With New Taliban Manifesto, Afghan Women Fear the Worst

No education beyond the sixth grade. No employment in most workplaces and no access to public spaces like parks, gyms and salons. No long-distance travel if unaccompanied by a male relative. No leaving home if not covered from head to toe.

And now, the sound of a woman’s voice outside the home has been outlawed in Afghanistan, according to a 114-page manifesto released late last month that codifies all of the Taliban government’s decrees restricting women’s rights.

A large majority of the prohibitions have been in place for much of the Taliban’s three years in power, slowly squeezing Afghan women out of public life. But for many women across the country, the release of the document feels like a nail in the coffin for their dreams and aspirations.

Some had clung to the hope that the authorities might still reverse the most severe limitations, after Taliban officials suggested that high schools and universities would eventually reopen for women after they were shuttered. For many women, that hope is now dashed.

“We are going back to the first reign of the Taliban, when women did not have the right to leave the house,” said Musarat Faramarz, 23, a woman in Baghlan Province, in northern Afghanistan, referring to the movement’s rule from 1996 to 2001. “I thought that the Taliban had changed, but we are experiencing the previous dark times again.”

Since the Taliban regained power in August 2021, the authorities have systematically rolled back the rights that women — particularly those in less conservative urban centers — had won during the 20-year U.S. occupation. Today, Afghanistan is the most restrictive country in the world for women, and the only one that bans high school education for girls, experts say.