Amina Zurmati and Qudratullah Zurmati

Many Afghan women never experienced the Taliban’s first period of rule in the 1990s. For these women, who “have tasted the sweet flavor of freedom,” as Amina Zurmati and Qudratullah Zurmati told The Diplomat, the Taliban takeover in mid-August 2021 and the subsequent two tears have been “unbearable and hard to digest.”

Amina Zurmati and Qudratullah Zurmati are graduates of political science and public administration from the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF). They are writers and human rights defenders focused on the fight for the rights of women and minorities. In the following interview with Catherine Putz, The Diplomat’s managing editor, they share the voices of the women they’ve interviewed and discuss in detail the difficulties the Taliban’s return have created for Afghans, particularly women, girls, and minorities, and what the international community can do. 

For a recent article, you shared the voices of female Afghan salon owners reacting to the Taliban’s latest decree banning their activities. Have salons been a refuge of sorts for Afghan women since the Taliban takeover? What will it mean if they are shut down – both for owners but also customers?

Afghan women in the past two decades have made a steady but significant advance toward fulfilling their human rights. Today’s situation of women in Afghanistan, however, is an affront to all standards of humanity. It is a sobering reminder of how aggressively and quickly the rights of women and 20 years of achievements can be taken away. Having been denied their right to education, work, movement, and visits to parks and gyms, since the takeover of the Taliban, among others, beauty salons have been one of the remaining refuges for Afghan women and a place where women could visit and socialize. 

Having been wholly excluded from the public and deprived of almost all their human rights, women spoke to us of feeling strangled, isolated, and invisible in public life, and believing themselves to be living in prison-like conditions. Beauty salons were reported to be one of the last places where women could visit, gather, and enjoy temporary happy moments with other women far from their imprisonment at home. 

Beauty salons were separated from the street by dark, thick curtains, and women felt free for a moment there. They were free to take off their black abayas, walk around, have their nails and toes painted, which they aren’t supposed to show in public. They could have their hair cut and colored while exchanging news and chatting away. 

Shutting beauty salons will have devastating effects both for owners and their dependents as well as further deteriorate the lives of their customers. Some beauty salon owners and their female staff were the sole breadwinners of their families. Shutting beauty salons will not only put the lives of the owners and their staff in danger, but their dependents will also face negative consequences. 

For customers, who are already deprived of fulfilling, free, and safe lives, shutting beauty salons will be a death in slow motion. The policy will further restrict the right to movement of women and will further contribute to the devastating impact of the crisis on women. The psychological impacts are among the most negative consequence caused by the decree. The loss of beauty salons, as one of the last remaining safe havens, will be another huge blow to women in Afghanistan. 

What options (if any) are still left for Afghan women hoping to earn a living or contribute to their family’s livelihoods?

The Taliban’s draconian policies since their takeover have severely restricted the lives of women and have deprived them of the opportunity to lead fulfilling lives. Having been denied almost all social and public work, and imprisoned in the four walls of their houses, home-based self-employment may be the only option currently left. It could become the predominant form of women’s participation in the labor market and may prevent the statistical figures of labor participation from falling apart. 

Some women who are the sole breadwinners of their families and who are erased from all sorts of public work have either started begging or polishing shoes on streets in order to contribute to their family’s livelihoods. 

In speaking with Afghan women, what are their greatest concerns now?

The majority of women we interviewed had not experienced life under the Taliban’s previous rule – they were either not born or were too young to remember anything. For those who have tasted the sweet flavor of freedom and have had some kind of access to all, or nearly all, of their fundamental rights for two decades, witnessing everything suddenly taken away was indeed unbearable and hard to digest. 

The Taliban’s hardline gender discrimination and their policies and edicts to promote it have been the greatest concern of women. Following the Taliban’s denial of women’s right to work, and pursue education beyond grade six, they were deprived of their social rights too. Afghan women fear what will come next and what they are going to experience. 

