u2019s directives and their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam were punished, often brutally, with floggings or beatings.<\/p>\n
The US invasion of Afghanistan after the 9\/11 attacks put the Taliban\u2019s worldview under scrutiny. The war became about more than terrorism; things like the expansion of women\u2019s rights became embedded within the US mission there. In November 2001, first lady Laura Bush said the Taliban\u2019s retreat meant \u201cthe people of Afghanistan, especially women, are rejoicing.\u201d In 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a group of female Afghan ministers: \u201cWe will not abandon you, we will stand with you always.\u201d<\/p>\n
Twenty years later, the United States is departing, and as it executed those plans, those earlier justifications fell away. President Joe Biden has said, in the military drawdown, that the US objective in Afghanistan was to defeat terrorism there. He said last week, \u201cthe idea that we\u2019re able to deal with the rights of women around the world by military force is not rational.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sentiment comes 20 years late, after the mess of two decades of conflict and the still-unfolding fallout of the US\u2019s military intervention. All of it leaves Afghan women facing a precarious future, once again, under Taliban rule \u2014 and a question of what role, if any, the US has in that future. <\/p>\n
The US used women\u2019s rights to help justify the invasion of Afghanistan<\/p>\n
The uncertainty facing Afghan women comes after 20 years of US intervention \u2014 which itself followed decades of foreign intervention by the Soviet Union and others \u2014 where women\u2019s rights were packaged as another justification for the war in Afghanistan. The gains were real, if uneven and often tenuous, undermined by the insecurity that the decades-long conflict brought.<\/p>\n
The struggle for gender equality didn\u2019t start with the US arrival in 2001: Women in Afghanistan fought for their rights long before the Taliban arrived in the 1990s, and some Afghan women\u2019s activists opposed the US intervention.<\/p>\n
But women\u2019s rights got inserted into the rallying cry for war regardless of whether Afghan women wanted them, and at times, they became a cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre. \u201cThe fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women,\u201d Laura Bush said in November 2001, a few weeks after the US invaded Afghanistan following the 9\/11 attacks. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe central goal of the terrorists is the brutal oppression of women \u2014 and not only the women of Afghanistan,\u201d President George W. Bush said in December 2001, around the signing of legislation for Afghan women and children. \u201cThe terrorists who help rule Afghanistan are found in dozens and dozens of countries around the world. And that is the reason this great nation, with our friends and allies, will not rest until we bring them all to justice.\u201d <\/p>\n
Saving Afghan women from the Taliban also helped make the case for continued US war, said Saadia Toor, a sociology professor at the CUNY College of Staten Island. Even among lawmakers who generally support the withdrawal, hints of that rhetoric continue today.<\/p>\n
The US intervention brought attention and it brought development money, much of it well-meaning but not always suited to success. Afghan women did enter public life in a way that was impossible during the Taliban\u2019s rule. \u201cThe most drastic shift with respect to women\u2019s rights came formally, legally, constitutionally, and how they manifest within the formal sectors,\u201d said Maliha Chishti, former director of the United Nations\u2019 Hague Appeal for Peace and professor at the University of Chicago. Women\u2019s rights were enshrined in Afghanistan\u2019s 2004 constitution; women held a certain percentage of seats in Parliament and entered sectors like law, government, and media.<\/p>\n
International aid \u2014 severely limited during the Taliban\u2019s rule \u2014 improved some social, economic, and health outcomes for women. Girls and women had access to education, though the instability and Taliban resurgence in recent years has threatened that. In 2020, of 9.5 million students, just shy of 40 percent were girls, according to USAID.<\/p>\n
Still, when it came to women\u2019s rights, they were most tangible in cities like Kabul, which, Chishti pointed out, were also the centers of international funding and foreign militaries that could protect those efforts. Meanwhile, grassroots efforts led by Afghan women sometimes conflicted with what Toor called \u201cNGO-ized feminism\u201d \u2014 think conferences on women\u2019s empowerment and other kinds of Western-values activism that wasn\u2019t sustainable and didn\u2019t necessarily fit with Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Mariam Wardak, an advocate and former senior Afghan government official, pointed out that for traditional, religious, and cultural reasons, in many parts of Afghanistan \u201cthere is a resistance for women to speak out, for women to hold a certain structure in our society.\u201d <\/p>\n
