Taliban Under Human Rights Radar For Violating Rights of Afghan Women

Afghan Women: According to a new list produced by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Taliban are "rolling back" rights for women and girls in at least 32 different areas.

While denying access to school has been the most high-profile form of discrimination, HRW claims that prejudice occurs in many aspects of women's lives, as reported by The Telegraph in the United Kingdom.

Heather Barr, the acting director of Human Rights Watch's women's rights division and a leading expert on Afghanistan, said the Taliban were violating women's and girls' rights in a variety of areas, including education, employment, freedom of movement, dress, gender-based violence, access to healthcare, and sport.

The report goes on to say that the list includes anything from the closing of virtually all of the country's women's shelters for those escaping domestic abuse to barring women from visiting male healthcare experts, severely restricting their access to healthcare. Freedom of movement is a major problem.

Between 1996 and 2001, while the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, women were only allowed to leave their houses if they were escorted by a mahram, or male family member.

Although this has not been made a national policy, HRW research with women in the city of Herat last week revealed that Taliban officials and fighters on the streets were enforcing it at random.

The list goes on: The Taliban's cabinet, for example, has no female members, and while the Ministry of Women's Affairs has vanished, the Ministry of Vice and Virtue - renamed the Ministry of Guidance and Call, and better known as the morality police - has reappeared.

Taliban militants in Herat have also harassed women for not wearing gloves and barred them from participating in sports; and, according to Barr, the system to combat gender-based violence, as well as the laws to combat it, have largely failed.

Many brave women have protested despite the dangers, despite bans, beatings, and harassment. Working women also face an unclear future, according to the report, with the Taliban firing all female employees in the Kabul administration save that deemed indispensable, such as the ladies who clean the female bathrooms.