The departure of the Russians was a turning point, and the lights effectively went out for the women of Afghanistan with the emergence of the Taliban in 1994. Overnight the 8,000 women studying at Kabul University were expelled; more than 100,000 young girls were pulled out of schools in the capital, except for Koranic studies; and all work - except in the area of health - was outlawed. Those who wore their burqas incorrectly were whipped with bicycle chains.
One wonders how long this situation can go on. Just watching from abroad, it strikes me that there's a certain inexorable progression looming. First, with such high mortality from childbirth and other causes, and infant mortality at such breathtaking numbers, the number of women in Afghanistan will plummet. As they become more scarce, they will be married off at earlier and earlier ages, which will increase childbirth mortality even more. (They're being married off early now because their fathers don't want to pay to feed them. It's always possible that when they become more valuable, they'll be held out of the marriage market a bit longer, which would be to their benefit, in a strange way.) Increasing scarcity will, of course, make them more valuable livestock. (Given the way they're treated, there is simply no other applicable term; their sole purpose in life is to breed more numbers of Afghan men.) As their lives become more and more onerous, more and more of the Afghan women will flee to the opposition strongholds, where they and their daughters seem to have a chance at living something resembling a normal life. (That is, more of them will try to flee. Most will not succeed, of course. Most of those who do not succeed will be punished, and will most likely die of their punishment.)
Once women become more valuable commodities, the Taliban will no longer be able to allow the opposition areas to continue to exist; they will need to somehow acquire enough armaments and force to destroy the strongholds. The women will then be forced to flee to Pakistan -- the least fundamentalist of the countries bordering Afghanistan. Most of the known ways into the country will be blockaded and patrolled, so the women will need to take riskier paths, which will also contribute to their deaths.
The West is unlikely to do much more to support the opposition in Afghanistan, for historically well-founded reasons. Every time the West supports an opposition party in the Middle East or South Asia or East Africa, for whatever reason, it comes back to bite them in the ass -- Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Angola, the Taliban itself ... the list is long enough that perhaps the West has finally learned from history and determined not to repeat itself.
Which will be unfortunate for the women of Afghanistan.
Something to note, as an odd marker of how bad things are for women: In most countries, there are slightly more males than females born. Thereafter, the ratio drops (apparently we're rather fragile) until in early adulthood, the population of men and women is at approximate parity. After about age 30, the ratio of men to women continues to drop, until in late life -- from age 60 and up -- there are sharply more women than men. Afghanistan must be one of the very few countries in which, from age 15 on up, the ratio of men to women actually increases (look at the numbers on "Sex ratio"); in looking through the Factbook, the only other one I've found is Sudan -- a country that's been in a state of civil war for many many years now.
And now the Taliban is trying to pick a fight with Iran. Good grief.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
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