- Mar 16, 2012
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This is the world Sunni is advocating:
Ban on women riding bicycles or motorcycles, even with their mahrams.
Women were forbidden to ride in a taxi without a mahram.
Segregated bus services introduced to prevent males and females traveling on the same bus.
Employment
The Taliban disagreed with past Afghan statutes that allowed the employment of women in a mixed sex workplace. They claimed this was a breach of purdah and sharia law.[3] On September 30, 1996, the Taliban decreed that all women should be banned from employment.[14] It is estimated that 25 percent of government employees were female, and when compounded by losses in other sectors, many thousands of women were affected.[9] This had a devastating impact on household incomes, especially on vulnerable or widow-headed households, which were common in Afghanistan.
Another loss was for those whom the employed women served. Elementary education of children, not just girls, was shut down in Kabul, where virtually all of the elementary school teachers were women. Thousands of educated families fled Kabul for Pakistan after the Taliban took the city in 1996.[2][15] Among those who remained in Afghanistan, there was an increase in mother and child destitution as the loss of vital income reduced many families to the margin of survival.
Education
A decree was passed that banned girls above the age of 8 from receiving education. Maulvi Kalamadin insisted it was only a temporary suspension and that females would return to school and work once facilities and street security were adapted to prevent cross-gender contact. The Taliban wished to have total control of Afghanistan before calling upon an Ulema body to determine the content of a new curriculum to replace the Islamic yet unacceptable Mujahadin version.[2]
The female employment ban was felt greatly in the education system. Within Kabul alone the ruling affected 106,256 girls, 148,223 male students and 8,000 female university undergraduates. 7,793 female teachers were dismissed, a move that crippled the provision of education and caused 63 schools to close due to a sudden lack of educators.[9] Some women ran clandestine schools within their homes for local children, or for other women under the guise of sewing classes, such as the Golden Needle Sewing School. The learners, parents and educators were aware of the consequences should the Taliban discover their activities, but for those who felt trapped under the strict Taliban rule, such actions allowed them a sense of self-determination and hope.
Punishments
Punishments were often carried out publicly, either as formal spectacles held in sports stadiums or town squares or spontaneous street beatings. Civilians lived in fear of harsh penalties as there was little mercy; women caught breaking decrees were often treated with force.[9] Examples:
In October 1996, a woman had the tip of her thumb cut off for wearing nail varnish.[9]
In December 1996, Radio Shari’a announced that 225 Kabul women had been seized and punished for violating the sharia code of dress. The sentence was handed down by a tribunal and the women were lashed on their legs and backs for their misdemeanor.[26]
In May 1997, five female CARE International employees with authorisation from the Ministry of the Interior to conduct research for an emergency feeding programme were forced from their vehicle by members of the religious police. The guards used a public address system to insult and harass the women before striking them with a metal and leather whip over 1.5 meters (almost 5 feet) in length.[1]
When a Taliban raid discovered a woman running an informal school in her apartment, they beat the children and threw the woman down a flight of stairs (breaking her leg), and then imprisoned her. They threatened to stone her family publicly if she refused to sign a declaration of loyalty to the Taliban and their laws.[13]
An Afghan girl named Bibi Aisha was promised to a new family through a tribal method of solving disputes known as baad. When she fled the violence girls often suffer under baad, her new family found her and a Taliban commander ordered her punished as an example, "lest other girls in the village try to do the same thing".[30] Her ears and nose were cut off and she was left for dead in the mountains, but survived.[30]
Working women are threatened into quitting their jobs. Failure to comply with Taliban's threats has led to women being shot and killed as in the case of 22-year old Hossai in July 2010.[31]
In 2013, an Indian author Sushmita Banerjee was shot dead by Taliban Militants for allegedly defying Taliban diktats. She was married to an Afghan businessman and had recently relocated to Afghanistan. Earlier she had escaped two instances of execution by Taliban in 1995 and later fled to India. Her book based on her escape from Taliban was also filmed in an Indian movie.[32]
Many punishments were carried out by individual militias without the sanction of Taliban authorities, as it was against official Taliban policy to punish women in the street. A more official line was the punishment of men for instances of female misconduct: a reflection of a patriarchal society and the belief that men are duty bound to control women. Maulvi Kalamadin stated in 1997, “since we cannot directly punish women, we try to use taxi drivers and shopkeepers as a means to pressurize them" to conform.[1] Examples of the punishment of men:
If a taxi driver picked up a woman with her face uncovered or unaccompanied by a mahram then he faced a jail sentence and the husband would be punished.
If a woman was caught washing clothes in a river then she would be escorted home by Islamic authorities where her husband/mahram would be severely punished.
