3 June 2014
The Role of Afghan Women Before and After Taliban
When you hear the word ‘woman’, what thoughts, words, or traits come to mind? Women should be diverse, loved, have respect, and most of all, be treated equally. In Afghanistan, things are much different from the U.S. Kabul is one of the most brutal areas for women in Afghanistan. Especially when the Taliban would rule, things would take a turn for the worst. The rights of women would soon be canceled, not mainly because of religion, but because of one of the harshest dictatorships to ever take place in Afghanistan and the affected areas around this broken country. The role of Afghan women have been underestimated by the Taliban because the women are treated poorly and unequally, the Taliban believe that women should have no rights, and if these women rebel against the rule of Taliban, they are then struck down with harsh consequences or are killed. The Taliban started in 1996 due to the dictatorship and ruling of leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Over a course of 5 hellish years of strict rule, the Taliban made the worst environment possible for the women in Afghanistan. As guidelines and terrible punishments were set in place, Afghan women were basically stripped of their rights and had to obey only to their family members who were of full blood. Taliban are defined as a large controlled group of mainly men and many young children, some who are young girls, but mostly young and teenage boys. The Taliban has tricked so many children into becoming suicide bombers, literally take children from these Afghan women to use for combat. Journalist Ahmed Rashid, from the ‘Council on Foreign Relations Article’, explains how the Taliban have become so unequal by stating that the Taliban have, “Deepened the ethnic divide.” This means that the Taliban have separated depending on what race, religion, and sex the person is. The inequality of Kabul is horrendous for both men and women. The more that the
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