Hadia, a 30-year-old Afghan woman, fled from Kunduz, northern Afghanistan, to Iran in 2022 and formed the Afghanistan Women’s Voice movement. For the last two years, this group, comprising a dozen or more women, has been holding discreet protests against the obliteration of women’s roles in the Afghan society in various areas away from Tehran, Iran’s capital. The protests occur every couple of weeks and focus on the Taliban’s measures to suppress women’s liberties in Afghanistan.
Speaking out against the Taliban’s actions, Sakina, a computer science graduate from Kabul, aged 24, insists that their exercises and protests cannot be halted (security concerns necessitate the use of only first names for the Afghan women). Sakina calls for the Afghan people to be given the right to shape their future and urges the world to not turn a blind eye towards the Taliban’s atrocities.
Human Rights Watch’s women’s rights director, Heather Barr, describes the situation for women’s rights in Afghanistan as the worst worldwide crisis. She highlights that the Taliban’s actions systematically breach the rights of women and girls, impacting a range of areas, including education, salaried jobs, freedom of speech and motion, and active political participation, among others.
Afghan women protesting these violations risk being abducted, unlawfully detained and abused. There have been reports of teenage girls and young women being sexually abused and brutalised by the Taliban for wearing their hijab improperly. In July, media outlets, The Guardian and Rukhshana, announced they had seen a video of an Afghan female human rights activist being sexually violated and brutalised by armed men in a Taliban prison. The activist said she received the video after the assault, along with a threat to distribute it more widely if she continues to condemn the Taliban regime.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, approximates that around a million Afghan citizens have sought refuge in Iran following the tumultuous events of 2021. Some entered legally with visas, others were covertly ushered in by smugglers. Amongst those refugees was 24-year-old Razia, a student from Kabul’s civil aviation institute, who was training to become an air traffic controller. Amid the resurgence of the Taliban, Razia, who was pregnant, risked a perilous journey with her husband to flee to Iran.
In Iran, unlike the restrictive Taliban regime, Afghan females have the privilege of pursuing an education. As reported by the Norwegian Refugee Council, over 600,000 Afghan children are enrolled in Iranian schools and around 40,000 Afghan students are undertaking studies in Iranian universities. However, life in Iran is not without its detriments. In 2022, the Iranian regime brutally suppressed anti-government protestors, including children and women, outraged by the custodial death of Mahsa Amini and restrictions on women’s clothing. The number of executions carried out by Iranian authorities also saw a significant surge in 2023, as reported by Human Rights Watch.
Despite oppressive regimes and restrictions on free speech, women like Hadia refuse to be silenced. Though no online protestors have been jailed yet, Hadia narrowly escaped arrest by the Iranian police during a demonstration at the German embassy in Tehran, in November 2023. That day she managed to dodge detention following a lengthy barter with security forces.
According to the UNHCR, around 3.4 million refugees reside in Iran, with Afghans forming the predominant group. But discontent is rising amongst the Iranians towards the Afghan refugees. Khurshid, a 29-year-old law and political science graduate from Faryab near the Afghanistan-Turkmenistan border, joined the influx of refugees into Iran. She hoped to enlist in the military but realised it was an impossible dream under Taliban rule. Despite facing xenophobic discrimination in Iran, Khurshid expresses an ardent longing to return home, eagerly anticipating the downfall of the Taliban regime.
Claims have been made by women belonging to Afghanistan’s Shia Hazara community about the country’s lack of safety for their return, following a string of deadly bombing incidents conducted by affiliations of the Islamic State extremist group in recent years. These incidents have led to numerous fatalities, including many young girls. Both the extremist Sunni militant collective and significant portions of the Taliban consider Shia Muslims as apostates, resulting in discrimination against this community within Afghanistan.
Highlighted in this dispute is Sakina, a Hazara, who voices negative opinions towards Hazara leaders for their acceptance of the newly instated Taliban rule. She specifically censures the ex-member of the Afghan parliament, Jafar Mahdavi. Sakina accuses Mahdavi of announcing the Hazara community’s acceptance of the Taliban as fraternal counterparts without consulting the Hazara people beforehand. Despite this, Sakina insists the Taliban have consistently failed to recognise Hazaras as peers, denying them equal rights, neither have they expressed an intention to do so in the future.
Mahdavi has not yet responded to the request for his comments on the matter.