Women in Afghanistan

Maybe they [women who were executed by the Taliban] were guilty of the worst of all crimes: to laugh. Yes. Laughing. I said laughter. Didn't you know that with the Taliban in Afghanistan women can't laugh, that they are even forbidden to laugh? ~ Oriana Fallaci

Women's rights in Afghanistan have been varied throughout history. Women officially gained equality under the 1964 constitution.

Quotes

• In Afghanistan, we see al Qaeda's vision for the world. Afghanistan's people have been brutalized -- many are starving and many have fled. Women are not allowed to attend school.
  • George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress (20 September 2001)

• The Taliban at least brought peace to the country.… Where were they [Hollywood personalities] when all these women were being raped, when women were being killed because they were not following the Muslim Brotherhood? Where were they before the war when women didn't have rights? Where were they throughout the war when women were rotting in the refugee camps? For nearly 20 years in Afghanistan there has been no law, no order. We lost almost 2 million people to the Russians. The women don't want to be saved.… Finally they have peace, and people in America find religion on the issue of women in Afghanistan?
  • Leila Helms, in Washington Post (30 March 1999) "A Cause Unveiled" by Sharon Waxman

• Maybe they [women who were executed by the Taliban] were guilty of the worst of all crimes: to laugh. Yes. Laughing. I said laughter. Didn't you know that with the Taliban in Afghanistan women can't laugh, that they are even forbidden to laugh?
  • Oriana Fallaci . The Rage and the Pride (2002)

• What will now happen to the women of Afghanistan? When asked if women’s rights will be respected, the Taliban governor of the Andar district in Ghazni province, Mawlavey Kamiil, said: “We assure this to people all over the world, especially the people of Afghanistan: Islam has given rights to everyone equally. Women have their own rights. How much Islam has given rights to women, we will give them that much.” Similarly, a member of the Taliban’s cultural commission, Enamullah Samangani, has promised that women “should be in the government structure according to Sharia law”. This caveat is important: women will only have the rights afforded to them by Islam. ....
  Over the last several days, I’ve wept bitter tears for the women and girls whose futures are now blighted through no fault of their own. I have felt an overwhelming sense of impotence, even as I have personally tried to help get vulnerable people out of Kabul. But this sense of impotence is now giving way to a feeling of anger and of renewed purpose.
  • Ayaan Hirsi Ali , Biden’s most heartless betrayal Aug 2021

• "In the eyes of Taliban, women are not living, breathing human beings, but merely some meat and flesh to be battered," ..."They first torture us and then discard our bodies to show as a specimen of punishment," Khatera said. "Sometimes our bodies are fed to dogs. I was lucky that I survived it."
  • Khatera, a female victim, quoted in [1][2]

• Nearly 90 percent of Afghan women suffer from domestic abuse, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women. Despite that, there are less than a dozen shelters like this one in Afghanistan, usually run by non-governmental organizations. Abusers are rarely prosecuted or convicted, and most women are afraid to say anything. "Their mothers are beaten by their fathers. They're beaten by their fathers, by their brothers. It's a way of life," said Manizha Naderi, director of WAW.
  • CNN, Afghan women hiding for their lives