Afghanistan’s ambassador Khaled Ahmad Zekriya slams Taliban’s “erasure” of women’s voices I Exclusive Interview

The Taliban’s relentless suppression of women’s rights in Afghanistan has escalated to a new height by forbidding women from letting their voices be heard, even in prayer. This chilling directive, announced by the Acting Minister for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, reinforces the Taliban’s agenda to erase women from public and private life entirely. Women’s voices are now deemed ‘awrah’ meaning they must be concealed from public spaces, a restriction that compounds previous bans on their visibility and social participation.

In this exclusive DevelopmentAid interview, H.E. Khaled Ahmed Zekriya, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Italy and Permanent Representative to the UN agencies stationed in Rome, offers a powerful critique of the Taliban’s oppressive regime. Zekriya, who retains his position as ambassador on both bilateral and multilateral fora despite his open opposition to the Taliban, reflects the unique stance of a diplomat who has continued to represent Afghanistan internationally even though the Taliban regime is unrecognized by many. While Italy and the UN agencies in Rome uphold Zekriya’s ambassadorships, his insight reveals the internal divisions within the Taliban’s power structure, the ideological motivations behind its policies, and the far-reaching consequences for Afghan society.

DevelopmentAid: What do you believe are the underlying motivations for the Taliban’s recent decision to ban women from speaking to each other? How does this align with its broader ideological goals and policies regarding gender roles in Afghan society?

Zekriya: The underlying motivations for the Taliban’s recent Vice and Virtue decree and the latest decision to ban the female segment of Afghan population from speaking to each other stems from Taliban members’ upbringing, ideological beliefs and practices defined as Talibanization. Additionally, they consider Afghan women’s unity, opposition and resilience to be a serious threat to their rule in Afghanistan. However, it should be noted that the Taliban Haqqani group’s ideological beliefs and practices on the issue of females differ from the Taliban Kandahari group in Afghanistan.

The Kandahari group leadership is made of those Afghans who were brought up and educated in Madrasas in Pakistan during the Jihad period against the former Soviet Union. These individuals were either orphans or children of Afghan freedom fighters who were sent to Madrasas to pursue Islamic Sharia studies. The Islamic Sharia curriculum in Madrasas was a mixture of Deobandi-Salafi-Wahhabi teachings flavored with some traditional practices. The fact that during their formative years of life and study, most of these young Talibs at Madrasas never had contact with the opposite sex has led to their misogyny.

On the other hand, the young Haqqani group’s upbringing and studies were different in the sense that they had more freedom, access to modern education, technology, and the intermarriages of their parents or themselves to non-Afghan Muslims as well as their close alliance with Al Qaeda did not make them moderate, but more pragmatic in terms of dealing with the opposite sex. In fact, most of the young Haqqani group leaders are not against secondary and higher education for girls and women, including their employment within governmental and non-governmental agencies. However, as it relates to power sharing and Jihadist tendencies, unlike the Kandahari group that believes in the formation of an inclusive government and does not possess transnational ambitions, the Haqqani group is against the sharing of power and their Jihadist tactics and strategies are far more vicious and expansionist in nature. The Haqqani group leadership believes that the female segment of the Afghan population should be allowed to pursue education while following Jihadist teachings within the Madrasas and modern academic settings.

Since the Kandahri Taliban assumed central power in Afghanistan, their Islamist/traditional beliefs and practices in relation to females embrace very restrict interpretations of the Holy Quran. The Kandahari Taliban have embraced such misguided and extreme interpretations to fit their ideological stance on girls and women. For them, females must be isolated from society and confined within the premise of their homes to only produce children, cook and clean. Hence, obedience, subservience and servitude are expected of females. For them, this is considered to be the legitimate Islamic and appropriate traditional roles of females in society.

Yet, in the face of this increasingly harsh reality, Afghan females continue to demonstrate remarkable resilience and courage which is another reason why the Taliban see women as an imminent threat to their rule in Afghanistan. The women’s determination against the Taliban misogynist regime remains unshaken and, in some cases, is even growing stronger both within and outside Afghanistan.

DevelopmentAid: In your opinion, how will the continuation of these oppressive measures impact Afghan society in the short and long term? What do you foresee as the potential societal consequences if these policies remain in place?

Zekriya: As a chilling regime of systematic gender-based discrimination and violence now prevails in Afghanistan, one brave Afghan woman by the name of Hamida Aman, the founder of Begum TV, a Paris-based channel aiming to educate Afghan women and girls, rightly said:

“We no longer have the right to hear the sound of a woman’s voice, or to see even a glimpse of a woman. It’s as if we were telling them: ‘We want to kill you slowly’…The only right we are allowed is to breathe. And even then …”

This quote is indicative of the pain and despair that Afghan women go through on a daily basis. The continuation of these oppressive measures will have some of the following impacts on Afghan society and beyond:

