Afghanistan must celebrate Women's Day in silence

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An Afghan woman waits for treatment at a World Vision makeshift clinic in Herat, Afghanistan

Photo: Mstyslav Chernov / AP

In Afghanistan, International Women's Day was celebrated in silence on Tuesday.

Since returning to power last summer, the radical Islamist Taliban have drastically curtailed women's rights - reversing decades of advances in women's rights.

Women have been ousted from public service, are no longer allowed to travel alone and are required to dress in accordance with a strict interpretation of the Koran.

"If you care about women's rights, wherever you are, then you should be watching Afghanistan with great concern," Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch told AFP.

"It is shocking to see how quickly the progress of the past 20 years has been reversed and how little the international community has done to advocate for Afghan women."

The human rights organization Amnesty International also warned that the rights of women and girls had been significantly restricted in the past twelve months.

Amnesty International also cites the situation in Afghanistan as a particularly drastic example, where, despite courageous protests across the country, women and girls are now being treated as "second-class citizens" who are being deprived of the right to education, for example.

The Taliban have at least officially recognized International Women's Day.

The Foreign Ministry of the Taliban leadership described it as "auspicious" and added that women in Afghanistan would be given "an honorable and profitable life in the light of the noble religion of Islam".

Taliban spokesman Sabihullah Mujahid wrote on Twitter that the day was "a great opportunity for our Afghan women to claim their legitimate rights."

In practice, however, this may be difficult, as the Taliban have made protests without a permit a punishable offense and in recent months have cracked down on demonstrators who dared to take to the streets.

Several women were beaten or arrested, according to the Washington Post newspaper;

some have disappeared.

Shortly after taking power, the Taliban government also abolished the Ministry of Women's Affairs and replaced it with the dreaded "religious police": the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

International Women's Day events planned by women's groups had to be canceled due to a ban by the Taliban: The activists of the Woman's Unity and Solidarity Group had originally announced that they would let balloons rise together.

"Because of the restrictions placed on us, we couldn't do that," a member told AFP.

"Now everyone will do it at home."

Some members of another group, called the Afghanistan Powerful Women Movement, said they wanted to donate blood at a hospital, but the Taliban refused permission.

"The director of Jamhuriat Hospital said that blood donations by women are not allowed under Sharia," said activist Sakia Sahadat.

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