In Afghanistan, a rights crisis worsens

“Our mission is to enforce Sharia law … You may call it a violation of women’s rights when we publicly stone or flog them for committing adultery because they conflict with your democratic principles. Just as you may claim to be striving for the freedom of entire humanity, so do I. I represent Allah, and you represent Satan.”

- ROSIE DIMANNO

Taliban guards follow as an Afghan woman walks along a market street in Afghanistan's Badakhshan. In the past year, the Taliban passed 52 prohibitive edicts and decrees against women and girls.

— Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, in a message aired on Afghanistan state television in March, addressing international criticism of the draconian regime’s human rights record.

What was already horrific beyond imagining has become rampantly worse. Because there’s no end to the Taliban’s malevolence against womankind.

Public flogging and stoning of females accused of adultery has been reinstated. Girls have been banned from education beyond primary grades. They’re forbidden to travel outside their home unless accompanied by a male guardian. Not allowed to enter playgrounds and public parks. Barred from gyms, public baths or even picnics in the countryside.

Beauty salons — hairdressing one of the few occupations which had been permitted — have been shuttered. The long list of jobs proscribed for women includes just about every profession, with exceptions made only — under severe limitations — in the fields of teaching and health care. Some remain in the civil service, where women had made such a huge contribution during the two decades when the Taliban was driven from power, but last week their salaries were slashed to a less than $70 (U.S.) a month.

There are no longer policewomen, female judges, lawyers and journalists. They can’t work for NGOs or UN agencies.