Back to harrowing times: Afghan women fear Taliban rule

Afghan women are now fearing that they would have to live through those harrowing days of Taliban rule from 1996-2001. The time when women were forced to stay at home and forbidden to study or go to work.

The women were not allowed to step out of their homes without a male escort.

However, as of now, there are no confirmed reports of any such extreme measures being adopted by the Taliban.

An Associated Press report quoted families fleeing their homes and taking refuge on the sidewalks and parks in Kabul.

The girls riding home in a motorised rickshaw in the Takhar province in northern Afghanistan were stopped and lashed for wearing “revealing sandals”. This is the area that has been captured by the Taliban.

For those, who have lived under the Taliban rule before 2001, diktats bring a flashback of the atrocious time.

Zarmina Kakar, a women's rights activist in Kabul, was a year old when the Taliban entered Kabul for the first time in 1996.

Her mother took her out to buy her ice cream and was whipped by a Taliban fighter for revealing her face for a few minutes.
“Today again, I feel that if Taliban come to power, we will return back to the same dark days,” she said.

During that time, the Taliban carried out public executions, chopped off the hands of thieves and stoned women accused of adultery.

Associated Press interviewed Zahra (name changed) who has been working from home.

However, after the Taliban took over Herat, she is not being able to work and she does not know when she will be able to work again.

Also, she is apprehensive that she will not be able to play the guitar, and her brother will be able to play football.

She fears that the women community of the country will again be pushed back to the wall.