Afghan Women Fight For Equal Rights
From the online #dontTouchMyClothes campaign, UN campaign to the street protests in Kabul women have been, tirelessly, fighting to restore their rights. So far, they have been ignored, beaten and jailed. You can read key points below.
- As soon as the Taliban took over Afghanistan they implemented new rules that diminish female rights. They have mandated the segregation of genders in classrooms and required female students, lecturers and employees to wear hijabs in accordance with the group’s interpretation of Sharia law.
- Afghan women around the world have been protesting the Taliban’s new hijab requirement by sharing photos of their traditional attires on social media with the hashtags #DoNotTouchMyClothes and #AfghanistanCultural.
- Furthermore, a group of Afghan women urged the United Nations to block the Taliban from gaining a seat at the world body. They’ve called for better representation of Afghanistan and plead for the UN's help in restoring female rights.
- "It's very simple," former Afghan politician and peace negotiator Fawzia Koofi told reporters outside the UN Security Council in New York. "The UN needs to give that seat to somebody who respects the rights of everyone in Afghanistan."
"We are talked a lot about, but we are not listened to," she said of Afghan women. "Aid, money, recognition - they are all leverage that the world should use for inclusion, for respect to the rights of women, for respect to the rights of everybody." - Women in Afghanistan who object to Taliban rule have been protesting in Kabul, Afghanistan since September however it has been reported that by the mid October it got harder to demonstrate. Protests have been banned and previous rallies were broken up by gunfire and beatings.
