Daily Times

The silencing of Afghanistan’s women has now reached a devastating point of no return, robbing them of their voices and rights. Taliban government officially refused to cooperate with the UN mission in the wake of a new morality law demanding women to cover up completely and not raise their voices; criticising the humanitarian organisation as “propaganda-peddlers” despite warnings about diminished prospects for engagement with the international community.

While slapping a ban on the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the same breath as continuing to seek validation at the peacekeeping council reeks of naked double standards, a theme common in its dealings with Pakistan on the issue of cross-border terrorism, the women of Afghanistan from around the world, likely exasperated by seeing their sisters being pushed against the wall for the past three years, are uploading videos of themselves singing on social media platforms as a protest.

Notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence to reject their austere vision of Islam, the Afghan Taliban appear to have directed all their resources and their attention to policing women. That a country with no significant earnings and no connection with the international community finds solace in empowering morality police squads, fully aware of how over 93 per cent of their people are not getting enough food to eat, can only make sense in a doomsday dystopia.

Ongoing gender apartheid, denying any form of women’s expression, is determined to deprive them of their autonomy, reducing them to faceless, voiceless shadows, always ready to do their bidding. These women who have been paying a steep price for the failed politics of the free world are done crying for help. Because they, too, are well aware that in this dark and dreary world, no knight in shining armour would be willing to fight a war on their behalf. After all, they must have heard how their security and fundamental freedoms did not even make it to the agenda of the Doha Talks. First schools, then livelihoods, followed by public spaces and now this shrunken life without hope, how long will they carry on? *