Anxious to display a reassuring face and to convince that they have changed, the Taliban pledged Tuesday at a press conference "to let women work in accordance with the principles of Islam", without bringing more details.
“For now, I see above all that many Afghan women are trying to leave the country.
They do not trust (in the Taliban) for reasons which are historical ”, estimates Julie Billaud, professor of anthropology at the IHEID of Geneva, specialist in Afghanistan.
"An idea of order which is very gendered"
During the five years in which they were already in power, from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban had imposed their ultra-rigorous version of Islamic law. Women were prohibited from going out without a male chaperone and from working, and young girls from going to school. Women accused of crimes such as adultery were whipped and stoned. “Women were also obliged to wear a burqa,” adds Julie Billaud. “The Afghan Taliban's reading of Sharia law reflects a very gendered idea of order. There is this vision that men and women have different places in society. The father is supposed to be one of the pillars to consolidate the Afghan society ”, continues the author of“ Kabul Carnival: Gender Politics in Postwar Afghanistan ”.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States, at the head of an international coalition, launched a military offensive in Afghanistan. "The operations were justified by the need to go to help Afghan women, it was a speech that was used in particular by Laura Bush, the wife of the president at the time," specifies Julie Billaud. Women were able to work, go back to school and study. “But for the majority of Afghan women, especially those outside the big cities, life has not improved. Their conditions remained absolutely terrible, ”says the professor.
The girls were able to go back to school and the women to pursue higher education.
"A quota of 25% of women in the Afghan parliament was established and a ministry of women's affairs was created, adds Julie Billaud, but these humanitarian gifts offered by the international community were poisoned gifts, in a way", maintains the researcher.
"There was an injunction to make women visible, but there has been a tightening of Afghan nationalism around a fairly conservative version of Islam."
As soon as women mobilized the discourse of women's rights, they could be associated "with the occupiers.
"There will undoubtedly be restrictions"
After taking power on Sunday, after a swift ten-day military campaign, the Taliban said they would respect women's rights, be allowed to receive education and work, and that the media would be independent and free. "There will undoubtedly be restrictions", tempers Julie Billaud. Thursday, an Afghan television presenter said that she had been prohibited from working for her channel this week, after the seizure of power by the Taliban in her country, and called for help in a video posted online.
"Women are not going to give up, they are always present and they will continue to resist, in their vision of the place of women in society, they are going to organize themselves, they have always done this in different ways", concludes Julie. Billaud.