Taliban Takesover Afghanistan
This week Taliban fighters entered Kabul, Afghanistan, as the US speedily evacuated diplomats from the embassy by helicopters. A Taliban declaration that was circulated online informed women that wearing a burqa is now mandatory in all public places. Key points of this developing situation and how it is affecting women's freedom to express is noted below.
- Most of women in Afghanistan have never lived under Taliban control and never owned a burqa. Under the Taliban rule women will most likely need to wear a burqa. The situation is developing and even though the rules are not clear nor enforced yet there is will bea good chance that women will be obliged to wear a burqa in all public places.
- Usually women living in countries under Taliban regime are not allowed to wear makeup, nail polish, have a job or go to school. They are not allowed to appear in the media or work.
- A university student Habiba said for Guardian: “My whole life has been about trying to show the beauty, diversity and creativity of Afghan women,... It’s like my identity is about to be scrubbed out....I stay up late at night, sometimes till one or two in the morning, worrying about what will happen. I am afraid that because I am rejecting the burqa, soon I will have to stay at home and I will lose my independence and freedom. “But if I accept the burqa, it will exercise power over me. I am not ready to let that happen.”
- During the Taliban regime in the late 1990s burqas were strictly enforced. Failure to wear one while in public could earn women severe punishments and public lashings from the Taliban’s “moral police”.