And as the war ground on, the US commitment to women\u2019s rights sometimes visibly waned. Amie Ferris-Rotman, who reported for Reuters from Afghanistan for two years and founded an organization to mentor and train Afghan women journalists, noted for Vanity Fair that \u201cthere have long been signs of betrayal\u201d of America\u2019s stated commitment to women\u2019s rights:<\/p>\n
\nThere was the time a senior American official described issues of gender as \u201cpet rocks in our rucksack taking us down.\u201d Then there was the method deployed by the CIA of exchanging Viagra pills for intel on Taliban whereabouts, so that, in the words of an Afghan journalist friend, \u201cold men can rape their wives with America\u2019s blessing.\u201d Let\u2019s not forget the polemic two years ago by academic Cheryl Benard, wife of the Afghan-born American Taliban negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, chastising Afghan women for not fighting for their rights, which they are not owed \u201cby someone else\u2019s army or taxpayer dollars.\u201d And when Joe Biden was asked last year by CBS if he bears \u201csome responsibility\u201d should Afghan women lose their rights under a Taliban takeover, the U.S. president responded to the reporter, Margaret Brennan, with \u201cNo, I don\u2019t!\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Ultimately, one of the biggest challenges to women\u2019s rights in Afghanistan was years of war. It\u2019s hard to get girls to go to school when they\u2019re displaced by airstrikes or their schools are getting blown up. The Taliban\u2019s advance across the country in the past years meant women in positions of authority were often under threat of kidnapping and violence. <\/p>\n
Yet the full return of the Taliban deepens that threat, and threatens to stall or unravel the progress Afghan women have made. Zubaida Akbar, a 31-year-old Afghan activist who\u2019s been in the United States for three years, said the lives of Afghan women have improved, even if that improvement has been slow.<\/p>\n
Zahra Nader, a journalist and PhD student from Afghanistan who\u2019s based in Canada, said the US talked about \u201csaving Afghan women from misogynist forces, this gender apartheid.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat did not happen,\u201d she said. \u201cThat did not happen at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, she said, she went to school, she went to university in Kabul \u2014 an opportunity she recognizes that many other Afghan women did not have. But she and other Afghans were working to determine what came next for their country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were hoping that we\u2019re going to build a society, we\u2019re going to build a better future for Afghanistan, and we will be the ones that decide the future of the country,\u201d she said. But she argued that US intervention, whatever the justifications, was always about US interests, and those are what prevailed: \u201cWhat was going on in Afghanistan wasn\u2019t really our choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
And now the women in Afghanistan are left to deal with the consequences of that, collateral in a war outside their control. \u201cThe international community has failed us,\u201d Akbar said, \u201cand they have made it clear that our lives don\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
What the waiting game is like with the Taliban\u2019s return<\/p>\n
The Taliban have sought to rebrand themselves as a bit more moderate, especially with the world watching. The Taliban spokesperson has assured the public that women would be allowed to go to work and school, \u201caccording to Islamic law.\u201d Part of the waiting game is seeing in practice what \u201caccording to Islamic law\u201d really means.<\/p>\n
This week, the Taliban spokesperson has made assurances that \u201cthere will be no violence against women.\u201d Few believe him. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe see them as how we know them,\u201d Akbar said. \u201cThe Taliban are who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are already signs the Taliban are who they always were. One TV news anchor in Afghanistan said she was turned away from work. \u201cYou are not allowed, go home,\u201d she said she was told. <\/p>\n
