Women’s Rights in Afghanistan: From Muslims’ Perspective

Afghans lived in Afghanistan for thousands of years. Of all of the ethnic groups, the Pashtuns are the largest followed by Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and others. Throughout the 20th century, Afghanistan continued to be a country dominated by tribes and men continued to have ultimate control over women. But it is true that from the 19th century and through the twentieth century many rulers of Afghanistan attempted to lessen women's restrictions in the country. Until the 1970s, the 20th Century had seen relatively steady progression for women's rights in the country. Afghan women were first eligible to vote in 1919 -only a year after women in the UK were given voting rights, and a year before the women in the United States were allowed to vote. In the 1950s purdah (gendered separation) was abolished; in the 1960s a new constitution brought equality to many areas of life, including political participation.

UNESCO, 2006

In order to conceptualise what human rights can signify for women in the dominantly rural society that is Afghanistan, it is necessary to understand the models and stereotypes available to them in recent history and how these have been reworked in every day life. Theirs is not an isolated situation occurring in a vacuum; it has to be understood in relation to the developments in the Indian sub-continent from the British Raj onwards as well as the spread of present-day Islamism. In the context of what may well be Asia's most tribal and patriarchal society, the resistance to Western modernization is unique in a country which could have been, alongside Turkey, at the avantgarde of progressive Muslim nations as early as in the 1920s. All efforts by reformist kings from the early 20th century onwards were doomed and when the communist government attempted to introduce an egalitarian society and implement women's rights after the April revolution of 1978, acute civil strife ensued. This generated full-scale war when their Soviet allies came to the rescue and the US, through their assistance to fundamentalist groups, turned this into the last conflagration of the Cold War.

Open Journal of Philosophy, 2015

As a traditional society, Afghanistan has always been a hotbed of gender inequality in different aspects. Especially, women/girls face various obstacles in education. Despite the efforts to improve the education sector in the last decade, the situation of female education still remains deplorable. There is still a long way to go in improving education, in particular female education. This article aims to examine the unequal access of females and males in primary, secondary and higher education, and presents the main obstacles that prevent women or girls from having access to education. The article is prepared by a desk study using a variety of presently available researches, papers and data related to education, women’s rights and gender inequality from national and international organizations.

Journal of Social Science Studies, 2017

Women face tough challenges in developing countries which usually enforce strong traditional stereotypes. Afghanistan is a good example where women have experienced both radical and moderate changes. Some of the changes have ameliorated their position in society whereas for the most part the changes endured have kept them from fulfilling their potential roles in a traditional patriarchal structure. This article attempts to highlight the various fluctuations that have occurred in the 19 th and 20 th centuries, paying special attention to the period during and after the Soviet invasion of 1978. Afghan women possess legal rights which are on a par with other developed states but it is the implementation of these rights which leaves much to be desired. The impact of culture and history cannot be minimised when trying to explain the obstacles faced in improving Afghan women's rights.

Feminist Legal Studies, 2005

This article argues that women's human rights were and are being violated in Afghanistan regardless of who governs the country: Kings, secular rulers, Mujahideen or Taliban, or the incumbent internationally backed government of Karzai. The provisions of the new constitution regarding women's rights are analysed under three categories: neutral, protective and discriminatory. It is argued that the current constitution is a step in the right direction but, far from protecting women's rights effectively, it requires substantial revamping. The constitutional commitment to international human rights standards seems to be a hallow slogan as the constitution declares Islam as a state religion which clearly conflicts with women's human rights standards in certain areas. The Constitution has empowered the Supreme Court to review whether human rights instruments are compatible with Islamic legal norms and, in case of conflict, precedence will be given to Islamic law. Keeping this in view, it is argued that Afghanistan's ratification of the Women's Convention without reservations has no real significance unless Islamic law dealing with women's rights is reformed and reconciled with international women's rights standards.

