Before the Taliban's takeover, Afghan women were:
- 70% of school teachers
- 50% of civilians in the government workforce
- 60% of teachers at Kabul University
- 50% of students at Kabul University
- 40% of doctors in Kabul
But when the Taliban took over the capital city of Kabul in September 1996, it issued an edict that stripped women and girls of their rights, holding the Afghan people hostage under a brutal system of gender apartheid. The edict forbade women and girls from working or going to school. It effectively placed all women under house arrest, prohibiting them from leaving their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative. Women who had lost all of their male relatives in the war were literally trapped in their homes.
Women were prohibited from being seen or heard. The windows of their homes were painted, and they could not appear in public unless wearing the full-body covering, the burqa. Women were beaten for showing a bit of ankle or wearing noisy shoes. They could not speak in public or to men who were not relatives. They were beaten, even killed, for minor violations of these rules.
Women accused of prostitution or infidelity were hung in public squares or stoned to death, and persons accused of homosexuality were put in a pit near a wall, which was then toppled, burying them alive. Ironically, brothels proliferated under Taliban rule, employing educated women who had no other way to survive. The Taliban alternated between frequenting and raiding the brothels.
Throughout many years of civil war and ethnic conflicts in Afghanistan, both the Taliban and other factions of the mujahideen used rape as a weapon of war – a means of terrorizing women and dishonoring entire communities.
After more than two decades of war that killed hundreds of thousands of Afghan men, many Afghan women are the sole source of income for their families.
With the Taliban's restrictions against work and travel, women and their families were forced further into dire poverty in a country ravaged by war and drought. The regime shut down women-run bakeries, a major source of food for the poor, demonstrating that the Taliban prized misogyny more than food -- even when people were dying of starvation.
Because most female doctors were excluded from the workforce, and male doctors were prohibited from treating women, most Afghan women had no access to medical care. This led to a large increase in infant and maternal mortality and deaths that could easily have been prevented with proper medication. A small number of female doctors were granted exceptions to work in a few female-only hospitals, but most eventually fled the country or could not travel to work because of the Taliban's restrictive code. Female surgeons found it impossible to operate properly from underneath the burqa, with its limited vision, and some patients fortunate enough to receive care at all died because their doctors could not see to operate. Male doctors who wanted to help were prohibited from doing so.
Women's Lives Under the Taliban: A Background Report