Tailors found taking female measurements faced imprisonment.
Ban on women riding bicycles or motorcycles, even with their mahrams.
Women were forbidden to ride in a taxi without a mahram.
Segregated bus services introduced to prevent males and females traveling on the same bus.
Employment
The Taliban disagreed with past Afghan statutes that allowed the employment of women in a mixed sex workplace. They claimed this was a breach of purdah and sharia law.[3] On September 30, 1996, the Taliban decreed that all women should be banned from employment.[14] It is estimated that 25 percent of government employees were female, and when compounded by losses in other sectors, many thousands of women were affected.[9] This had a devastating impact on household incomes, especially on vulnerable or widow-headed households, which were common in Afghanistan.
Another loss was for those whom the employed women served. Elementary education of children, not just girls, was shut down in Kabul, where virtually all of the elementary school teachers were women. Thousands of educated families fled Kabul for Pakistan after the Taliban took the city in 1996.[2][15] Among those who remained in Afghanistan, there was an increase in mother and child destitution as the loss of vital income reduced many families to the margin of survival.
Education
A decree was passed that banned girls above the age of 8 from receiving education. Maulvi Kalamadin insisted it was only a temporary suspension and that females would return to school and work once facilities and street security were adapted to prevent cross-gender contact. The Taliban wished to have total control of Afghanistan before calling upon an Ulema body to determine the content of a new curriculum to replace the Islamic yet unacceptable Mujahadin version.[2]
The female employment ban was felt greatly in the education system. Within Kabul alone the ruling affected 106,256 girls, 148,223 male students and 8,000 female university undergraduates. 7,793 female teachers were dismissed, a move that crippled the provision of education and caused 63 schools to close due to a sudden lack of educators.[9] Some women ran clandestine schools within their homes for local children, or for other women under the guise of sewing classes, such as the Golden Needle Sewing School. The learners, parents and educators were aware of the consequences should the Taliban discover their activities, but for those who felt trapped under the strict Taliban rule, such actions allowed them a sense of self-determination and hope.
Punishments
Punishments were often carried out publicly, either as formal spectacles held in sports stadiums or town squares or spontaneous street beatings. Civilians lived in fear of harsh penalties as there was little mercy; women caught breaking decrees were often treated with force.[9] Examples:
In October 1996, a woman had the tip of her thumb cut off for wearing nail varnish.[9]
In December 1996, Radio Shari’a announced that 225 Kabul women had been seized and punished for violating the sharia code of dress. The sentence was handed down by a tribunal and the women were lashed on their legs and backs for their misdemeanor.[26]
In May 1997, five female CARE International employees with authorisation from the Ministry of the Interior to conduct research for an emergency feeding programme were forced from their vehicle by members of the religious police. The guards used a public address system to insult and harass the women before striking them with a metal and leather whip over 1.5 meters (almost 5 feet) in length.[1]
When a Taliban raid discovered a woman running an informal school in her apartment, they beat the children and threw the woman down a flight of stairs (breaking her leg), and then imprisoned her. They threatened to stone her family publicly if she refused to sign a declaration of loyalty to the Taliban and their laws.[13]
An Afghan girl named Bibi Aisha was promised to a new family through a tribal method of solving disputes known as baad. When she fled the violence girls often suffer under baad, her new family found her and a Taliban commander ordered her punished as an example, "lest other girls in the village try to do the same thing".[30] Her ears and nose were cut off and she was left for dead in the mountains, but survived.[30]
Working women are threatened into quitting their jobs. Failure to comply with Taliban's threats has led to women being shot and killed as in the case of 22-year old Hossai in July 2010.[31]
In 2013, an Indian author Sushmita Banerjee was shot dead by Taliban Militants for allegedly defying Taliban diktats. She was married to an Afghan businessman and had recently relocated to Afghanistan. Earlier she had escaped two instances of execution by Taliban in 1995 and later fled to India. Her book based on her escape from Taliban was also filmed in an Indian movie.[32]
Many punishments were carried out by individual militias without the sanction of Taliban authorities, as it was against official Taliban policy to punish women in the street. A more official line was the punishment of men for instances of female misconduct: a reflection of a patriarchal society and the belief that men are duty bound to control women. Maulvi Kalamadin stated in 1997, “since we cannot directly punish women, we try to use taxi drivers and shopkeepers as a means to pressurize them" to conform.[1] Examples of the punishment of men:
If a taxi driver picked up a woman with her face uncovered or unaccompanied by a mahram then he faced a jail sentence and the husband would be punished.
If a woman was caught washing clothes in a river then she would be escorted home by Islamic authorities where her husband/mahram would be severely punished.
Tailors found taking female measurements faced imprisonment.
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