By Rukhshana Media
“Taliban rule has had a devastating impact on Afghan women and girls,” a new report by human rights organizations said on Tuesday.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Human Rights Institute at San Jose State University (SJSU) have studied the conditions of living for women in the southeastern province of Ghazni since the Taliban took over on August 12, three days before the fall of Kabul. The report documented the Taliban’s violation of women’s rights by imposing policies that “created huge barriers to women’s and girls’ health and education, curtailed freedom of movement, expression, and association, and deprived many of earned income.”
“Taliban policies have rapidly turned many women and girls into virtual prisoners in their homes, depriving the country of one of its most precious resources, the skills, and talents of the female half of the population,” Heather Barr, associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch said in a statement by HRW.
“Afghan women and girls are facing both the collapse of their rights and dreams and risks to their basic survival,” said Halima Kazem-Stojanovic, an Afghanistan scholar at the SJSU’s Human Rights Institute.
The report is based on interviewing ten women in Ghazni who worked outside the home or were students.
Almost all the women interviewed in the report said they had lost their job, felt insecure and threatened, and had suffered from the Taliban intimidation and extortion. The report states that the escalating poverty and oppression have a huge physical and mental toll on women.
The report comes a day after a group of UN experts warned that the Taliban are institutionalizing “systematic gender-based discrimination and violence against women and girls” in Afghanistan.
