The Silent War: Women’s Rights in Afghanistan
In a recent press conference, President Joe Biden announced it is “time to end America’s longest war,” and unveiled his plans to leave Afghanistan by September 11, 2021. But what does a missing American presence look like for the future of women’s rights in Afghanistan?
With the United States now slowly leaving Afghanistan, the Taliban’s power is growing, and education for many women and girls is at risk. The Taliban has a chilling legacy; according to the Brookings Institution, “During the 1990s, the Taliban not only brutally imposed social restrictions on women such as mandatory burqa coverings, but, more fundamentally and deleteriously, restricted their access to health care, education, and jobs. They prohibited women from appearing in public spaces without a male chaperone, de facto sentencing widows and their children to starvation. The regime destroyed Afghan institutions and the economy, which was already devastated by decades of fighting and the Soviet scorched-earth counterinsurgency strategy. The resulting immiseration critically affected women and children. And, except poppy cultivation and opium harvesting, the Taliban prohibited women from holding jobs, including working as doctors for other women.” Even more concerning, for many women, reality has not changed much. Gains have been unequally distributed. Not long after President Biden’s announcement to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, senior officials reached out to a local schoolteacher and warned her to be “extra careful.” She decided that putting her family and life at risk was simply not worth it. Her classroom is now empty; she teaches to no one. “We are threatened, we are banned from our activities, we are not authorized to work,” she said.
As the United States and its NATO allies quietly leave the region, they leave an impact louder than ever. Fears are growing about what will happen next in the country, and many Afghan natives fear that the Taliban will once again rise to power through sheer force or deals with local governments. The Taliban is known for its notorious system of gender segregation which began when the group took control in the late 1990s, which bars girls from opportunities such as the right to vote, work, and access to education.
“All the time, women are the victims of men’s wars. But they will be the victims of their peace, too.”
Against sound military advice, President Biden has still chosen to leave Afghanistan — this choice leaves Afghan women to wonder, “what will happen next?” The Taliban currently controls about 60 percent of the country, which is the most territory the group has ruled since 2001. Afghanistan is still ranked as the worst place in the world to be a woman. As one Afghan woman states, “we’re all handcuffed in this country.” Women in Afghanistan struggle to live their lives freely and with dignity, but as in all war-torn zones, women are at the epicenter of the conflict. Despite many donor efforts, campaigns, and government interventions, an estimated two-thirds of women in Afghanistan still do not attend school, with another eighty-seven percent are illiterate. Moreover, another seventy to eighty percent of young women are forced into marriage before the age of 16. According to a September watchdog, the report called the “USAID’s $280 million Promote program – billed the largest single investment that the U.S. government has ever made to advance women’s rights globally – a flop and a waste of taxpayer’s money.”
The fact of the matter is, women’s rights are at the center of this war: In Herat, the province in western Afghanistan which shares a border with its neighboring country, Iran, the region has one of the highest rates of violence against women and some of the highest rates of suicide among women in the country. In a recent TIME Magazine article, psychologist Naema Nikaed said, “she handles several cases of attempted suicide every week. Most go unreported due to fear of tarnishing a family’s honor.” And according to a female Afghan government official, “The government wants to say they’re prioritizing women, but they’re really not. Supporting women in Afghanistan is something people all over the world pay lip service to, but money and aid never get to them. It’s eaten by corruption, the monster of war.” When President Ashraf Ghani was asked by a TIME reporter why approximately two-thirds of girls are still out of school, he essentially blamed the numbers on ill-conceived, misguided Western aid efforts that fail to acknowledge the realities on the ground.
“Instead of economic, social, and political empowerment, Afghan women in rural areas—where an estimated 76 percent of the country’s women live—experience the devastation of bloody and intensifying fighting between the Taliban and government forces and local militias.”
As the United States is reducing its military presence on the ground in Afghanistan, the Taliban still has a firm grip on the battlefield. While the United States quietly exits the war-torn region, a question still looms, “what is the fate of Afghan women and their rights?” The Bush administration embraced women’s empowerment, and during the Obama administration under then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the administration pre-negotiated that the Taliban must uphold the Afghan constitution and uphold and protect women’s rights. But during COVID-19, this narrative has dramatically changed. Violence in the region has led to increased fighting during the pandemic, which is projected only to worsen.
Afghan women have much to lose if the government and the Taliban cannot negotiate a female-friendly agreement. The international community must do more to address the grave mistake that has been made. In a world where the United States has now begun withdrawing from Afghanistan, there is still more work that needs to be done and many discussions that must commence regarding the fate of women’s rights in the region. Although the United States has formally chosen to withdraw its military forces from Afghanistan, it still maintains a sense of responsibility to uphold a female-centered focus on women’s rights foreign policy in the region. An example of this was modeled during the NATO International Security Assistance Force. Female-focused foreign policy, which focuses on raising the status of women and girls, has been shown to “increase GDP, improve global health, combat radicalization and extremism, improve the chances of lasting peace, and strengthen democracy,” according to Foreign Affairs. Furthermore, the United States has a moral imperative to set even the most minimal standards of acceptable women’s and human rights situations. If these standards are not met, the United States can and should refuse to provide economic aid to the Afghan government. For instance, if the Afghan government denies female citizens the right to vote or attend school, the United States could respond by withholding aid from the country based on a systemic failure to uphold women’s rights.
Although the United States and its allies slowly withdraw from the region, this does not leave them powerless. In fact, the United States continues to retain a firm grip over the Taliban — which includes economic aid to the region, which it can withhold if the country fails to uphold women’s rights. Most importantly, the United States should preserve and protect defenders and those who speak out against the Afghan government and the persecution women face on a day-to-day basis in the country, whether through economic or political support. This can be done by supporting Afghan NGOs, which have seen a dramatic decrease in Western funding over the past several years — their projects can include providing housing for women, job fairs, and crucial medical aid to women in rural villages. The bare minimum is simply not good enough, and the international community — especially the United States — must do more to preserve and protect the women of Afghanistan and lift the dark veil that has encompassed them and their rights for years. The time to build a better future for all women is now.