It’s now been almost three years since the Taliban took power.[iii] And for most Afghan women and girls, almost each one of the days since 15 August 2021 has brought a deterioration in their rights, condition, and social and political status.
The Taliban’s beliefs and grievances are fed by decades of conflict and their interpretations of religion fall heaviest on women. Afghanistan remains the only country in the world with a policy to ban girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade. Women are restricted from working outside the home, except for a few sectors and particular roles. Women are required to have a male chaperone (mahram) when they are travelling more than 78 kilometers, but women tell us that in some cases, they’re asked for a mahram when travelling much shorter distances. Women human rights defenders continue to be targeted and arrested.
Afghanistan once had a constitution that enshrined gen[1]der equality and laws that made violence against women a crime. Today there are no such laws. There are no women in cabinet and there is no Ministry of Women’s Affairs, effectively removing women’s right to political participation[iv]. At one point, women were running for all kinds of public office including President. Today, they can’t even run in a park or join a gym. Previously, women were visible in all their diversity – they were doctors, journalists, governors, and lawyers to only name some. Today, the result of the Taliban’s decrees is that women’s faces, voices, and perspectives are almost nowhere to be found. Women have effectively been erased from public life.
Afghanistan before the Taliban wasn’t perfect for women – far from it. But it wasn’t this.
Some women have told me that Afghanistan feels safer now – they’re less afraid of indiscriminate attacks and relieved the conflict has subsided. But safety comes at the expense of agency – and for most women this price is too high.
How do we battle this level of normative erosion? How can the UN show leadership in challenging a regime that wants to take Afghanistan back to a time where women were kept in their homes and rendered invisible, without education, work or hope?
We go back to basics. We invest in women – their empowerment and the protection and promotion of their full rights.
As a global system, we are far more comfortable talking about protecting women from sexual violence than, for example, insisting on their participation in peace and political processes. But participation across all sectors, and at all levels is crucial. Because it’s only when women are given opportunities to access and exercise their rights to health, education, justice, and public life that we can truly challenge the social behaviours and beliefs that give violence against women, and other forms of gender inequality its power.
There are numerous economic and development facts and figures that seek to explain how Afghanistan got to where it is today. For me, one of the most telling statistics is that from 2005 to 2020 Afghan women were excluded from 80 per cent of peace negotiations. Most recently, the United States – Taliban Doha agreement in 2020 not only excluded women, but also any references to safeguarding women’s rights.
When we wonder how we got to a place where girls can’t go to high school, and women can barely leave their homes, this statistic is a major part of the story. We cannot protect women without empowering them, and we cannot empower without mechanisms for protection. It cannot be an either/or. It must be both.
Women all over Afghanistan say they will not give up and accept their systematic exclusion from public life and the restrictions on their right to learn, gain income and have a voice. Despite the challenges and the ongoing rights violations, Afghan women are finding ways to carve out pockets of hope for themselves and their communities every day. Women are continuing to run businesses and sell their products. Women of all ages and backgrounds are leading civil society organisations and finding new ways to address community needs. Women are continuing to deliver health and protection services.
It is critical that we continue to invest in every pocket of hope and that we exercise principles of leadership by doubling down our efforts instead of turning away or acquiescing when there is push-back. We must put our political will and funding behind our solidarity with Afghan women – funding women’s organisations, entrepreneurship and leadership, supporting services for women, and creating spaces and platforms for Afghan women to be heard from directly.
Nowhere in the world has UN Women’s mandate been more challenged, our reason for being more questioned, and our impact more scrutinised than in Afghanistan. When I’m in my darkest moments, and it feels overwhelming I remind myself that the struggle for women’s rights in Afghanistan is part of something bigger. It is the struggle of every woman who yearns to live a life of her own choosing. We belong to a global women’s movement that includes those who have been through too much to be tamed or broken, seeking the same goals so that all this experience and storied history is behind every Afghan woman and girl. This movement is more powerful than any military or weapon because it’s founded on a truth that is both simple and revolutionary – that men and women in all their diversity are equal and that our societies thrive when that equality is fostered, invested in, and celebrated.
As leaders in a protracted crisis, we need to play a long game that goes beyond three-year projects or our individual tenures in a country, potentially spanning generations. Demonstrating leadership against a background of normative erosion requires structural and institutional commitment and action. It requires not just UN Women but every UN agency to go ‘back to basics’ and invest in women. The challenges are too great for any individual, agency or actor to find solutions alone. This is the beauty and the power of ‘one UN’ – using our different mandates and access to collectively push for positive change in the lives of women and girls, anchored on their voices and priorities and our principles.
This article has been initially published in ‘The Art of Leadership Report: Our duty to find new forms 2024’, produced by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, read the full report here.