Women & Sovereignty Under the Taliban

Women in the struggle for sovereignty and cultural identity under the Taliban.

The re-emergence of the Taliban in August this year in taking control of Afghanistan has particularly devastating implications for Afghan women. Despite the Taliban's claims that they seek to enforce a more moderate rule than their regime in the late 1990s, recent actions parallel those times: a regime where women were largely confined to their homes, where girls were not to be educated, and where cultural expression, music, television, and representational art were banned from both public and private spaces. Indeed, since August, the Taliban have closed primary schools for girls, segregated or restricted access for female students in universities, closed health services specializing in women's health, removed women from public office, rebranded The Women's Affairs Ministry as the Ministry of Virtue & Vice, and increased the visibility and presence of morality police. Safe houses and shelters for Afghan women are also now closing their doors, fearing for their ability to safely operate and in light of threats from Taliban leaders in their regions of operation.

The future of Afghan women is precarious and grim, especially as COVID-19 threatens to collapse Afghanistan's already strained public health system and as drought worsens Afghanistan's food supply to the point of famine. Meet two women campaigning against the Taliban's societal antagonism towards women. Working within the Afghan diaspora, these women are promoting Afghan culture, heritage, and identity to protect Afghan sovereignty in the Taliban takeover.

Join us to hear from Sana Safi, Afghan broadcast journalist with BBC World Service and senior presenter with BBC Pashto, and whose radio documentary Afghanistan and Me relates leaving Afghanistan in the first Taliban regime of 2007; and Bahar Jalali, Visiting Associate Professor at Loyola University Maryland, former lecturer at American University in Kabul, and driver of the recent social media trend "This is Afghan Culture" on Twitter and Instagram that was also featured in The New York Times and The World Public Radio.

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(Photo credit: Dr. Athena Madan)