Nearly two decades have passed, but Sammy remembers his father’s words clearly. Then a young professional, Sammy was out for a walk with his family in 2007 when they came across a convoy of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) vehicles, he told me in a recent interview. His little brother asked what ISAF was, and [...]
As the United Nations prepares for its third meeting of international envoys on Afghanistan in Doha, concerns are mounting over the exclusion of Afghan women from the process and the lack of focus on the Taliban’s gender apartheid policies. The plights of women like Arzo — a teacher and a single mother of four — [...]
Nooria — an Afghan refugee in Turkey — faces unbelievable hardships and the daily fear of deportation. Undaunted, she refuses to return to the Taliban’s gender apartheid state in Afghanistan. Before the Taliban’s resurgence, Nooria had a comfortable position with the US Government in Kabul. But following threats from the regime, the 40-year-old fled, and [...]
President Claudia Sheinbaum’s electoral victory in Mexico serves as a beacon of hope and inspiration for women and girls in Afghanistan. Her historic win as Mexico’s first female president is all the more remarkable given that her Jewish faith; the fact that Jews comprise a tiny minority in the overwhelmingly Catholic nation was a non-issue [...]
The presumption of innocence is a fundamental principle underpinning the right to a fair trial. This may be broadly understood as a fundamental human right, but its protection is far from universal. Since retaking control of Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban has made the systematic punishment of women and girls a core part of its [...]
Nearly three years after the Taliban’s resurgence in Afghanistan, the regime’s oppressive actions against women continue unabated. In a recent broadcast reminiscent of ISIS tactics, the Taliban’s leader communicated a chilling message: a declaration of war against women’s rights and human dignity, effectively shattering any remaining hopes for Afghan women’s liberation under their rule. I [...]
For many of the world’s nations, domestic warfare is thought of as a thing of the past. Battlefields, mass killings, hostilities, guerrilla warfare, and wartime brutalities are little more than words in a textbook for much of the global population — a theoretical possibility that only currently affects distant populations. Sadly, this is not the [...]
When one creates a social media account, one is bound to the host platform’s privacy policies and community guidelines. Each user knows that should they violate these rules, they risk losing their account. How, then, have so many people managed to use social media to exacerbate the plights of Afghan women and girls? As I [...]
On Feb. 11, much of the global community marked the International Day of Women and Girls in Science and Technology. But in Afghanistan, few felt like celebrating. After all, that day was the 874th since girls were banned from attending secondary school studies, and the 415th since universities shut their doors to women. The urgency [...]
Last December, US authorities marked Human Rights Day and the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by imposing a tranche of sanctions against human rights abusers spanning the globe, targeting perpetrators from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. In Afghanistan, two members of the Taliban government were targeted, as announced by a State Department press [...]
