The Taliban are increasing the oppression of women in Afghanistan. Experts see a mixture of power calculations and strong tribal traditions behind it.
Armed Taliban fighter and Afghan woman on the street in Kabul
After the Taliban closed women's access to universities and banned them from working in foreign aid organizations, they took further measures to suppress women in Afghanistan. Adela (not her real name), a teacher who until a week ago taught at a private education center in Kabul, lost her job due to the Taliban's new bans and is now forced to stay at home. Initially, the Taliban “only” decreed that women were not allowed to go into the city without a male escort, Adela told DW. This has now been tightened: in some provinces they are only allowed to leave the house on certain days, namely Wednesdays and Thursdays. Taxi drivers have been instructed not to take any female passengers with them.
Locked out: Afghan female students in front of Kabul University < /p>
Many Afghan women fear that it is only a matter of weeks before they are completely banished to their homes. The Taliban leadership appears to have closed their eyes to any outside criticism of these draconian measures. It claims to only faithfully implement Islamic law. However, even other Islamic countries such as Pakistan or Saudi Arabia have criticized the education ban for women.
Constructive state building without priority
They accept the fact that the Taliban, with their misogynist measures, are preventing or at least greatly delaying the economic reconstruction of Afghanistan. “They are a terrorist group and not a state leadership for which the well-being of the population is decisive,” theologian Mohammad Mohaq from Cairo's Al-Azhar University told DW. From the start, the Taliban, with the support of other states pursuing their own goals, were aimed at destruction, not reconciliation and state building.
Despaired by deserted classrooms
Asadullah Nadeem, an Afghan political scientist who used to teach at a private university in Kabul and now lives in exile, points to a special feature of the Taliban's Islamic legal practice: the Pashtun tribal traditions and customs have priority. That is why there are discrepancies between what they consider right and what is generally regarded as Islamic. “The Taliban follow a backward, primitive and extreme ideology, which in most cases does not correspond to Islamic values,” says Nadeem. The Taliban leaders only accepted Sharia, which is in accordance with local and Afghan traditions.
IS puts pressure on the Taliban
In addition, the Taliban have to fend off competition from the Afghan branch of the so-called Islamic State, IS-K, which wants to set up its own emirate in Afghanistan. The IS-K repeatedly carries out attacks on institutions and places of worship the Shia Hasara, whom he regards as infidels. Since the Taliban ended the war against infidels after taking power, the IS-K is becoming more attractive to particularly fanatical Taliban fighters, says Nadeem. It is therefore important for the Taliban leadership to keep these fighters in their ranks by introducing extreme Sharia-based measures. “The leaders of the Taliban know that their grip on power in the country will not last long,” says Nadeem. “They want their fighters to stay motivated to face the armed resistance.” Not only the IS, but other terrorist groups are active in Afghanistan. At the same time, isolated members of the National Council of Resistance (NRC) were still fighting the Taliban. Should the Taliban lose fighters to the IS, this could become a big problem for them.
Mohammad Mohaq from Al-Azhar University says that in addition to jihad, very secular motives also play a role in IS-K: namely envy of the Taliban, who rewarded themselves with money and women after they seized power. According to the theologian from Cairo, the IS fighters would also like to have such worldly rewards for the divine war.
Criticism from civil society
In the meantime, however, even in Afghanistan, representatives of civil society, who have previously defended the policies of the Taliban and justified the group's achievements, are criticizing the ban on education for girls and young women. For example, by Najibullah Jame, a lecturer at a private university in Kabul who has since resigned. “The government's decision is not justified,” he told DW. “It will set Afghanistan back even further and lead it into a dark future.” He demands that the Taliban should reopen schools and universities to women as soon as possible.
Afghan women demonstrate against the university ban for women
Within a few days, several university professors resigned in protest. The lecturer Ismail Mashal tore up his university diploma in front of the camera on the news channel ToloNews. Students at Kabul Polytechnic University, Afghanistan's largest engineering college, also went on strike. To prevent further protests, the Taliban closed several universities and increased their military presence in the streets.