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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/nov/14/women-girls-afghanistan-taliban-repression-interviewed-photographed-100-afghan-women>
"Earlier this year, I spent 10 weeks travelling with the photographer Kiana
Hayeri across seven provinces of Afghanistan, speaking to more than 100 Afghan
women and girls about how their lives had changed since the Taliban swept back
to power three years ago.
Hayeri and I both lived in Afghanistan for years, and remained here after the
Taliban took control in August 2021. In the past few years, we have seen
women’s rights and freedoms, already severely curtailed, swept away as Taliban
edicts have fallen like hammer blows.
In just over three years, Afghan women have been banned from nearly every
aspect of public life: schools, universities, most workplaces – even parks and
bathhouses. From Kandahar, the birthplace and political headquarters of the
Taliban, the group’s leaders have dictated that women must cover their faces in
public, always be accompanied by a man and never let their voices be heard in
public.
As foreign women, we still carried the rare privilege of freedom of movement
(although I doubt we could now travel as we did at the beginning of this year),
which has nearly disappeared for the 14 million Afghan women and girls across
the country. Meeting women while ensuring their security was a daily challenge.
Each province we travelled to revealed different shades of oppression. In some
areas – in the south and east in particular – women were already living under
very restricted conditions before the Taliban’s official return, with many
saying that now, at least, there was no more violence. In other places, the
sudden loss of freedom has been devastating.
For many, the Taliban’s refusal to allow girls to attend secondary education
has been the hardest blow.
We met Gulsom, 17, who survived a suicide attack on her school just a few
months before the Taliban came back into power. Severely wounded and left
unable to walk, she must now use a wheelchair and had to continue her studies
at an underground school.
But Gulsom insisted: “My will to study and work hard has increased.”"
Crimes against Humanity which Trump enabled.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
