By Rukhshana Media
On Thursday, women in two separate gatherings in Kabul and Panjshir provinces called on the Taliban and the international community to stop violence against women in Afghanistan.
In the first gathering, a small group of women in the provincial capital of Panjshir, Bazarak, chanted: “Stop violence against women. Don’t eliminate half of the population.”
The protestors who appear to be walking in a park, hold placards with slogans, “Stop violence against women”, “Why is the world silent?”
“Exclusion of women from society is the biggest violence against them. We are asking the international community and United Nations to stop the violence against women in Afghanistan,” said one of the protestors from Panjshir who spoke under a pseudonym, Arghawan.
Another group of women gathered in a house in the Afghan capital, Kabul to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women by raising alarm about the increased violence against women in Afghanistan since the Taliban’s lightning take over in mid-August.
“We are marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women at a time that women in Afghanistan are facing violence every day and at different levels of society,” said Zahra Mohammadi, a woman activist in a video of the gathering shared with Rukhshana Media.
“This is the most violent time for women in Afghanistan,” said one of the participants of the gathering who did not provide her name. “Women are suffering from psychological violence. They have lost their jobs, their rights to work and education,” she said.
As these women are warning about the increase in the level of violence against women in the country, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said that nine out of 10 Afghan women experience at least one form of domestic violence in their lifetime.
