Aanchal Mishra
... Read More
By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. Cookie Policy.
Written By: Aanchal Mishra | Updated : September 2, 2024 7:31 PM IST
Women Under Taliban Banned From Speaking In Public (Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)
Amid the Vice and Virtue Ministry of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan banning women from speaking in public places, United Nations Women reports a distressing number of rising mental health crisis among Afghan women. The UN Women representative Alison Davidian while briefing journalists in the New York over video conference on the misery of Afghan women, unfolded the hardships women face every day under Taliban regime.
Talking about the world's attention diverted to the two on-going wars namely, Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine, Alison said," while the world's attention may have turned elsewhere, the horrors have not stopped for Afghan women and girls."
Soon after dethroning Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and taking over Kabul, the Taliban imposed a ban on women education, barring them from entering schools and colleges. In its three years of rule, Taliban has 'erased' women from public life, imposing a strict hijab, barring them from working in nonprofits, from entering parks, gyms or markets without a male family member and now even forbidding them from speaking in public citing a woman's voice is deemed intimate and so should not be heard singing, reciting, or reading aloud in public.
With no reproductive rights, maternal healthcare and basic civil rights, hardship of women in Afghanistan is beyond imagination. According to the UN Women report, 68 per cent women and girls in Afghanistan are living with "bad" and "very bad" mental health.
Majority of women and girls under Taliban regime suffer from anxiety, depression, post-natal depression and an increased tendency of suicidal intentions. All these are being driven by social isolation and ban on women's basic civil rights.
Almost 8 per cent of Afghan women reported to knew at least one woman or girl who had attempted suicide. Domestic violence, honor killing and threat of getting stoned to death drives young women in Taliban ruled Afghanistan to commit suicide.
The UN report also sheds light on the alarming number of declining reproductive and maternal health in women. Prohibiting women from universities and workplaces, from going out alone and a stricter mobility restriction have increased the rate of maternal mortality and morbidity.
"Our analysis shows that by 2026, the impact of leaving 1.1 million girls out of school and 100,000 women out of university correlates to an increase in early childbearing by 45 per cent and an increase in maternal mortality by up to 50 per cent," Davidian stated.
Women are forced to give birth at home without proper maternal care. Not only this, but the Taliban also last year, imposed ban on selling and buying of contraception, threatening shopkeepers from selling them, depriving women of their reproductive rights.
Rejecting the UN concerns over the recent ban on women in Afghanistan, the spokesperson of Taliban responded, "If any non-Muslim expresses concern or rejects these laws, they should first educate themselves about Islamic laws and respect Islamic values. We consider such objections to Islamic Sharia as disrespectful."
