{"id":6730,"date":"2025-01-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/2025\/01\/01\/enforcing-the-law-of-god\/"},"modified":"2025-01-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-01T00:00:00","slug":"enforcing-the-law-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/2025\/01\/01\/enforcing-the-law-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Enforcing the \u201cLaw of God\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

How Afghanistan became the world\u2019s largest prison for women and girls.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In the summer of 2021, U.S. and NATO troops scrambled to exit Afghanistan, leaving behind a fragile democratically elected government and a country in turmoil.<\/i><\/p>\n

Sima Samar<\/strong>, Afghanistan\u2019s former minister of women\u2019s affairs, along with women\u2019s rights scholar Dyan Mazurana<\/strong>, describe what happened next.<\/i><\/p>\n

Basic freedoms and human rights have been under daily assault since the Taliban violently overthrew the elected government of Afghanistan in August 2021. In short order the Taliban abolished the 2004 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, along with most of the laws enacted through democratic legislative and executive procedures.1<\/sup> In their place, the Taliban are creating and enforcing oppressive laws and decrees that violate human rights, and, in particular, suppress the rights of women and girls.2<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

As the former minister of women\u2019s affairs of Afghanistan and chair of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and a women\u2019s rights scholar, we have been documenting and seeking to bring attention to the Taliban\u2019s attacks against women\u2019s and girls\u2019 rights in Afghanistan for decades. Through words and actions, the Taliban has made clear that they do not respect human rights. Indeed, the Taliban prime minister publicly proclaimed that Afghans need to implement the \u201cLaw of God\u201d rather than human rights law. During the past few years more than 100 decrees, orders, statements, and laws have been issued by the Taliban that violate women\u2019s and girls\u2019 human rights\u2014rights that are guaranteed under international laws and Afghanistan\u2019s laws, traditions, and customs.3<\/sup><\/p>\n

Exiled to Invisibility<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just weeks after coming to power, the Taliban replaced the Ministry of Women\u2019s Affairs with the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. They next abolished the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.4<\/sup> Then they systematically dismantled legal protections for women, including the Elimination of Violence Against Women law. They closed shelters for women and child victims of violence and disbanded the family response units that had been established within police stations.5<\/sup>   <\/span><\/p>\n

In violation of Afghanistan\u2019s commitments to international treaty guarantees of political, civil, economic, and employment rights, the Taliban banned Afghan women from public life.6<\/sup> Women are now prohibited from working as teachers in high schools, professors at universities, or within nongovernmental organizations and the United Nations.7<\/sup> Their loss from these sectors is hampering efforts to reach the millions of Afghans in dire need of humanitarian assistance.8<\/sup> Professional women working in the Afghan government were sent home and the Taliban told the women\u2019s sons, brothers, or husbands to come and replace them.9<\/sup> While women are allowed to work under numerous restrictions in the health sector, they are not allowed to be part of mobile vaccination teams to address an emerging polio epidemic. Polio is eradicated in all countries, except Afghanistan, Pakistan, and now in Gaza.<\/span><\/p>\n

Women and girls are banned from receiving an education beyond sixth grade, and the Taliban have eviscerated the formal education system, replacing it with their version of madrasas or religious schools. The Taliban now run more than 21,000 religious schools, where the boys are radicalized and taught to dominate the females in their lives, and the girls are trained to accept their subjugation and become obedient wives and mothers.10<\/sup><\/p>\n

Women are banned from entering public parks, public baths, gyms, and sports clubs.11<\/sup> They are prohibited from traveling anywhere without a male family member. Total veiling of women\u2014their entire body\u2014in public is now compulsory.12<\/sup> Failure to adhere to this rule results in punishment for the male family member, ultimately empowering patriarchal control both inside and outside the home more than ever before.<\/span><\/p>\n

Striking at the heart of women\u2019s political and civil rights, the Taliban have outlawed women and girls from gathering in public to peacefully protest these harmful and illegal treatments. Punishments for those who protest include beatings, detention, torture, rape, and death.13<\/sup> Women protesters have reported being beaten and tortured with electric shocks.14<\/sup> The Taliban have reportedly raped girls and women in jail, including filming the gang rape of an Afghan woman activist jailed for protesting.15<\/sup><\/p>\n

