By: Rukhshana Media
Women in Afghanistan are taking to online forums to condemn the Taliban restrictions on their education and livelihoods as street demonstrations are violently suppressed.
On Sunday, a video of the Afghan Women’s Movement for Justice was being widely shared showing black-clad women chanting slogans against the Taliban and calling on world governments to close the group’s political offices in Qatar.
The women, in the video seen by Rukhshana Media, introduce themselves as the school building team of the movement, and they condemn the Taliban’s recent ban on women’s education and work.
Chanting slogans ‘We don’t want the Taliban,’ ‘Afghan women don’t recognize the Taliban,’ and ‘Recognizing the Taliban is a disgrace to the world,’ the women say they’ve been forced to take their protest indoors.
They also call on the international community to stop whitewashing the Taliban group and to impose sanctions on their travel.
The Afghan Women’s Movement claims to have 30 secret schools set up throughout Afghanistan, teaching girls from grade 7 to 12, in defiance of the Taliban’s decree closing schools for girls.
A second video shared online introduces a group of women as Afghanistan Women’s Resistance. They announce the launch of a protest campaign they’ve dubbed “Az khana tha khiaban, barae sarnegoni Taliban” which translates in English to “From home to street, topple the Taliban” in response to the ban on women working in non-government organizations (NGO).
The video seen by Rukhshana Media, a woman shows a placards that says “I am the sole breadwinner of my family, but I don’t have the right to work because of the crime of being a woman”.
A second protester holds a placard that says “I am a government employee, but I do not have the right to work because I am a woman”.
Similarly, more protestors show placards stating a basic right they are denied, for simply being a woman. They urge other women to join their campaign to fight for their rights.
Women are moving their protests off the streets after some claimed the Taliban are still looking for some public demonstrators, with the help of local shopkeepers and business owners.
Since taking control of Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban has imposed extreme restrictions on women and girls. They recently banned women from working in NGOs and have closed girls’ education at all levels across the country.
In one of the latest restrictions, the Taliban’s Directory of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Balkh province is forcing all female business owners and sellers in the city centre to cease trade at the market.