This paper investigates about the Conditions of women education post 9/11 event in Kabul City, the capital of Afghanistan. Kabul is the most populous city of Afghanistan. In 2012 its total population was about 289,000 which rose to 3,678,034 in the year 2015. Afghanistan has been one of the countries that have been dominated by instability and conflicts and the education for Afghan women remains deplorable, despite rigorous efforts to improve their freedom, rights and quality of life. Pre 9/11 event, Afghanistan's education indicators have always been low (literacy rates have not risen above 25 percent in the last three decades) and the state's role in the provision of education has always been limited. Historically, mosques have been the main provider of education for children. Since the Unites States led alliance toppled the Taliban led government in November 2001, women in Afghanistan have gained greater freedom to participate in public life and have better access to education, health care, and employment. After 9/11, there has been some improvements in the educational sector of Afghanistan particularly Kabul City in the last decade. The number of student's enrolment has increased since 2002. The percentage of girls in primary schools has significantly increased according to 2011 data. The figures in high schools have also shown remarkable improvement. However, a dramatic increase has occurred in higher education in the years 2001 to 2012. Factors including Social-Cultural Barriers, Insecurity, Poverty, early marriage, Lack of female teachers, etc. were the main obstacles which affected female education.

Afghanistan is a landlocked country with Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, China, Iran and Pakistan as its neighbours. It is a small country in the benign protection of the Hindu Kush and the great Himalayas with its rugged hills and sturdy people who, till yesterday appeared to be leading a sleepy and indifferent existence under the tyrannical feudal dynasties. Afghanistan has remained geographically, religio-culturally and commercially intimately connected with the neighboring countries. The issue of gender has been utilized as an instrument to serve the centralized state‘s larger political agendas, rather than to meet the basic needs of the majority women. It is true that in both the 1964 and 1977 Afghan constitutions ,women and men were recognized as equal before the law and women were given equal rights and privileges, but in practice ,patriarchy and tribal social conduct continued to dominate gender related relationships.

2006

A holistic assessment of status of women in Afghanistan in 2006 reveals that the status of women continues to remain depressed and discriminated in crucial areas like healthcare and education (literacy 34 percent). However, in terms of political participation and rights guaranteed by afghan constitution there have been positive gains. The survey findings shows that around 50 percent of afghan women are not in favour of wearing burkha and are ready to shed their conservativeness associated with it use. Similarly, more afghan women are enjoying the rights to equity guaranteed by the constitution as only 25 percent of respondents said that gender equity exists only on paper. Though women’s movement is currently sporadic and yet to take firm roots, but their fight to restore and strengthen womenfolk in different regions of the country indicates a positive step in the long march towards improving the status of women in Afghanistan. The key areas that needs immediate addressable for improving the gender empowerment are healthcare, education and discrimination. The government of Afghanistan should make a concerted effort in partnership with civil society for their overall upliftment and advancement as guaranteed by the constitution.

From a global perspective the Beijing policy and other various international instruments used to promote the position of women still need to translate into positive changes in people’s daily lives, especially in developing countries. Women still remain at the lowermost of the social hierarchy with reduced access to land, credit, health and education. Although some of the covenants the Afghani government have sanctioned preserve property and inheritance rights, women are still deprived of those actual rights. Compounding the condition are setbacks such as war which is destroying the lives of women, preventing some of the development improvements women may attain. As a result, poverty in Afghanistan continues to clothe a woman’s face, which is disturbing that 20 years after Beijing and other international instruments, Afghani women are much poorer. Strategies recommended include empowering women to positions of authority, improving girl’s education, reinvesting the current economic policy and dealing with patriarchy, including the war and displacement. At large, the government needs to work hard in making emancipation of women an actuality, since women are still talked as minors.

International studies journal (ISJ), 2023

After twenty years of endeavor to equalize women's rights in the half-dead democracy of Afghanistan, the dream of equal rights for women in the Afghan society was destroyed by the arrival of the Taliban group. This group and its supporters have committed countless crimes during their rule in Afghanistan. In 2021, when this group comes to power, the women's experience of two decades ago will be repeated, and women will be deprived of their most basic rights. Like two decades ago, the Taliban removed the girls from social life by closing schools and imprisoning them at home. The recent actions of the Taliban against women include the following areas: exclusion from education, exclusion from work, exclusion from political activities, and restriction of activities in the public space, all these decrees and rulings against women's activities are from the source of Sharath and religious fatwas. The Taliban has been issued. In this research, we are looking at the influencing factors of the Taliban's thoughts on restricting the rights of women in the society of Afghanistan. In this research, we have compared the differences between the religious thoughts and beliefs of the Taliban, which are adapted from Islamic rulings, and the religious fatwa of the Taliban leaders with Islamic rulings.

