It is crimes like this that make many Afghans nostalgic for the harsh justice of Taliban rule. Barakzai countered: “Women were safe, in one sense, under the Taliban — but they were kept as slaves, they were not allowed to do what they wanted even in their own home.”
As the Taliban strengthen, the future for women in Afghanistan looks bleaker. Barakzai said women’s rights, once heralded as the great success of post-invasion Afghanistan, had been sidelined and might suffer more in the struggle to find a solution to the fighting.
Last week, a council of 400 women politicians met in Kabul to discuss this possibility and prepare ways to counter it.
“Our biggest fear at the moment is that the return of Talibani ideas to government will wind back the gains we have made in these last years,” Karokhail said.
RSS