Policing \u201cVirtue\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

On August 21, 2024, the Taliban passed a dehumanizing law entitled \u201cPropagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice,\u201d16<\/sup> which has effectively turned Afghanistan into a prison for women and girls. The Virtue and Vice law consists of four chapters and 35 articles. The law imposes further restrictions on freedoms and rights, legalizing further repression and discrimination against women, and subjecting them to cruel and inhuman treatment. The new law seeks to silence the female population of the country, rendering them entirely invisible and mute in the public sphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

Under the law, \u201cvice\u201d is defined as saying or doing something that the Taliban\u2019s distorted view of Sharia law deems bad, which includes an infinite range of action or statements made by people in daily life. The Virtue and Vice law provisions contradict many Sharia principles and is in stark breach of international law, human rights norms, and legal traditions within Afghanistan.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Virtue and Vice law is also ripe for abuse. The law gives overwhelming power to Sharia or religious inspectors, who are called \u201cenforcers.\u201d Article 7 allows anyone in a position of power to enforce the law, while placing specific responsibility on the Sharia inspectors. No verification mechanism is provided for identifying vice or for the appointment of these inspectors, who can act based on observation, hearing, hearsay, or the testimony of two people (Article 10, paragraph 5). The new law gives Sharia inspectors almost free reign to decide, in their subjective judgment, if vice has been committed and to determine the punishments imposed. Without independent judicial involvement in enforcing these repressive laws, Afghan women and girls will undoubtably be exposed to greater levels of private violence and intimidation\u2014social, physical, mental, and emotional.<\/span><\/p>\n

Article 13 of the Virtue and Vice law dictates that if a woman leaves her home \u201cshe is duty-bound to hide her voice, face, and body.\u201d17<\/sup> It mandates that women\u2019s bodies are to be completely covered. It defines the hijab\u2014a head covering worn in public by some Muslim women\u2014in the most restrictive terms possible. No longer just a head covering, it\u2019s extended by the new law to require full body covering, veiling of the face, and avoiding eye contact with men. Article 13 of the Virtue and Vice law bans women from showing their faces to women who are \u201cnonbelievers.\u201d Leading United Nations experts deem the repressive enforcement of the hijab a violation of women\u2019s and girls\u2019 freedom of expression and a form of gender persecution. The experts warn that laws enforcing the covering of women \u201copens the door to a range of other possible violations of political, civil, cultural, and economic rights.\u201d18<\/sup> In stark contrast, Article 13\u2019s requirement for men\u2019s clothing is for them not to show their knees.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Virtue and Vice law also orders women\u2019s voices to be silenced even from praying or reciting holy texts of the Quran. Article 22 instructs enforcers to prevent or stop \u201cthe sound of a woman\u2019s voice or any music emanating from any gathering or from the home.\u201d19<\/sup> Article 22 also forbids Afghan women and men befriending non-Muslims or assisting them in any way, as a means to control and limit Afghans\u2019 access to information.<\/span><\/p>\n

Article 20 extends these restrictions further, requiring transportation companies and drivers to deny services to women who are not fully covered or who are traveling without a male companion. In practice, this means that many Afghan women have limited or no freedom for work or movement: decades of war have left hundreds of thousands Afghan women without a husband or close male family member to accompany them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Article 17 of the Virtue and Vice law severely restricts Afghan\u2019s freedom of expression and thought. It censors people\u2019s access to media and dictates punishments for broadcasting photographs or films of living beings, or even storing them on personal devices.<\/p>\n

Article 24 provides a list of Sharia sanctions that can be used by enforcers, including advice, intimidation, verbal punishment, confiscation, and destruction of property. The law also permits Sharia inspectors and enforcers to use threats, physical punishment, beating, intimidation, 24-hour detention, and imprisonment, without due process or court involvement. If a woman is found to be a repeat violator, she can face prosecution in court under Sharia criminal law. Possible punishments include detention, long-term imprisonment, stoning, flogging, execution, or being thrown from a mountain.<\/p>\n

