The Taliban’s ‘women syndrome’

The Taliban’s decision to ban women from universities is shocking. It is a setback to expectations that this religious group, in its second incarnation, will have moderate stances while interpreting the Islamic Sharia, especially relating to the conduct and rights of women. The announcement was so abrupt that female students at the Nangarhar Medical University were forbidden from appearing in their final exams. The male students also boycotted the exams in solidarity with their female colleagues. In Kabul, the Taliban forcibly dispersed agitating female students while many were arrested.

Given the Taliban’s attitude so far, the year 2023 hardly holds any promise, at least for the women of Afghanistan. They are likely to treat the women as commodities, or as someone to toil and produce babies. One can imagine how an illiterate woman rears her children. In the Taliban lexicon, women are to be despised, their presence in public to be considered a symbol of sin and depravity. Hence, she has to be coerced and denied her rights, even those granted by Islam and society.

Since the Taliban took over, university classes began taking place under gender segregation. Female students were told to adjust their attire as per instructions, such as covering their faces and wearing dark colours. Women students were either being taught by women teachers or elderly males. However, this was not enough for the Taliban. Education Minister Neda Mohammad Nadeem said: “We told girls to carry proper hijab, but they didn’t; and they wore dresses like they are going to a wedding ceremony”. He offered bizarre logic about the subjects the girls were taught in the universities. He said, “Girls were studying agriculture and engineering, but this didn’t match Afghan culture. Girls should learn, but not in areas that go against Islam and Afghan honour.”

One may ask what the Taliban are trying to prove to the world, and what kind of image of Islam are they presenting through these coercive measures. Ironically, Islamic scholars have maintained a meaningful silence over the Taliban’s actions, which are becoming a sheer embarrassment for all Muslim countries. The Muslim world, especially the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), should take notice of the Taliban’s bullying, tainting Islam’s image, especially concerning women’s rights. Nowhere in the Muslim world are women denied the right to education and employment.

The Afghan minister’s argument over girls pursuing education in agriculture and engineering is grotesque and calls for questioning the mental health of a militia claiming to be the custodians of Islam and the Islamic way of life. Not only is education the birth right of every individual, man or woman, but they also have the right to choose any profession. Based on the minister’s logic, Afghan women should also be forbidden to work in agriculture, tend to cattle or fetch water from miles away.

Contrary to the Taliban minister’s claims that agriculture and engineering fields were against Afghan culture, Afghan women excelled at various fields when they got the opportunity. The Afghan minister’s views reflect a mindset in the Taliban hierarchy, which is utterly oblivious to the world, even by Afghan standards. There are certain restrictions on women in the Afghan culture, but it is not opposed to education. There are stories of fathers taking their girls to schools’ miles away on motorbikes or bicycles. Even when the Taliban announced a “temporary” suspension of secondary schools, hundreds of Afghan families shifted to Pakistan so their daughters could pursue education. With the imposition of last week’s ban on female university students, a substantive exodus of Afghan families to Pakistan and Iran cannot be ruled out.

Over eight million Afghans are refugees in over 90 countries because of their country’s unstable conditions, while over four million are internally displaced, living in squalid conditions. At least 90 per cent of the Afghan people are miles away below the poverty line. The Taliban government cannot provide relief to approximately 24 million who suffer from hunger and unemployment; children are the worst sufferers, as over five million are malnourished. Denying education to women in Afghanistan, at the bottom of global socioeconomic indicators, would further push the country into dark ages.

Afghanistan’s woes will likely increase in the coming future because of donor fatigue. After the withdrawal of US troops, Afghanistan has been off the radar as the Ukrainian crisis gained more attention from the West. For the West, the rehabilitation of eight million Ukrainian immigrants to European countries has taken precedence over the plight of Afghan people. In such a scenario, the Taliban’s action has further alienated an overwhelming majority of the nation.

The Taliban may have captured the country, but they have been unable to run it efficiently. While banning women’s education, they forgot how they would deal with women’s health problems if there will be no female doctors or technicians. It is an accepted fact that women make good teachers, including at the primary and secondary levels. Depriving hundreds and thousands of women from education will only add to the deprivation in an already ignorant society. A day after the ban on women students, the Taliban banned over 3,000 Afghan women from working with the UN and other donor agencies. Consequently, the donor agencies have suspended their work. This would mean more misery for millions of needy Afghans, particularly children.

The Taliban must realise that poverty is the biggest reason for social unrest and depravity. It is not higher education, which is the source of vice in society, but poverty that forces people to sell their babies, organs, or even their bodies. The poverty graph may rise further with negative consequences by pulling out hundreds and thousands of women out of jobs. Moreover, the kind of hijab the Taliban are trying to enforce on the women is not a guarantee to establish morality amongst Afghan women, particularly if they are deprived of livelihood.

The emerging security situation in the country does not offer a promising outlook for 2023. A Taliban isolated in the world and facing a restive population is bound to face hard choices. The religious militia’s harsh actions on social freedoms may become a rallying point for people across the board.

The Taliban are likely to face twin challenges in 2023; the growing attacks by the Islamic-State Khorasan (ISK) and Ahmad Masoud’s endeavours to garner support for his National Resistance Movement (NRM) from the former Northern Alliance allies. Some external help, for which many countries would be ready, may work as a catalyst to dislodge the religious militia. If the Taliban think they deserve to rule Afghanistan, they must listen to the voices of reason in the country and Afghanistan’s friends worldwide. However, they will have to come out of their “women syndrome” for that to happen.

The writer is a former Ambassador of Pakistan to Iran and UAE and is currently the Senior Research Fellow at IPRI