As they began retaking territory, the Taliban reportedly sent home female students and professors in Herat. A female university student in Kabul told the Guardian that she would have \u201cto burn everything I achieved in 24 years of my life. Having any ID card or awards from the American University is risky now.\u201d There are reports of the Taliban going door to door looking for any unmarried woman between the ages of 14 and 45 to marry off to Taliban soldiers. A few women I reached out to in Afghanistan declined to speak because they said, almost uniformly, that they are afraid. <\/p>\n
\u201cWomen are not even leaving their homes because they don\u2019t feel safe,\u201d Lida Azim, an organizer with Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, said. \u201cThey might be allowed to go to work or school, but it\u2019s a huge intimidation tactic.\u201d <\/p>\n
Akbar\u2019s volunteer organization works with children who have lost their parents, often from conflict, and with mothers, including some who\u2019ve escaped domestic violence. Her group connects people with support services like counseling, medical checkups, and food. The goal, Akbar said, was to create social reform through volunteerism. As the Taliban rushed through Afghanistan, the work stopped. \u201cBecause of the type of work that we were doing, our volunteers do not feel safe continuing to work in Afghanistan, unfortunately, and their lives are at risk,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Others who work with nonprofit organizations or networks in Afghanistan also do not know what will happen to their female staff and volunteers. They fear that if the humanitarian situation worsens in Afghanistan \u2014 banks are closed, services are scarce, thousands of people were displaced by the Taliban offensive, the threat of hunger looms \u2014 those services will be desperately needed. Some said they are still unsure whether or how their ability to deliver aid might be affected and what that means for the families who rely on it.<\/p>\n
But defiance accompanies this fear and uncertainty. Afghans, despite the threat of violence, have protested the Taliban takeover. Women are among them, leading them. <\/p>\n
Even women who are intimidated are trying to go to work. Wardak, who also founded HerAfghanistan, a network of women in Afghanistan, mentioned one girl in her network who went to her job last week in Kabul. \u201cShe went \u2014 terrified. But she went,\u201d Wardak said.<\/p>\n
Nader said that even if women couldn\u2019t go to their jobs, they are leaving their homes, just to go outside. They go with a sense of fear, not knowing what is going to happen or what the reaction of one particular Taliban soldier might be, she said. \u201cBut they do go out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust to tell [them] that we are here, we are not gone,\u201d Nader said. <\/p>\n
Some Afghan activists told me they see this as an opportunity for women to push back, especially as the world is watching. \u201cRight now, because Taliban wants international recognition, we have to push boundaries to see how far we can go,\u201d Wardak said. <\/p>\n
The Taliban will need foreign money if they want to stay afloat. This could be a place of leverage, as international legitimacy will depend on whether the Taliban meets its commitments on human and women\u2019s rights. At the same time, activists worry that sanctions or other policies to put pressure on the government will trickle down and increase the suffering of the Afghan people.<\/p>\n
Activists said they still want the Taliban held accountable, but the US and coalition allies have ceded some of their leverage as they depart. Military intervention did not bring lasting peace or democracy or rights. But that does not mean the United States or the rest of the world can wash its hands of it all. <\/p>\n
Getting those under Taliban threat out should be an international priority<\/p>\n
Akbar spent last week fielding calls, filling out visa forms, writing letters. After one day of this, when she looked at the spreadsheet she uses to record her efforts, she counted more than 100 people, all desperate to leave Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Many of the people she is trying to help are women, though not all. The return of the Taliban has put many lives at risk, including those who worked with the US military or coalition forces or international organizations or the Afghan government. Ethnic and religious minorities also face real threats. Women, of course, cut across all those categories or are associated with those who do. There are also the women who became leaders in the past two decades \u2014 activists, advocates, and political leaders, who fear they may become direct Taliban targets. They can\u2019t, activists say, stay in Afghanistan and be safe.<\/p>\n
Which is why many activists say that what many women need most in Afghanistan is a way to exit, as soon as possible. \u201cThe lives of these women are at risk,\u201d Akbar said. \u201cThey will get killed if they stay in Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n