What are the conditions of women in Afghanistan, and how do they view the U.S. military campaign and the possible political options in Afghanistan?

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FAQ Index buttonSince the Taliban seized military power in 1996, Afghan women have been living under what many describe as "gender apartheid." Taliban rulers abrogated the most basic rights for Afghan women, obligating those in areas of tight Taliban control to live under virtual house arrest. The new edicts did the following:

  • Banned women from the work force;
  • Closed schools to girls in cities and expelled women from universities;
  • Prohibited women from leaving their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative;
  • Ordered the publicly visible windows of houses painted black to prevent outsiders from seeing women in their homes;
  • Forced women to wear the burqa, a billowing and stiflingly hot head-to-toe shroud that leaves only a small mesh-covered opening through which to see;
  • Denied women and girls admittance to most hospitals and from being examined by male physicians, while prohibiting most female doctors and nurses from working.

Women have been beaten, publicly flogged, and killed for violating Taliban decrees. Under international pressure, the Taliban made some slight changes, allowing some women doctors and nurses to work, permitting some hospitals to create segregated wards for women, and tolerating some home schools for girls in Kabul and other cities.

The Taliban justified these abuses in the name of religion and culture. But according to others, the Koran bans infanticide and provides for a woman's right to be educated, choose a husband, divorce, inherit property, and engage in business. The Koran does not require that the hands, heads, and faces of women be covered. The Taliban's gender apartheid, probably the most restrictive in the Islamic world, has been denounced by Islamic scholars and groups around the world.

Particularly in urban areas, women had considerably more freedom prior to the Taliban rule. In Kabul, women did not wear burqas and 70% of school teachers, 50% of civilian government workers, and 40% of health care workers were women. At Kabul University, more than 50% of students and 60% of teachers were women. In 1964, Afghanistan adopted a constitutional democracy that included universal suffrage, an equal rights amendment for women, and equal pay provisions.

In areas controlled by the Northern Alliance, there are no religious police and laws are less onerous, but the freedom of women has been constrained by conservative cultural and moral customs. Women have fared only marginally better in the areas controlled by the opposition Northern Alliance. Families (typically, the men) decide if women should wear the burqa, and few women work outside the home or shop in the markets. RAWA (Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan), a political organization of Afghan women, denounces both the Northern Alliance and the Taliban as "fundamentalists" responsible for "trampling women's rights, human rights, and democratic values." RAWA has called on the United Nations to remove its recognition of the Northern Alliance government and not fill the seat until a legal and representative government has been established in Afghanistan.

The Los Angeles Times reported that many women in Afghanistan initially welcomed the U.S. offensive as their best hope for a freer life. Zohal Zarra, head of the Association for Islamic Women in Gulbahar, 45 miles north of the capital, believes many women will join the fight against the Taliban "even if they take up stones or sticks or boiling water." Women inside and outside Afghanistan have supported the call to convene a loya jirga or traditional grand council of Afghans to create a new broad-based government to end ethnic, sectarian, and gender discrimination. There are, however, women who support the Taliban. In Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, which abuts Afghanistan, women and girls mainly from poor- and lower-middle-class families attend some 100 religious schools (madrassahs) that teach Islamic fundamentalism. Those interviewed expressed support for jihad, and a willingness to sacrifice their sons as majahids and martyrs in a war with the United States.

Sources for More Information

Ritu Sharma and Robert Gustafson, "Operation Enduring Freedom?" FPIF Commentary, November 1, 2001
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/0111afghwom.html

As`ad AbuKhalil, Women in the Middle East, FPIF Policy Brief, September 2000
http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol5/v5n30women.html

Sharon Lerner, "Feminists Agonize Over War in Afghanistan What Women Want," Village Voice, October 31 - November 6, 2001.
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0144/lerner.php

Physicians for Human Rights, Women's Health and Human Rights in Afghanistan, September 2001.
http://www.phrusa.org/campaigns/afghanistan/Afghan_report.html

Human Rights Watch, Humanity Denied: Systematic Violations of Women's Rights in Afghanistan, October 2001.
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/afghan3/

Websites

Feminist Majority
http://www.feminist.org/

RAWA
http://www.rawa.false.net/

FemAid
http://www.femaid.org/

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