Manizha Talash would have competed in break dancing at the Paris Olympics. However, she was disqualified when she appeared with a flag on her back that read “Free Afghan Women.”
The girl was born in Kabul and fled Afghanistan in 2021. She found refuge in Spain, where she discovered breaking. “I didn’t leave Afghanistan because I was afraid of the Taliban, I left to do whatever I could for the girls of Afghanistan, for my life and my future,” she said.
Last Wednesday, Afghanistan’s parliament approved a bill imposing new restrictions on the country’s women. One might wonder what freedoms are left for Afghan women to be deprived of as well. The bill, however, provides that women must cover their face and body when outside the home and ensure that their voices are not heard.
This means that girls and women are effectively prohibited from speaking in public. In the absolute application of the law, women will not be able to open their mouths even if they are threatened, if they want to ask for help in public, or even if they are in an outdoor market and need to buy food for their families.
The Taliban want to erase women from public life. They need them inside their homes exclusively to take care of their families and to bear and raise children. Mainly boys.
To Western criticism that women’s rights must be respected, the Taliban responded that they have the right to implement whatever policies they please. They say they respect women as provided for in their version of Islamic law, which they strictly apply along with local customs, noting that it is an internal matter.
The international community has not reacted much. It has not recognized the Taliban government, and some humanitarian organisations have suspended their activities in the country. That’s about it. And the question is, what could be done, after all, one might ask.
And the answer, unfortunately, is that there is little room for reaction. The Taliban is not a movement foreign to Afghanistan. The strict restrictions they impose on women are not something that most men, at least, are opposed to.
The only thing that could have saved Afghan women would have been internal resistance in their country. But they are alone. And now they have even lost the right to speak out. Their voices will no longer be heard, not even as a sigh.
