How long will women be allowed to breathe?
Afghanistan: women’s rights continue to be restricted.
The systematic eradication of women from public life continues with a new Taliban decree. Nevertheless, the USA and Germany, for example, continue to finance humanitarian aid projects. What do Afghan women's rights activists say about this?
Current
Under no circumstances may women be seen from outside through the windows of a house. If the kitchen has a window, they are not even allowed to cook near it. This is the latest bad news from Afghanistan. In a new decree, the Taliban leaders have banned the installation of windows in residential buildings through which areas used by women could be seen. According to the decree, new buildings should not have windows through which “the courtyard, the kitchen, the neighbor's well and other places usually used by women” can be seen. This is because: “Seeing women working in the kitchen, in the courtyard or fetching water from the well can lead to obscene acts”, the decree states. In the case of existing windows, owners are to be encouraged to build a wall or block the view “to avoid harassment of neighbors”.
The current decree is the latest in a long series of bans. In August, a new “virtue law” stipulated that women must cover themselves completely with a thick black cloth in public and in the presence of unrelated men; not even their hands may be visible. The religious leader also approved that adulterers and homosexuals may be publicly stoned to death again (see my report). Women are not allowed to make noises or talk to each other - not even in the house. A post on “X” lists other restrictions imposed by the Taliban since they took power in August 2021. Women are now forbidden to
go to high school or university
work in the civil service
attend a protest
travel abroad
drive a car
travel alone
ride in a taxi
speak in public
speak loudly inside your house
sing
read the Quran aloud in public
speak to a male doctor
play sport
exercise in the gym
go to the park
wear bright clothes
wear high heels
look at men they don’t know
show their faces in public
Own a smartphone
How many men will stand by their wives, at least within their own four walls, to endure their confinement and lack of rights? And how many might even rebel against their disenfranchisement? Probably few - because of the pressure and threat from the Taliban. In addition, many believe what the Taliban teach, for example that women have less sense and are not good believers, as one man says in a post on “X”. One of the rare counterexamples is Ismail Mashal, a professor at Kabul University. In a post on “X”, he tears up his diplomas during a live broadcast to protest the ban on women’s university education.
Afghanistan as a tourist destination
As the public eradication of Afghan women continues, the New York Times reports that the Taliban are courting tourists - and a growing number of adventurous souls are answering the call. 14,500 have already come, including from China, Russia, Ireland, Poland, Canada, Taiwan, Germany, France, Pakistan, Estonia and Sweden. Some of them are women. Even US-Americans are welcome, says Khobaib Ghofran, spokesman for the Ministry of Information and Culture. Female tourists are not required to wear a burqa or cover their faces, but should wear long, concealing clothing and cover their hair with a headscarf out of respect. Men should dress “modestly”. Otherwise, they could move freely and feel safe. In May 2024, however, three Spanish tourists were killed in the province of Bamiyan, where the remains of the monumental Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban in 2001 are located - now a popular tourist destination.
Aid money
The hard currency that tourists use to enter the country and pay for their visas (130 dollars, according to the New York Times) is urgently needed by the Taliban government. After it banned women from working for foreign non-governmental organizations in 2022, several aid organizations stopped their work on the ground. Many governments also suspended their aid funding from August 2021. However, only directly to the Taliban government. The USA, for example, has provided around 2.8 billion US dollars for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan since the Taliban came to power. According to the official version, the money is distributed directly to the Afghan people by aid organizations in order to circumvent the Taliban. The German government has also suspended bilateral state development cooperation with the Taliban government. At the same time, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has provided a good 450 million euros to support the Afghan people since 2021. In response to my inquiry in August 2024, when the Taliban reactivated stoning as part of the “virtue law”, the BMZ press office assured me that this support was being provided exclusively via international organizations and non-governmental organizations. The BMZ email states:
“The further intensification of the Taliban's misogynist policy is terrible. Unfortunately, it is in line with the actions of the Islamist regime since it came to power, which deliberately marginalizes women and girls. There can be no cooperation with such a regime.
At the same time, especially in this situation, it is important not to abandon women and girls (..) and isolate them even further by rigorously turning them away. Germany is therefore continuing its development policy activities in Afghanistan in accordance with the principle “With women for women”. This means that the BMZ is only involved where women can continue to work and women and children are reached. The measures supported include, for example, the establishment of health stations, the strengthening of mother-child nutrition and the training of midwives.”
