As the US and its allies’ 20-year occupation of Afghanistan came to an end, the country was taken over by the Taliban, who espoused a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.
The Taliban, who came to power in 1996, adopted a very restrictive and punitive stance towards women in the territories they held until the intervention of the USA and its allies (2001), and afterwards: they prevented women from going to school, banned them from working outside health care, banned them from walking down the street without men, and required them to wear burkas. Women who broke these rules were flogged or executed.
Although the spokesmen for the Taliban, which dominated the capital Kabul on August 15th, declared that they would protect women’s right to work and education, it is a great threat that they would do so within the framework of their own interpretation of Islam. This situation raises the anxiety and fear that persecution, oppression and violence will increase among Afghan women and LGBTI+s, among us and women all over the world.
It is certain that the gains of Afghan women throughout Afghanistan’s history will be destroyed by the Taliban. The lives and social rights of our sisters are under imminent and grave threat.
As the Foundation for Women’s Solidarity, we state that we stand with our Afghan sisters and LGBTI+’s and will always stand in solidarity. We want the Turkish state to accept and implement the recognition of the rights of Afghan women as equal and free individuals as a foreign policy goal in its relations with Afghanistan.
FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN’S SOLIDARITY
18.08.2021