Most women expressed that they are uncertain of their future – they just don’t know what their future will look like. Taking into consideration the Taliban’s precedents of the 1990s, the women who have experienced the bleak and oppressive days of their previous rule believe that the Taliban de facto authorities are stripping Afghans of their dignity as they did in the 1990s and their war against women is particularly appalling. There is no doubt that they will cruelly reduce women and girls to poverty and make them unable to support their families. The regime is systematically repressing women, suffocating every dimension of their lives, and soon, they will have the worst human rights record in the world. 

For yourselves, as writers, how has the Taliban government affected your lives?

Since seizing control of Afghanistan two years ago, life has not been easy for human rights activists, minority groups, and women. There have been widespread reports of the Taliban’s attacks on human rights defenders, prosecution of minorities, suppression of women’s rights, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial executions, among others. 

We, as writers and human rights defenders, have not been exempted. We have been the psychological victims of such fear for the last two years. Our backgrounds and activism had been the prominent hurdles to having a safe and dreadless life. Anyone suspected of being involved in resistance against the Taliban’s policies are at risk of being detained, threatened, harassed, and even killed as a direct result of their human rights work. As individuals who fight and defend the rights of women and minorities peacefully, we have been forced to either not write articles or limit our publications domestically since the Taliban’s crackdown on freedom of expression. 

It has been two years now since the Taliban returned to power. There has been a lot of reporting on the plight of Afghan women and girls, and some on minorities in the country, but little actual progress when it comes to the international community’s efforts (meager as they have been) to budge the Taliban when it comes to the group’s regressive style of governance. Is there anything you think the international community can, and should, be doing to motivate change in Afghanistan?

It is crystal clear that the international community, especially the United States, is the prominent figure in this game of chess that the Taliban is playing. The Taliban de facto government also knows that in this era of globalization, without the cooperation of the international community, it is hard for their government to survive. 

Therefore, the international community, knowing its strong leverage, should act and take advantage of its influence. Although the Taliban continue to engage in human rights abuses, they will pay heed to the unified position of the international community due to their desire for assistance and legitimacy.

The Taliban government, for instance, strongly relies on foreign aid and this can create opportunities for donors to influence the Taliban’s actions. Donors need to exert leverage on the Taliban while avoiding the politicization of humanitarian aid, which would harm every Afghan – women and girls especially – whose rights the international community seeks to uphold. This leverage should aim to protect women’s and minorities’ rights and stakeholders should identify the leverage they have through political pressure and targeted sanctions, among other means, and use it to press for concrete commitments on women’s rights which would be meaningful to Afghan women and girls and measurable through monitoring. 

Donors shall not lose track of the de facto government’s obligation for ensuring the meaningful and full equality of every segment and the international community’s duty to continue to press for that. Furthermore, the international community shall construct an agenda for discussion with the Taliban authorities, which includes issues that matter both to the international community and the Taliban, thereby paving the way for a positive outcome.

How are Afghan women advocating for themselves and attempting to push back against Taliban restrictions?

The Taliban de facto authorities over the past two years have systematically stripped the fundamental human rights of Afghan women and girls and erased them effectively from society. Women, however, have not only been passive victims of the Taliban’s brutality. They have shown strong efforts through grassroots, women-led demonstrations, and peaceful movements throughout the country. Women are risking their lives daily advocating for the rights of the subjugated portion of the society. 

The Taliban’s response to these peaceful protests, nevertheless, has been torture, detention, and violent attacks. There have been several cases of arbitrary arrests of women protesters whose fate remains unknown, while others have been abducted and disappeared following protests. 

Outspoken criticism and condemnation of the Taliban’s atrocious policies through their publications in media outlets is another means Afghan women currently have in hand. Though women cannot deliver the voices of other women directly, their publications depicting women’s daily situations is their strongest weapon. Their voices, through their publications, are strong enough to make the international community, the United Nations, and its affiliated entities realize how the Taliban are violating international law. They are strong enough to convey to the international community that they are required to make a meaningful, coordinated, and proportional response to the Taliban’s unjustifiable and intolerable violations of women’s rights and how they will face its consequences.