• Dire psychological impact – UN Women data published last August showed that 18% of women had not met other women outside their immediate family in the previous three months. Moreover, 8% of survey respondents said they knew at least one woman or girl who had tried to commit suicide since the Taliban had seized power in August 2021. This, together with inadequate hygiene and sanitation facilities, has generated a sense of despair.
• Increase in gender-based domestic and outside violence – The Taliban’s oppressive decrees and deep-rooted patriarchal norms that have deprived women of social privilege, decision-making power, and control over assets, including abolishing the judicial system that once allowed female judges, prosecutors, and lawyers to fight for women’s rights, has led to an increase in violence against women.
• Increase in rates of early and forced child marriages – In 2023 alone, 28.7% of Afghan girls under 18 were married, including 9.6% under the age of 15. This has led to an increase in suicide by young married girls, child immortality rate and domestic violence.
• Decline in decision making inside and outside home – Afghan women are barred from holding any leading social or political roles be it at national or provincial level. Even when they are engaged in the Taliban’s structures, the only action they can take is to make sure that other women comply with their discriminatory practices. Of the women UN Women surveyed, 99% said their influence on decision making in their communities represented next to nothing. This policy extended to the home as well, with the number of women able to make decisions in their homes falling by almost 60% in 2023.
• Shrinkage of civic space – The Taliban restrictions have gone so far as to prohibit women from acting as NGO workers, banning them from holding any leadership posts whatsoever in women-focused NGOs, and even obliged NGOs to replace the word ‘women’ with ‘men in documents. Thus many women-focused NGOs have had to close down, whereas those that are still running have to fight hard to stay on track.
• Decrease in access to health services – Only 10% of female respondents said they were able to meet their basic health needs in 2022 as access to health services decreased. Although no official data is available, the mortality rate among women, the new-born and children is believed to have risen according to a 2022 study carried out among public and private health facilities in five Afghan urban centers. Females with disabilities face an even worse situation as their disability triggers ever higher gender discrimination and stigma. As the UN women righteously emphasized, they are also more likely to experience higher rates of violence and have less access to reproductive health care, even being at risk of forced sterilization.
• Increase in illiteracy rates – As women constituted more than 30% of Afghan educators in primary and secondary schools as well as universities during the former Afghan Republic, the inability to teach will have mid-term and long-term consequences on education and higher education. This will lead to an increase in illiteracy as women play a crucial role in teaching girls and women.  Furthermore, an uneducated or illiterate mother trapped within the confines of her home will not be able to educate her offspring either.
• Decrease in household income and decline of the economy – As many Afghan women entered the labor force, especially in Afghanistan’s educational system as well as indigenous and non-indigenous NGOs and UN international organizations, the Afghan GDP increased and the economy prospered in response to their labor input. Now that under the Taliban most girls and women have lost their jobs, household incomes that helped families to escape poverty and increased their consumption of goods and services has dramatically declined.
• Increase in Jihadist tendencies and Talibanization – By the end of this year, it is estimated that 4300 Madrasas will be built in Afghanistan. These will have an Islamist curriculum and upon its completion, most students will be encouraged to pursue Jihadist military education and tactics. This Madrasa system will eventually replace the educational system in large part. The Islamist curriculum has already been adopted in primary schools for girls and boys as well as in secondary education and universities for the Afghan male segment of the population.

Overall, the potential societal consequences of the Taliban policies will lead to the further isolation of Afghanistan. Furthermore, Talibanization will not only consolidate itself inside Afghanistan, but it will have bleeding effects in Europe, the Americas and other parts of the world. With more restrictions on the female segment of Afghan population, families will have no other choice but to leave Afghanistan which will lead to more migration and a further decline of the Afghan economy.

DevelopmentAid: Given the severity of these restrictions, do you think the international community will intervene and, if so, what forms of intervention could be effective? What strategies might be employed to hold the Taliban accountable while supporting Afghan women’s rights?

Zekriya: When the Taliban illegitimately assumed power for the second time on 15 August 2021, the US and the international community felt that it had changed and become moderate. This wishful thinking led to an engagement with the Taliban that was almost unconditional in practice. As time went on, the UN and the international community embraced another form of engagement known as ‘Normalization of Engagement’ with the Taliban. Realizing that this sort of concession to the Taliban has not yielded any result, the international community is now in the position whereby it must either continue with this appeasement/concession policy or employ the carrot and stick approach with the Taliban. Therefore, the time has come for the establishment of a robust and accountable framework when engaging with the Taliban in relation to gender equality in Afghanistan. This places additional importance on UN actors, international NGOs, indigenous actors, and donors to make sure that the new framework for constructive engagement with the Taliban is based on the international community’s conditions, not those of the Taliban. Additional pressure needs to be exerted on the Taliban by making Gender Apartheid part of international law in Afghanistan, directing funds for gender equality, avoiding normalizing Taliban discriminatory practices, prioritizing the rights of girls and women in all official engagements, utilizing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) to support the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s Diplomatic and Consular Missions in Europe, Australia and Canada, making the US/UN weekly injection of assistance to Afghanistan is conditional, keeping Afghan Central Bank Switzerland-based funds frozen as is, and holding the Taliban accountable for the violation of the US-Doha Agreement.