A Tragic Regression<\/strong><\/p>\n

This dystopian reality for women and girls follows two decades of advances for women\u2019s rights under the Afghan republic. During those two decades women worked persistently to secure hard-won rights, and they achieved significant progress.20<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Between 2001 and 2021 the Afghan government, with the support of international partners and a flourishing Afghan civil society, made remarkable gains in meeting Afghanistan\u2019s international obligations to uphold human rights and women\u2019s rights. The 2004 Afghan constitution guaranteed, for the first time in the country\u2019s history, the equal rights of men and women in Afghanistan. Significantly, for the first time the law recognized the rights of the Shia\u2014a religious minority in the Afghanistan\u2014to practice their faith openly and publicly.<\/p>\n

The 2004 constitution made education, primary through secondary, compulsory and free for everyone. This right gave tens of millions of women and girls the opportunity to attend schools and complete their university education. Afghan women become politicians, ministers, members of the parliament, governors, and mayors. They rose up to become university professors, judges, prosecutors, pilots, and army and police officers. Women and girls excelled in sports, the arts, media, and tens of thousands became small business owners and entrepreneurs.<\/span><\/p>\n

During these 20 years advocates fought hard to establish different mechanisms for protecting these rights. Most notably this included the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and the Special Prosecutor\u2019s Office under the attorney general. The Elimination of Violence Against Women law was enacted, and with it came the criminalization of domestic violence, which could no longer to be treated as a private matter. Other key achievements included the establishment of family response units within the police force, and shelters and programs to support victims of domestic violence.21<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

The Afghan government was hampered by numerous challenges, including widespread corruption and insecurity. During these decades the Taliban also continued to fight to overthrow the democratic government and fought aggressively against modernity, women\u2019s rights, and democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, a so-called peace agreement was reached between the Trump administration and the Taliban in February 2020. It was a brief, four-page document in which the human rights of the people of Afghanistan were not mentioned. The agreement focused solely on the withdrawal of U.S. forces and allied troops. For its part, the Taliban agreed not to attack or kill U.S. citizens and not to harbor terrorists who could threaten the U.S. or its allies. They also agreed to engage in negotiations with the Afghan government. This agreement was reached bilaterally and excluded the Afghan government and Afghan civil society.22<\/sup><\/p>\n

As U.S. and NATO forces rapidly withdrew from Afghanistan, the Afghan government\u2014weakened by corruption\u2014was unable to manage the crisis. The Taliban overthrew the government and took control of the country.23<\/sup> Within a matter of weeks the hard-won human rights advances of the past two decades were erased.<\/p>\n

Some in the international community had predicted a different outcome, arguing that the Taliban had changed and learned from their past excesses. But the only lesson the Taliban had learned was how to outmaneuver the international community more efffectively. In terms of their attitude toward human rights and women\u2019s rights, the Taliban had not changed, but had become even more emboldened in their subjugation of women and girls.    <\/p>\n

What Next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The new Virtue and Vice law may surprise some in the international community, as it has dashed any hope of real change in Taliban\u2019s repressive policies toward women and girls. The law casts serious doubt on how successful the international community has been in their efforts to reach gender equality and improve the status of women.<\/span><\/p>\n

The violation of human rights cannot be justified under the excuse of respecting the culture and religion in Afghanistan. The Taliban\u2019s decrees and the latest law establishing a system of gender apartheid go against Islamic principles and against Afghan culture. No other country in the world applies the same restrictions that violate the human rights of women and girls at the level of the Taliban regime.<\/p>\n

The normalization of human rights violations empowers a violent patriarchy and fuels a culture of impunity. The Taliban\u2019s extreme violations of women\u2019s and girls\u2019 rights in Afghanistan are a problem not only for the women and girls in Afghanistan but also for humanity. Protection of human rights and human dignity is a responsibility that falls to each one of us. People everywhere deserve to live with dignity and rights, including women and girls in Afghanistan.<\/span><\/p>\n

