The freedoms granted to Afghan women will be permanently dispossessed by the Taliban, despite the group’s claims that they will respect women’s rights, a Brookings Institution researcher said.
“There is no possibility that existing freedoms, at least as they existed on paper in the constitution … would be preserved,” Vanda Felbab-Brown told Squawk Box Asia on Thursday.
The question is: how much will be lost?
“Are we going to end up in the most horrible situation: the way the Taliban ruled … in the 1990s? Or are we looking at freedoms and restrictions, perhaps similar to something like Saudi Arabia or Iran,” he asked.
We are clearly looking at a significant reduction in political and social freedoms for all actors, not just for women, but especially for women.
Vanda Felbab-Brown
Brookings Institution
Under the Taliban, women had to wear burqas, a piece that covers them from head to toe, with only a mesh screen to look at.
The U.S. State Department reported in 2020 that the Islamist militant group also restricted girls ’access to education.
“We are clearly looking at a significant reduction in political and social freedoms for all actors, not just for women, but especially for women,” said Felbab-Brown, director of the Non-State Armed Actors Initiative. of Brookings.
Under the Taliban government, the men had previously been imprisoned for having too short beards. The State Department report also pointed to attacks on journalists, public executions and forced confessions.
Afghan women, with placards, gather to demand the protection of the rights of Afghan women in front of the Presidential Palace in Kabul (Afghanistan) on August 17, 2021.
Sayed Khodaiberdi | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Since taking power, the Taliban have promised rights to women and the media and promised amnesty for government officials. The group said “no one will be hurt” and that it does not want “any internal or external enemies.”
Through multiple media networks, there have been countless reports and photographs of people, including women and children, who have been beaten by ultra-conservative Muslim militants.
There is a “major disconnect” between what is being said in the media and what is happening in reality, Heather Barr, interim co-director of Human Rights Watch’s women’s rights division.
In an article on the HRW site, he said Taliban militants have closed entire schools for girls in recent months and years.
“The Taliban spokesman has continued to compromise respect for women’s rights, but his claims sound more empty than ever,” she said.
There are likely to be differences in how women are treated in Afghanistan, Felbab-Brown said. That depends on local Taliban commanders and the strength of the community’s bargaining power, he said.
But the group has also consistently stressed that freedoms will be given “in the context of sharia law,” or religious law, he added.
– CNBC’s Natasha Turak contributed to this report.