“They don’t consider women as humans,” says researcher and activist Humeira Rizai who fled Afghanistan along with tens of thousands of compatriots to escape the atrocities of the Taliban.

“I was born in a rural area during the Taliban rule and could not go to school at that time. We fear that there will be a rise in trafficking of women in Afghanistan now that the Taliban are back,” Rizai said in an interaction with women journalists organised by the Indian Women’s Press Corps on Wednesday.

The Taliban rule in the 1990s set the country back by 100 years, she added.

Afghan MP Shinkai Karokhail recalled the turmoil women have been going through since the Taliban took over the country. “It is a terrible situation there,” she said.

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The Taliban went to the homes of women activists and politicians who could not leave Afghanistan as many countries had stopped giving visas, to intimidate them. “This is the way they wanted to scare women who had to run away or keep silent and not raise their voice,” Karokhail, also a women’s rights activist, said.

“Women have the right to be included,” she said, adding that the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam is wrong and they are using it to violate women.

The MP lashed out at the international community for letting such a crisis take place in Afghanistan and condemned the countries which have supported the growth of the Taliban. “Taliban and supporters of Taliban like Pakistan, China, Iran and Russia must be made accountable because they are behind the situation there. The US must accept the mistakes they made in Afghanistan,” she said.

“I left my country with a heavy and broken heart, it wasn’t easy and I struggled a lot,” said Karokhail who left Afghanistan for Canada on August 20, five days after Kabul fell.

Afghan journalist Fatima Faramarz, who was also a panellist, said women are considered “animals and the Taliban decides to treat them as they please”.

An investigative journalist at Etilaat Roz, Faramarz recalled how her colleagues were brutally beaten up recently when they went to cover a protest. “They were covering a protest. They were taken by the Taliban to a police station and were beaten with batons and electrical cables,” she narrated.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Taliban’s rights record in the 1990s, when it first took over Afghanistan, was characterised by systematic violations against women and girls; cruel corporal punishments, including executions; and extreme suppression of freedom of religion, expression, and education.

(With inputs from PTI)

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