Afghanistan (Commonwealth Union)_ The Taliban is an extremist terrorist organisation focused on imposing their idea of the Islamic laws to communities that they influence by inflicting terror, and violence on the people. The predominantly pashtun group emerged in the early 1990s, and spread their power to Afghanistan, from Pakistan, controlling the lives of the people by ensuring that their perspective is religiously followed.
The Taliban initially started out by participating in community gatherings where they promised peace and security provided that they were given a position of power. Soon afterwards, the extremist group introduced strict and severe punishments when their rules were not followed. These included public encounters of murderers and adulterers as well as open amputation of those charged with theft. Under their rule, it was compulsory for men to grow the beard and for women to don the burkha at all times if they didn’t want to face serious consequences. The Taliban even banned cinemas and television, and went as far as banning education for girls aged above 10. If their orders were not followed, no mercy was shown. Multiple people have been murdered for attempting to go to school, or for protesting for basic human rights such as education.
One historical example of gross human right violation displayed by the Taliban is the destruction of the famous Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan, which was executed despite international outrage. In 2021, the Taliban traversed back to Afghanistan after two decades, with their extremist viewpoints, and regained power, once again violating basic human rights for females in Afghanistan. Last year, the international outrage caused the Taliban to promise a softer rule, however, all these promises were broken when the Taliban once again banned women from obtaining secondary and tertiary education.
This ban came less than three months after thousands of women and girls sat for their entrance clearance exam with the aspiration to pursue teaching or medicine as future careers. Even when girls were allowed back in university and college, drastic measures such as gender segregation in classrooms were implemented. There was also a rule which allowed only women professors to conduct classes for females.
Despite these strictly enforced regulations, the Taliban announced a ban on education for females, restricting any girl above the age of 10 to rightfully pursue formal education. While this decision was met with a lot of rage globally, with the United Nations expressing their deep concern on women’s education, the problem runs way deeper than what meets the surface.
When women are banned from receiving formal education, their scope of intelligence is limited as they are not given the opportunity to broaden their intellectuality with greater knowledge. They are also unable to pursue proper professions which require them to have a proper educational qualification. If this continues, in the long run, the workforce comprising professionals in various different fields is going to suffer a shortage of labour especially in Afghanistan.
According to current statistics, women account for 47.7% of the global workforce, which is quite simply half of the entire working population. This balance has opened up many opportunities for economic growth around the world. While this progression is an achievement to celebrate, women in Afghanistan aren’t just denied education, but are also restricted from stepping outside to work. Due to this imposition, women are unable to contribute to the growth of the country, thereby causing significant loss to the growth of the Afghan economy. As years pass, this impending threat will become an unsolvable problem with the growth factor deteriorating as fewer women are given the proper education to be recruited into the corporate world. The decisions made now, by an extremist group will affect the stability of generations to come if women are not recruited to contribute to the growth of the economy.
