Despite international pressure to ensure gender equality in Afghanistan, the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group that regained control of the country in August, announced on Sunday (26) that women can only travel long distances as long as they are accompanied by a man. from your family.
The regime led by the group has also ordered drivers to only accept women in their vehicles if they are wearing the Islamic headscarf, according to the new list of rules released by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, an arm of the Islamic Emirate — how the Taliban call themselves the regime.
The ban on travel for unaccompanied women is valid for distances greater than 72 kilometers, according to a spokesman for the folder told the AFP news agency. The measure adds to an umbrella of other rules that have curtailed the rights of Afghan women in recent months, such as the ban on playing sports.
For Heather Barr, director of the women’s rights division at the NGO Human Rights Watch, the new rule helps to reveal the grim outlook of what the Taliban think about women’s rights. “This order advances in the direction of turning women into prisoners,” the researcher told AFP.
The fundamentalist group did not detail when the rules began to be implemented, but this Saturday (25), Taliban militants installed barriers in some parts of Kabul, capital of the country, to inform drivers about the matter.
Since retaking power in the Central Asian country after the withdrawal of Western troops, the Taliban has adopted restrictions on the rights of women and girls, although it has made promises of moderation, saying the regime would be less rigid than when the group ruled the country for the first time, from 1996 to 2001.
So far, the group, which finds itself under pressure internationally as well as nationally, with frequent attacks from the Afghan branch of the Islamic State, has loosened some women’s rights but maintained pressure on others. The United Nations conditions the release of international aid to the country, which is on the brink of economic chaos, on the guarantee of gender equality, among other things.
Earlier this month, the group published a decree stating that women should not be considered property and should only marry if they consent to the marriage, not by coercion by family members or acquaintances. On the other hand, there are multiplying reports of regions that prohibit women from working, even though female labor is crucial for the Afghan economic recovery.
The United Nations has already warned of the proximity of a “famine avalanche” in Afghanistan and considers that 22 million of the 40 million Afghans could suffer acute food shortages during the winter in the Northern Hemisphere (summer in the Southern Hemisphere).
The UN Security Council adopted, last Wednesday (22), unanimously, a resolution proposed by the United States to facilitate humanitarian aid to Afghanistan for a year, in a kind of humanitarian exception that does not overturn the sanctions raised.
The resolution establishes that the payment of funds and the provision of goods and services necessary to respond to the country’s social needs are authorized in order not to violate the sanctions and constantly monitored so that they do not run the risk of being under the control of the fundamentalist group, but yes from NGOs and from civilians.
Deputy US Ambassador to the United Nations Jeffrey DeLaurentis said the exception was intended to facilitate aid to the Afghan people. “But it is not a blank check for organizations that violate their international obligations,” he added, speaking to AFP.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, for his part, said the measure represents an important step towards mitigating the serious economic situation facing Afghanistan. “It is a step that deserves recognition and that helps the Afghan people a lot.”
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