Taliban do not see women as human beings, Malala Yousafzai says

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/taliban-not-see-women-human-beings-malala-yousafzai-says-rcna187355

24 comments

  5. Why did Trump surrender Afghanistan to these backwards clowns? And why did American voters forget that he did? Oh right…rightwing billionaires have bought up enough of the mainstream media that people just don’t know this.

  6. >Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai decried the state of women’s rights in Afghanistan as “gender apartheid” on Sunday and urged Muslim leaders to speak out against the Taliban government’s repressive policies on women and girls’ education. 

    >“Simply put, the Taliban in Afghanistan do not see women as human beings,” she said, speaking in Islamabad during a summit on advancing girls’ education in Islamic countries, organized by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Muslim World League.

    >The Pakistani education activist added there was “nothing Islamic” about the government’s policies, which ban teenage girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade and women from attending university.

    >Yousafzai, 27, also urged the attendees, which included dozens of ministers and scholars from Muslim nations, to “openly challenge and denounce” the Taliban by recognizing gender apartheid as a crime against humanity under international criminal law. 

    >“In Afghanistan, an entire generation of girls will be robbed of its future,” she said. “As Muslim leaders, now is the time to raise your voice, use your power.”

    >Gender expert and Wilson Center Fellow Gaisu Yari told NBC News that “Malala took a bold step by engaging with Muslim leaders, understanding that their influence could have a significant impact when addressing the Taliban.”

    >Afghan representatives did not attend the summit.

    >Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid declined to comment, telling NBC News, “We don’t want to comment on Malala Yousafzai’s remarks about us.”

    >The Taliban has stated that it will use its own interpretation of Afghan culture and Islamic law, known as Sharia, to guide its policies on women’s rights.

    >Afghanistan is now the only country in the world that bars women and girls — nearly 1.5 million Afghans — from accessing secondary and higher education.

    >Since it swept back to power in 2021, the Taliban has systematically stripped women and girls of their fundamental rights by passing laws that restrict access to education, work and freedoms of movement and speech.

    >In December, it banned women from training as midwives and nurses, effectively ending women’s only available access to further education and putting women and children’s lives at risk.

    >Earlier this month, it passed another order that prevents residential buildings from having windows where women can be seen while at home.

    >For women, living in Afghanistan is “akin to living in a prison” Yari said.

  8. Yeah, and it’s a real bummer. What are we supposed to do about it? We gave Afghanistan a democratic government and a military, and a bunch of sheep herders with AK-47s were able to dismantle it all in a month or so.

  10. Agreed. And I do not see the Taliban as anything other than brutal thugs masquerading as a “legitimate” governing body.

  13. A wonderful memoir to read by a successful activist for Afghan women’s rights (until the recent surrender to the Taliban) is “Last to Eat, Last to Learn” by Pashtana Durrani. It’s particularly interesting as she is the daughter of a tribal leader (Khan). I read this right before “The Girls in the Wild Fig Tree” by Nice Leng’ete (a successful Maasai anti-FGM activist), and the *patience* these women had, to work within the culture of abuse, with respect, was incredible. And that’s what it seems to so often take for effective change. Durrani also shows windows into how the new Afghan coalition government was so weak, due to endemic corruption and western misunderstanding/bureaucracy.

  14. They probably see them as those things in dune, something about a walking womb?

  15. Turning women into breeding stock seems to be an idea shared by many religions. I will never understand that mindset.

  20. Religious fundamentalists from Abrahamic religions will never see women as people.

  21. “The Taliban has stated that it will use its own interpretation of Afghan culture and Islamic law, known as Sharia, to guide its policies on women’s rights.”

    The Taliban keeps trying to use their religion, culture and traditions as an excuse to why everyone should accept what they are doing to their own women. This is not any of those, this completely new. There has never been a government that has done this to their own female citizens. Not in the middle ages, not in the stone age, not in Victorian times. This is truly horrific.

  23. Not happy how things turned out in Afghanistan, but until the people of Afghanistan want a different form of government and are willing to fight for it, nobody else can do anything for them. America tried for 20 years and ultimately failed. The people of Afghanistan have to want change, nobody else can force change upon them in the long run.

  24. And rather than fight it, some key countries are taking the Talban’s lead and increasing the oppression of women to their own countries. A tale as old as the oldest profession. Crushing women. When will enough be enough?

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