Afghan women are returning to live in the same conditions as they were 20 years ago. The archaic macho traditions have been imposed again and the international community is watching without response some women whose fundamental rights are being taken away
While more than once there are those who twist the gesture when it is confirmed that women have been the great heroines of history, the great sufferers, it must be recognized that it is true. And it is still being ratified at any time.
There is no evidence that matriarchal societies have been formed. Throughout history, social and political structures have prevailed in which men ruled, traded and exercised their will while ignoring their daughters, mothers and wives (and unfortunately still does).
In spite of everything, there have been women who manage to paddle against the current in a sea of masculine mediocrity. And that enormous and meritorious effort has led them in fits and starts to the recognition of equality.
However, that circle is not yet complete. Women are still discriminated against as if their only role is the guardian of the house and they resignedly accept deep-seated and archaic macho traditions that prevent them from acting, acting and deciding for themselves, growing as a person and showing their own will. .
The most inflexible model of recent decades has been that of Afghanistan. The Taliban have put women back in the same place they were more than 20 years ago by once again requiring them to wear the burqa and cover their faces in public and private.
In 1996, after a harrowing civil war, the Taliban, a group of fanatics formed in the madrasas of Pakistan, managed to conquer Kabul and impose their fundamentalism.
Afghan women were subjected to their reactionary yoke. From then on they had to hide completely behind the burqa, never go out alone and endure all kinds of injustice and discrimination that left thousands of them, war widows and without a male figure to protect them, the slowest and most terrible of torments: social misery.
The international charges of the NGOs made little sense. Until 9/11 came and everything changed: The US called Mullah Omar’s Afghanistan an enemy for protecting bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, the cause of the terrible attack on the Twin Towers.
Washington demanded its surrender and, given the refusal, proceeded to destroy the Taliban regime from the air, with the help of Northern Alliance rebels and special forces. The operation was a success and the Taliban returned to the caves from which they had come. Although bin Laden, a refugee in the neighboring country, took a long time to be found and executed, a different fate was already being laid for a complex, backward, multi-ethnic country so hard hit by violence.
From then on, there was intense involvement from the UN. International troops were deployed to pacify the rugged area and establish a liberal regime. Thanks to the substantial aid, they managed to rebuild some of the destroyed schools and hospitals and launch important vaccination campaigns, in addition to raising the living standard of the population by several points. And finally they managed to regain a substantial part of the rights, from Afghans in general and from women in particular.
Nearly twenty years later, in August 2021, the US decided to withdraw. He did not consider the political advantage profitable. The Taliban had regained control of large areas and the authorities in Kabul, consumed with ineffectiveness and corruption, were unable to prevent their advance.
The biggest and only fear was that the country would once again become a platform for international jihadism, this time at the hands of Islamic State (IS). Fortunately, the Taliban and ISIS are adversaries, and the Taliban had no problem fighting their rival.
However, the staggered and agreed-upon withdrawal was an absolute failure. It turned into a breakneck flight and the complete and utter bankruptcy of what had hitherto been achieved.
The Taliban advanced without resistance, with hardly any resistance. It was an outright success for them. The Taliban regime offered a friendlier face to the media. He promised to integrate women into his new emirate.
But the reality has been very different. In recent months, we’ve seen girls’ schools open only to close a few hours later. And as a final blow, on May 7, the Taliban leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, ordered all women to go in public with their faces covered. Even privately, when they meet men who are not related. Only girls and the elderly are exempt.
Anyone who does not comply with this measure can be imprisoned or his closest male relatives, if they are civil servants, can be fired. A draconian measure that, in plain sight, far exceeds the alleged crime.
Likewise, they are advised that it is best to stay at home. An invitation that comes with other restrictions, such as traveling or sharing the same space as men in parks. They are even forced to work under the guidance of a male tutor.
To put pressure on the Afghan government to correct its positions, countries and international organizations have long imposed economic restrictions on the emirate and frozen its assets abroad. But while this has further weakened the economy, paradoxically, the civilian population itself is suffering, whose standard of living has again bottomed out.
There is no easy solution. The international failure to make Afghanistan a state with certain guarantees has been absolute. Perhaps time will make it possible to decipher the causes, but what is clear is that reality once again transcends fiction.
What once caused us so much aberration and rejection, this brutal discrimination and mistreatment of women, has returned with the same force to its starting point.
This article was published in ‘The conversation
Source: La Verdad
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