The human rights of women and girls in Afghanistan have been under constant and cruel siege by the Government of fact of the Taliban. In recent weeks, however, the restrictions have taken on unusual proportions: the Law for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Viceissued in August 2024 —the morality law―, prohibits women from speaking in public, considering that the female voice should only be expressed in an intimate environment, and even prevents them from singing publicly.
When you read this news in the press, the first impression is that it could be fake news because of how absurd and extreme it is to think about vetoing such a normal and typical expression of human essence and dignity, as well as a fundamental right. Sadly, it’s real. This law is one more component of a society model based on measures of progressive dehumanization of women and girls.
Although previously the Government de facto In Afghanistan they had already tried to erase and silence women in public spaces, now we witness a literal and no longer just metaphorical silencing.
Rigid rules also for men and minorities
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s morality law orders women to “completely cover their bodies and faces and not speak or sing loudly in a way that people outside their family can hear.” It should be noted that men and boys are also subject to rigid dress standards whereby they must cover themselves “from the navel to the knees.”
The law criminalizes and persecutes LGTBIQ+ people and restricts the rights of religious minorities, among other measures, prohibiting non-Islamic ceremonies and also prohibiting association with non-believers, thereby affecting not only women and girls—half of the population—but also to non-Muslim ethnic and religious minorities.
It has been emphasized by people who study the shariaincluding Muslim feminist organizationsthat these types of perspectives are a misinterpretation of Islam and do not authentically represent Muslim religious doctrine.
The law of morality—condemned by activistsmedia, UN independent human rights mechanisms and different United Nations bodies, including the Security Council, with the notable absence of China, Algeria and Russia—also includes discretionary powers to apply severe punishments for non-compliance, further increasing a social climate of fear and uncertainty.
While outrage over the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan is crucial, it is also essential to understand it not as an isolated event in a single country, but as a symptomatic situation—certainly one of the most serious—of the setbacks and attacks on gender equality at a global level.
This being so, Afghanistan is a test for the international community, its founding values and its red lines: the reaction to this reality will show the way in the face of (potential) acts of gender oppression in other parts of the world. Evoking Martin Luther King, “we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silences of our friends.”
It is remarkable and moving to witness the responses of the Afghan women who, completely covered in body and face, have been recorded on videos circulated on social networks, singing as a way to challenge the regime of domination. The fight for gender equality and justice has been supported by different public figures, including Malala Yousafzai2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner, herself a survivor of being shot in the head at the age of 14 by Taliban fundamentalists as a result of her defense of girls’ right to education.
Crime against humanity
The reality of Afghan women and girls can be characterized as gender persecutiona crime against humanity prosecutable by the International Criminal Court. It has been suggested that the institutionalized and systematic discrimination, segregation and subjugation that they experience also has the condition of apartheid gender and that must be explicitly recognized as such by international law.
Three years after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, it is crucial to continue supporting the struggle of Afghan women and standing in solidarity with his movements. This can be done in concrete ways such as financing organizations led by women, disseminating their proposals, recognition by third countries of the legal status of refugees for those who flee and helping to amplify their voices and their hope, still alive, of that another Afghanistan, and another world, are possible.
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