According to the Transparency International Corruption Index, Afghanistan ranked 162nd out of 180 countries in 2023. The former US Special Representative for Afghanistan, Steve Brooking, criticized the lack of transparency in the use of aid funds and corruption even before the Taliban came to power in 2021. German aid measures have also been criticized since then. According to the accusation, a lack of transparency and poor control mechanisms make it almost impossible to detect misuse and corruption. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, GIZ, (German Agency for International Cooperation) is responsible for implementing so-called development aid projects. In Afghanistan, it is carrying out a project to “promote vocational training”, which is intended to “train midwives, physiotherapists, orthopaedic technicians and further and advanced training in traditional trades”. According to a media report, the German government is not publicly disclosing the names of the partner organizations in Afghanistan for security reasons, but only to the German Bundestag, the parliament. However, the partner organizations would be obliged not to channel any project funds via the Taliban government and to report any attempts to exert influence. All partner organizations would also have “internal control mechanisms to check the use of funds”. As much as the security of the Afghan personnel involved in these projects must be ensured, it can be assumed that the Taliban are well informed about foreign aid projects. Why then, many wonder, is the public, who are financing the projects on the ground with their tax money, being kept in the dark?
Afghan women's rights activists
For a radio report on the first anniversary of the Taliban taking power, I interviewed some Afghan women's rights activists in 2022 who had fled to Germany but still maintained close contacts in their home country. They told me that private donations from abroad were being “distributed” by the Taliban before they could reach the people in need. One activist was a member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, RAWA. The women's rights organization was founded in Kabul in 1977. Its goal is a democratically governed Afghanistan and the separation of religion and state. This agenda makes its members a target for fundamentalists. The founder, Meena Keshwar Kamal, was murdered in 1987. Even today, many members live underground. They keep their schools for girls in the country and their mobile health teams just as secret. The RAWA activist, who called herself Samia Walid in my report, strongly disagreed with the BMZ's position:
„If the European Union and the United Nations really want to help Afghan women, they must have no contact with the Taliban. They must not invite them to international meetings or conferences. And not give them any money. Because all this humanitarian aid only supports the Taliban. Moreover, the people and especially the men in the country will only rebel and rise up against the Taliban when things are really bad for them.“
Samia Walid, RAWA
Experience
I do not presume to judge which position is the right one. However, I assume that Afghan women are better able to assess the situation in their home country and the mentality of their compatriots than German politicians and civil servants.
At the beginning of December 2024, the Taliban also banned women from medical training. This meant that, among other things, the training of midwives was no longer included in the GIZ's catalog of aid measures, which the BMZ press office had cited in its letter of August as an example of why the German government continues to be active in Afghanistan in terms of development policy. I therefore asked again whether the Taliban's new ban had changed anything in the ministry's funding practice and received the following reply:
“The further intensification of the Taliban's misogynist policy is terrible. Unfortunately, it is in line with the actions of the Islamist regime since it came to power, which deliberately marginalizes women and girls. There can be no development cooperation with such a regime.
At the same time, especially in this situation, it is important not to abandon women and girls who are deliberately denied prospects by the de facto government in their own country and not to isolate them even further by rigorously turning them away. Germany is therefore currently continuing its development policy activities in Afghanistan in accordance with the principle “With women for women”. This means that the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is only involved where women can continue to work and where women and children can be reached.
The BMZ is keeping a close eye on the dynamic situation on the ground, including very close monitoring of development policy projects. To this end, the BMZ is in close contact with the German government, like-minded partners in the international community and United Nations organizations as well as non-governmental organizations that implement projects for the BMZ.”
Two paragraphs are almost identical to the BMZ's answer from four months ago. The training of midwives, which I had asked about, is no longer mentioned - without further explanation. The bottom line: a vague answer to my specific question. A lot of hot air. A lot of blah blah blah. Quoted merely to illustrate why I consider it pointless to write to ministry press offices and only do so for the sake of detail. Unfortunately, the example of the BMZ is just one of many that I could cite from my journalistic practice. And from my experience as a former advisor in an aid project of GTZ, the predecessor of GIZ, I can only warn against relying on internal control mechanisms.
This text was first published in German on my website.