From the "household item" to animal status: what fate awaits Afghan women

Despite the promises of the new Afghan authorities to somewhat "democratize" public life, while remaining within the framework of Sharia law, the fate of women in this country is of serious concern. Psychologist Yulia Diaghileva reminds her readers of the contents of the book of Afghan writer Khaled Hosseini "A Thousand Splendid Suns", which describes in great detail everyday life in Kabul under different regimes - under the rule of the Shah, under a short democratic regime, after the April 1978 revolution, during the Soviet intervention , under the Mujahideen and, finally, under the Taliban (a terrorist organization banned in Russia), who seized power in 1996.

“The novel describes the fate of two women and Afghanistan is shown through their eyes, with utmost reliability. All the despair and hopelessness of women who themselves hand over their children to orphanages so that the children do not die of hunger, because the Taliban forbade women to work, and widows, whose husbands died in a series of wars, lost any opportunity to feed their children.

So it will be now. All bans for women will return. Yes, I read on the news that today the girls in Kabul went to school, and the "new Taliban" are promising to "respect women's rights". They say there will be no such strict restrictions as in the late nineties.

I even read some expert who says that it will be so, nothing, they say, terrible. The entire Islamic world, the expert says, and the Taliban are also guided by Saudi Arabia, and there, over the past twenty years, they have made progress on women's rights!

Well, yes, I agree, of course, we have made some progress. Literally in 2017, the status of women in the SA was raised. Until recently, women were considered household items there, and since 2017, women have been equated with pets - isn't it progress?

(No kidding, you can google it.)

Today the girls of Kabul went to school, but will they be going to school in a week? A month later?

“Respect for women's rights” from the Taliban has already been expressed in the order on the mandatory wearing of the hijab.

And a little later, "respect for women's rights" will take its usual forms, I'm sure. As it was under the Taliban last time.

- women were prohibited from education. Girls up to eight years old could study. I learned the letters, can sign, if that, well, that's enough.

- women were forbidden to work. In general, absolutely. If you are a widow with children, die of hunger. The Taliban then published articles in the press that about 30,000 single women received benefits so that they did not have to work. But there are more than 17 million women in Afghanistan.

- women were not allowed to leave the house unaccompanied by a man. Nowhere, not to the store, not to the hospital. No man - die of hunger.

- women did not have the right to receive medical care from a male doctor. Given that education for women is prohibited, there are no female doctors by definition. What to do? Well, remove your appendix on your own. Or die. Not from appendicitis, but from pneumonia or a host of other diseases that become fatal if left untreated.

- For nail polish, women cut off their thumb. They were publicly beaten for the sandals on their feet. For attempts to work underground, they were executed.

(I wonder if someone will come running into the comments with the traditional "women choose to wear the hijab"?)

In other cities of Afghanistan, captured before Kabul, it is already quite possible to see the return of these orders. In July in Kandahar, the Taliban expelled all women who worked there from Azizi Bank offices - "your male relatives will work for you".

The terrible news about how the Taliban are taking "in marriage" twelve-year-old girls, I think everyone has already read.

The mayor of the Afghan city of Maidan Shar, Zarifa Gafari (pictured), was unable to leave the country and in recent days she has been posting piercing messages on Twitter, realizing that she will be killed and she cannot prevent it and she has nowhere to run.

... The action of the novel "A Thousand Splendid Suns" ends in 2002, when the main character returns to Kabul, liberated from the Taliban, from Pakistan, where she managed to escape. She sees the city rebuilding, schools and museums reopening. She gets a job as a teacher, believing that only education can protect the country from obscurantism.

Hosseini's heroines are fictional, but I can't stop thinking about the same living ones who have lived in Kabul for the past twenty years.

Obscurantism has returned and now no one will protect them..."