The Impact on Women by the Taliban

2174 Words9 Pages
The Taliban were holding women back in society due to their laws, treatment, and attitudes regarding them. Women under the Taliban were mistreated, degraded, and discriminated against. We need to make people aware of the deprivation and suffering that Afghan women faced under the Taliban. Women before the Taliban had decent lives compared to the lives they would lead under the rule of the Taliban. In the latter part of the 20th century, women were making steps forward, being granted the right to both employment and education. Women were key participants in the economy, holding positions as: doctors, engineers, and teachers. “Before the Taliban's takeover, Afghan women were: 70% of school teachers, 50% of civilians in the government workforce, 60% of teachers at Kabul University, 50% of students at Kabul University, and 40% of doctors in Kabul” (Hanford, Cindy). It was during the Taliban’s five year rule that women’s rights to education were revoked. “On September 27, 1996, the Taliban, an extremist militia, seized control of the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, and violently plunged the occupied territories of Afghanistan into a brutal state of gender apartheid in which women and girls have been stripped of their basic human rights” (Taliban & Afghan Women: Background). The laws for women under the Taliban left them virtually no rights or freedoms. The impact of the Taliban imposed restrictions was most acutely felt in cities such as Kabul, where women had enjoyed relatively greater freedoms. “When the Taliban took over the capital city of Kabul in September 1996, it issued an edict that stripped women and girls of their rights, holding the Afghan people hostage under a brutal system of gender apartheid” (Hanford, Cindy). One of the Taliban’s edicts in 1997 called for a nationwide ban on public education for all women and girls. They closed schools to

More about The Impact on Women by the Taliban

Open Document