Last April, the Independent Human Rights Commission of Afghanistan released a report. Accordingly, 14 women have been killed and 22 injured in the country since last January. It’s just four months from January to April. It is noteworthy that almost all of those killed were employed. These include television technicians, vaccination officers, and police officers. Similarly, the dark motive behind the attacks is obvious. In Doha, ‘peace talks’ are underway between the overthrown Afghan government and the Taliban.
On Monday, US President Joe Biden came out of Camp David blaming the Afghan government. The Afghans, who have been kept out of the United States for the past 20 years, are now in control of Afghanistan. At the same time, he blames the Afghan army and the government for not firing a single shot at the terrorists. Biden says the response from the Afghan side has been a waste of US and Afghan support for two decades. For two decades, the United States has supported Afghanistan by providing weapons, training, education and opportunities. He points out that the authorities have refused to fight the Taliban by nullifying all this. The question involved is why the Afghan army – especially the resilient men – did not try to fight at all.
For the past few days we have been watching a video that has hurt the world’s conscience. Scenes of a mass exodus of Afghan civilians trying to board a commercial airline at Kabul airport. There is another background to the picture of the people running after the American military transport aircraft; They were only men. There are only two possibilities behind it. Afghan men leave their women behind and try to escape alone, or Afghan women, including brave mothers, wives and sisters, are told by their men to escape the certain death that awaits them when confronted by the Taliban.
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The absence of women in the scenes of the mass exodus that took place at Kabul airport this week gave me a warning of the long story that still goes on about their silence, struggle and endurance. Afghanistan is one of the worst places in the world for women. At the same time, the cause of their misfortune cannot be completely imposed on Islamic religious principles. This is because the tribal laws and customs that exist in Afghanistan play a role in the plight of women. They take precedence over Islamic law and secular law. All of this has made the lives of women in Afghanistan traditionally doomed to trauma.
The American intervention in Afghanistan twenty years ago had made a huge difference in their outlook on life. Women and children in Kabul and other urban areas came to the outside world in search of the freedom, education, and employment that came with American intervention. Still, Afghans in rural areas did not wholeheartedly accept the change. Women again had to fight hard for their freedom. Therefore, it is the Afghan people who have suffered the most in the collapse of the Taliban’s fervent military operations and the US – backed infrastructure for its rapid victory.
The US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the subsequent Taliban attack were immediate. But the fact that the Afghan armed forces withdrew from the national security struggle before the Taliban intensified their fight for power in Afghanistan came as a shock to the world, especially the actions of Afghanistan and the United States. The day after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, Biden said, ‘The truth is: it unfolded faster than we expected. So what happened? ‘ When the Taliban attacked, Afghan political leaders fled the country, leaving their people behind. Without even bothering to fight the Taliban, the Afghan armed forces surrendered. This is an extremely insulting indictment of any national fighting force.
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The picture in Afghanistan can certainly not be taken for granted. It would be a historic deception to say that the Afghan army did not lift a finger to resist the Taliban. It is estimated that more than 70,000 Afghan police officers and soldiers have already been killed in the fight against the Taliban. Along with the Taliban attack, they were plagued by corrupt mismanagement and the lack of proper food and other necessities. Another shocking fact of the resistance to Taliban attacks that began after May 1, 2021 was that they collapsed as soon as the US unleashed its $ 89 billion in training alone. And in the last 10 days, they have completely conceded defeat and stood aside.
A policewoman was killed in Jalalabad last February. The Taliban are suspected in the movement. In that case, the Afghan government announced that by 2024, the number of women in the security forces would increase from 4,000 to 10,000. In any case, such a move is unlikely to happen in Afghanistan in the near future. However, it did raise an intriguing ‘why’ question. If the United States had deployed more women (or just them!) In training for the Afghan armed forces, would the Taliban have been able to establish itself in Afghanistan so quickly?
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In the past, foreign powers in Afghanistan have decided to recruit women into the top 10 percent of the security forces. Accordingly, recruitment advertising campaigns were carried out on a large scale. But by 2015, the target of 10 per cent had been halved. In January 2021, a report was released by the US Special Inspector General working for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Accordingly, by 2020, the number of women serving as part of the Afghan police will be only 3.25 percent of the total army. Similarly, the number of women in uniform in the Afghan army is less than one percent.
Many women from Afghanistan dream of joining the military. But little by little, they realized that the dream was coming true, not as easy as it sounds. And since 2017, the number of women serving in the armed forces in Afghanistan has been kept really secret. There is, of course, something that has been handed down to a male-centric society — beyond the broader issues of corruption and poor leadership — that motivate women to fight for their freedom and rights.
On the soil of Afghanistan, the situation of women in the days to come has become a global concern. Currently, the Taliban leadership has shown its ‘moderate’ face. The announcement that women would be given a ‘place’ in their society according to their current position – and that too in accordance with the instructions of the Qur’an. It is widely believed that the Taliban have taken such a stand because they have the full attention of the international media. At the same time, there are more than enough reasons to view their declarations of peace with skepticism. How the Taliban are handling matters outside Kabul gives a very different idea of the ‘position’ they have declared.
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The motivation of women in Afghanistan is very clear when you consider the ways in which women have fought against religious fundamentalists – Yazidi and others. Theoretically, in terms of suffering, they are the ones who are going to suffer the most under a male-centric regime. They have witnessed struggles against such forces before. Therefore, if there was a presence of women in the Afghan armed forces, we can undoubtedly believe that they would have fought against the Taliban invasion until the last breath of the last woman in them.
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