1 Maryam Jami, \u201cThe Lawless Land: How Does the Taliban\u2019s Abolishing of Afghan Laws Affect Citizens\u2019 Security?\u201d <\/span>JURIST\u2014Academic Commentary<\/span><\/i>, January 11, 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n

2 Lindsay Maizland, \u201cThe Taliban in Afghanistan,\u201d Council on Foreign Relations website, January 19, 2023.<\/p>\n

3 United States Institute for Peace website, Tracking the Taliban\u2019s (Mis)Treatment of Women<\/i>.<\/p>\n

4 \u201cAfghanistan: Taliban Morality Police Replace Women\u2019s Ministry,\u201d BBC website, September 17, 2021.<\/p>\n

5 Sara Perria, \u201cProtections for Women Facing Violence Have Vanished Under the Taliban,\u201d The New Humanitarian website, April 20, 2022.<\/p>\n

6 Annie Kelly and Zahra Joya, \u201cFrightening Taliban Law Bans Women From Speaking in Public,\u201d The Guardian, <\/i>August 26, 2024.<\/p>\n

7 Belquis Ahmadi and Hodei Sultan, \u201cTaking a Terrible Toll: The Taliban\u2019s Education Ban,\u201d United States Institute for Peace website, April 13, 2023.<\/p>\n

8 Leslie Roberts, \u201cTaliban Ban on Female NGO Staff Is Deepening Afghanistan\u2019s Public Health Crisis,\u201d Science.org website, January 16, 2023.<\/p>\n

9 Zuhal Ahad, \u201cSend Us a Man to Do Your Job So We Can Sack You,\u201d The Guardian,<\/i> July 18, 2022.<\/p>\n

10 Shabnam Nasimi, \u201cThe Taliban\u2019s Weaponization of Education,\u201d MS<\/i> magazine website, January 12, 2024.<\/p>\n

11 \u201cTaliban Ban Women From Parks and Gyms in Afghanistan,\u201d Associated Press, November 10, 2022<\/p>\n

12 John Butt (translator), Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Law,<\/i> translated into English, Afghanistan Analysis Network website, August 31, 2024.<\/p>\n

13 Belquis Ahmadi, \u201cHow the Taliban Enables Violence Against Women,\u201d United States Institute for Peace website, December 7, 2023.<\/p>\n

14 Wahida Amiri, \u201cWomen, Protest, and Power: Confronting the Taliban,\u201d Amnesty International website, March 7, 2023.<\/p>\n

15 Zahra Joya, Chris McGreal, Khudadad Poladi, Annie Kelly, and Tom Levitt, \u201cVideo Appears to Show Rape of Afghan Woman in a Taliban Jail,\u201d The Guardian<\/i>, July 3, 2024.<\/p>\n

16 Butt.<\/p>\n

17 Ibid.<\/i>,. p. 14.<\/p>\n

18 \u201cRepressive Enforcement of Iranian Hijab Laws Symbolises Gender-based Persecution: UN Experts,\u201d United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights website, April 14, 2023.<\/p>\n

19 Butt, p. 11.<\/p>\n

20 Wazhmah Osman and Helena Zeweri, \u201cAfghan Women Have a Long History of Taking Leadership and Fighting for Their Rights,\u201d The Conversation website, October 11, 2021.<\/p>\n

21 Ahmadi.<\/p>\n

22 Lindsay Maizland, \u201cU.S.-Taliban Peace Deal: What to Know,\u201d Council on Foreign Relations website, March 2, 2020.<\/p>\n

23 Maizland, \u201cThe Taliban in Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How Afghanistan became the world\u2019s largest prison for women and girls. In the summer of 2021, U.S. and NATO troops scrambled to exit Afghanistan, leaving behind a fragile democratically elected government and a country in turmoil. Sima Samar, Afghanistan\u2019s former minister of women\u2019s affairs, along with women\u2019s rights scholar Dyan Mazurana, describe what happened next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[363],"tags":[195],"class_list":["post-6730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-january-february-2025","tag-january-february-2025"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}