Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Aug 18
Afghan Women Face 5 Years of Deepening Taliban Repression as UN Study Shows Rarely Leaving Home
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Aug 18

Afghan Women Face 5 Years of Deepening Taliban Repression as UN Study Shows Rarely Leaving Home

3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Aug 18

Summary

  • Five years after the Taliban’s Aug. 15 return to power, Afghan women say conditions are worsening, with bans on education, work, speaking in public and showing their faces.
  • A recent UN Women study cited in the latest debate found most women in Afghanistan leave home only once or twice a month, underscoring how far they have been pushed from public life.
  • Critics say calls to engage the Taliban or expand aid without first addressing women’s rights would chiefly benefit men, because the restrictions fall overwhelmingly on women and girls.
  • Advocates are pressing for stronger backing for Afghan civil society, tougher accountability efforts and recognition of gender apartheid as a crime against humanity.

Insights

As the ICC targets Taliban leaders, will international pressure finally crack the regime's gender apartheid, or just deepen Afghanistan's isolation?
With millions of girls barred from school, how can foreign aid reach those in need without secretly funding their oppressors?