Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, the erasure of women from public life has been swift and relentless. This is not merely the restriction of women’s roles but a comprehensive project aimed at the denial of women’s social existence. In the Taliban’s regime, this is not a temporary policy but the very core of their ideology: a power that seeks to consolidate itself by systematically cleansing half of society.
Under Taliban rule, women are deprived not only of education in schools and universities but also of their most basic human rights. They are barred from government jobs and much of the private sector, denied freedom of movement without a male guardian, restricted from visiting healthcare facilities or entering public and recreational spaces. In recent months, the arbitrary arrest of women in Kabul simply for appearing in public has reached new heights, amounting to the physical cleansing of women from urban spaces and their symbolic removal from social existence.
From an Islamic jurisprudential perspective, the Taliban’s treatment of women aligns with neither the foundational principles of Sunni fiqh nor the Hanafi school they claim to follow. Hanafi jurisprudence emphasizes the presumption of innocence and holds that no one can be detained or punished without proven guilt in a competent court and the right to defense. In Islamic law, a woman is recognized as an independent moral agent with the right to appear in public unless a legitimate judicial ruling restricts her. The Taliban’s so-called “Promotion of Virtue” policies violate these principles: they are not based on clear evidence of wrongdoing, do not follow proper legal channels, and disregard the prescribed ethical and procedural limits for enjoining good and forbidding wrong.
On the issue of hijab, the Taliban have transformed what is meant to be a spiritual and moral commitment into a tool of harsh political discipline. Scholars widely agree that wearing the hijab is primarily a personal moral obligation, not a state-imposed decree. What the Taliban enforce under the guise of “social order” reflects not Islamic jurisprudence but the ideological discipline of authoritarian religious rule.
Sociologically, the erasure of women is not just gender-based discrimination; it is a profound structural collapse. Healthy social systems depend on the active participation of all groups. Systematically removing women cripples half of the country’s cultural, economic, social, and moral capacity. Social interaction, cultural reproduction, and the transmission of values all suffer fundamental disruption. What the Taliban are creating is a single-gender order, a model so extreme that it has few parallels even in historical religious states.
Meanwhile, the international community, while repeatedly condemning these violations in words, has largely enabled the Taliban’s project through silence or minimal reaction. International human rights institutions, including the UN Human Rights Council, the Commission on the Status of Women, and CEDAW, have labeled the Taliban’s policies as blatant human rights violations and a form of “gender apartheid,” yet no binding or effective action has been taken to halt the process.
From the standpoint of international law, many of the Taliban’s actions constitute crimes against humanity. Systematic exclusion of women from public life, denial of education, restrictions on movement, and deprivation of healthcare violate foundational human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In conclusion, the Taliban have not merely marginalized or oppressed women; they have erased them from social existence—physically, institutionally, legally, culturally, and civilizationally. Terms like “discrimination” or “deprivation” are insufficient to describe what is happening. Afghanistan is witnessing a systematic project of female erasure in the fullest sense of the word.
Resisting this reality requires two things: first, raising awareness about the true nature of this erasure, especially within Muslim societies where the line between religion and authoritarianism may be blurred; and second, amplifying the voices of Afghanistan’s women regionally and globally to ensure the Taliban’s narrative on faith and society does not go unchallenged. This is not merely a domestic crisis; it is a moral test for the global conscience. If the world remains silent, it is not merely a spectator but an active accomplice in this injustice.
The views expressed in the “Your Perspective” section reflect those of the author and do not necessarily represent Deeyar TV’s editorial stance.