The equal participation of men and women in governmental process and political affairs is essential for reaching to the free and fair society. Through findings of this thesis the success of democracy is directly dependent on the equality based on gender, ethnic, creed, religion and so on. The research context of this paper goes to Islamic states and particularly analyzing the status of women in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The traditional culture, patriarchy, misinterpretation of religion founded as the main obstacles of women deprivation of politics within all Islamic states and particularly in these two Islamic democratic states, that these factors causes for the emergence of gender based violence, discrimination, rape and idea of behaving with women as the second gender. This paper goes to analyze and find out the different interpretation of Islam and democracy perspectives regarding to women social and political activities. The level of women’s political participation had been raised after 2000 in both countries of my research context, reforms 2000 in Pakistan and coming of new democratic regime along with international support in Afghanistan caused for women to be more empowered and active in politics and persuaded women to get apart in political and social affairs of these two societies. Analyzing of historical circumstances of women in both countries, helped this research to be more serious in finding the actual position of women in two traditional societies, that are mostly influenced of patriarchal culture in case of women.

Cambridge Scholars, 2024

Since the occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in 1979, Iran has hosted many Afghan refugees including nearly 600,000 Afghan-passport holders and 2.3 million undocumented Afghan residents and 780,000 registered ones. Therefore, there is a significant number of Afghan women living in Iran, which has accounted for between 800,000 and 1,300,000. Besides, 250,000 Afghan girls and 20,000 Afghan women are studying in Iran. They face some serious problems in order to study as equal as other Iranian citizens. In accordance with the situation of their standard of living, the current article tries to study the obstacles, challenges, and opportunities that Afghan women face in Iran. Also, this study will answer the questions about the future educational conditions of Afghan girls and women in Iran, especially in the aftermath of the reemergence of the Taliban. To answer the research questions, a Delphi study was conducted among 150 Afghan students, and 25 experts including international university professors and human rights activists in Iran and Afghanistan through questionnaires and interviews. The collected data were then analyzed by SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) software and transferred to the SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity, threat) chart. After screening with the Delphi method, the factors were included in the SWOT matrix, and thus all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of Afghan women and girls studying in Iran were identified.

This study seeks to examine Afghan women's access to education (gender justice) in the wake of September 11 amid developments and efforts made to establish democracy in this country in the years between 2001 and 2014. Using discourse analysis, this research aims to extract one nodal point and several floating signifiers to explore a semantic system of gender justice, albeit by making use of examples taken from the educational system during the mentioned period. The data collected in this research are extracted from texts concerning the role of women in education in Afghanistan in the mentioned period. Its importance in terms understanding the intellectual and political atmosphere of the mentioned political system especially in respect of women's access to their educational rights is brought to light. This study concludes that the gender equality index is satisfactory to a great deal in the present government as compared to the period of Taliban in which the index was lowest in the world. However, the present government has not achieved success as much as it was expected because gender justice discourse has not become hegemonic in Afghanistan. The reason for the unsuccessfulness of the discourse lies in the elements that make the discourse hegemonic. Because elements could not play their effective role, this discourse did not become hegemonic.

2003

In this paper, through the history of women in Afghanistan, I want to locate the position of women in the future by lessons learnt from the past. Given Afghanistan's current situation of poverty, political disenfranchisement and social disarray, I argue that these very deficiencies could be maneuvered to favor the empowerment of women by redefining her role in the family and the community. Afghanistan's social development can only be ensured through democracy and the reduction of poverty, the success of both being assured through full participation of women, especially in rural Afghanistan. In this paper I would like to trace the history of women in Afghanistan for three main reasons. One, to show that women in Afghanistan were not always oppressed by fundamentalism as occurred under the Mujahideen and the Taliban. Second, to go back into history and reflect on regimes and politicians to show that women's issues were an integral part of national construction agendas even...