The Taliban now control most of the territory of Afghanistan and were at the gates of Kabul on Sunday August 15. 20 years after the end of Sharia rule, Afghan women and girls are particularly at risk.
Since Saturday August 14, 2021, the inhabitants of Kabul, Afghanistan, have been trying desperately to flee the capital. Twenty years after being ousted from power by the US-led coalition, and as US forces leave the territory on August 31, 2021, soldiers from the Islamist movement have entered Kabul after a flash reconquest launched in May 2021 On Saturday August 14, 2021, Afghan Head of State Ashraf Ghani spoke in a televised address. He claimed to have started consultations to find “a political solution.” But the next day, former vice-president Abdullah Abdullah announced that the head of state had left the country.
The inhabitants of the capital fear a terrible step backwards. The Taliban have invested the country for only ten days and already, many changes are visible. Local and international associations fear the abolition of many human rights, particularly those of women and girls, the main victims of Sharia law between 1996 and 2001.
In Afghanistan, images of women withdrawn from public space
On social networks, residents have relayed the already significant metamorphoses in the Afghan capital. During the day of Sunday, August 15, 2021, the stores closed gradually, police officers were seen exchanging their uniforms for civilian clothes. Worse still, in some neighborhoods, traders have removed images of women from their signs, like here, the billboard of a beauty salon.
In a testimony delivered to the Guardian, an afghan student tells about her day in kabul as she walked to class. “The taxi drivers wouldn’t let us get in their cars because they didn’t want to take charge of a woman’s transport.”, she says, before evoking the remarks of the men she met on her way. “Go put on your burqa”, “These are your last days on the streets”, “I will marry four of you in one day”, she heard on her way.
School forbidden for girls, women whipped and stoned … Afghanistan back to hell?
The arrival of the Taliban is therefore already changing the daily life of Afghan women. Between 1996 and 2001, Islamic law reigned. Women, for example, were not allowed to go out without a male chaperone, were not entitled to education and were prohibited from going to school. They also risked being whipped or stoned if accused of adultery. Men also suffered from Taliban violence: thieves had their hands cut off, murderers were executed in public, and homosexuals were murdered.
UN chief Antonio Guterres spoke of “an unimaginable tragedy.” “It is particularly horrifying and heartbreaking to see the hard-won rights of Afghan girls and women being taken away from them.” It remains to be seen what international support will be deployed to help Afghanistan. In France, a military operation called Apagan was launched this Sunday, August 15, 2021 with the take-off of two planes.
French Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly spoke on France Info. “We have organized on the basis available to us in the United Arab Emirates the reception conditions for the first evacuees, whether they are French nationals who are still in Kabul, but also those who are under our protection and that we will evacuate. ” The rest of the Afghan population is well and truly cornered.
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