By Rukhshana Media
The Taliban’s restrictions on women are one of the main causes of hunger and poverty, said a group of protesters in the northeastern province of Badakhshan on Thursday.
A group of women who gathered in an indoor space in the Keshem district of Badakhshan province asked the Taliban to not exclude women from society.
“We ask the Taliban to respect our rights to work, education, and freedom,” Samea Amiri, one of the protesters, told Rukhshana Media in a phone interview. “The Taliban must allow women to work because a majority of [working] women are the breadwinners of their families. Some are widows and do not have a male breadwinner,” she said.
“With the Taliban’s return … women are marginalized and deprived of their human rights,” Somaya, another protester, told Rukhshana Media.
“Poverty has soared because of the Taliban restrictions on women; there are many families who don’t have male breadwinners and since women have lost their jobs, families have further fallen into poverty,” she added.
The protesters said if the Taliban won’t listen to their demand, they would take it to the streets.
In another indoor gathering on Wednesday, a group of women in Pol-e Khomri, the capital of northern Baghlan province, protested the Taliban’s gender discrimination.
They too reiterated the demand of women protesters across the country: Food, Work, and Freedom.
The protesters in Baghlan and Badakhshan provinces, demanded the international community to not recognize the Taliban government.
When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in mid-August, they effectively banned millions of teenage girls and women from education and work. Soon after, women took to the streets to oppose Taliban policies. However, the Taliban responded with violence to repress protests, and even beating and torturing the journalists who covered the protests.
Due to the Taliban’s violence and repression , now most of the women’s protests take place indoors.
