The World’s Nod to Taliban Misogyny?

The United Nations recently hosted a third round of talks on Afghanistan in Doha, Qatar, to weigh the prospects for the country’s return to the international system. The talks were attended by special envoys on Afghanistan from 30 world nations, including the United States. That the world’s 30 leading nations have appointed “special envoys” on Afghanistan shows how concerning Afghanistan is to the globe. The UN sponsored the earlier two rounds in May 2023 and February 2024. Doha I and Doha II were, however, focused on the international obligations of Afghanistan’s de facto rulers, i.e., the Taliban regime.

The Taliban boycotted Doha I and Doha II, dismissing the “international obligations” as interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs. Also, they refused to attend Doha III until the UN dropped human and women rights from its agenda, and barred Afghan women and civil society organization leaders from attending the talks. This capitulation is a step toward accepting the Taliban as the sole and legitimate representative of Afghanistan that they are not. The Taliban further snubbed the UN and participating countries by sending a delegation led by a low-level official, a government spokesperson, instead of their minister for foreign affairs.

To be fair, cutting and pruning the agenda around the Taliban’s demands was not an easy decision for the UN or special envoys to swallow. There is every indication that the decision irked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who earlier attended Doha I and Doha II, enough to abstain from Doha III. Many others were dismayed by the decision. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women was “deeply concerned” about the exclusion that it said “will only further silence Afghan women and girls.”

Human Rights Watch found the decision “shocking.” The Afghan Representative at the United Nations, who does not represent the de facto Taliban regime in Kabul and is a holdover from the pre-Taliban Afghan government, was “disappointed” at the decision. He urged the world to hold the Taliban to their international obligation of forming an inclusive and representative government in Afghanistan, engage with all Afghan stakeholders, not just the Taliban, and not look away from human rights violations in Afghanistan.

The U.S. Special Envoy on Afghanistan, speaking at the UN Security Council, lamented that “the harm caused by the Taliban’s restrictions on women and girls cannot be overstated,” noting “that it has now been over 1,000 days since it banned girls from secondary schools.” Yet he seemed more concerned with “Afghanistan’s reintegration into an international system,” and having the UN appoint a “focal point to begin producing a road map” to this effect.

The world, nonetheless, stays united refusing to recognize the Taliban government in the face of their misanthropic and misogynistic policies, which ban girls from seeking an education beyond sixth grade and women from employment even in women-only establishments and organizations. Even diverse nations such as China, India, Iran, Russia, and the United States speak with one voice. More importantly, the UN has refused to accept the Taliban regime as a de jure government that has been constituted and propped up against the will of the Afghans, and with the muscular power of a militia force, i.e., the Taliban.

The global call on the Taliban to end their misogyny has not gone unheeded, though. There is now a growing chorus of voices, both loud and quiet, within the Taliban regime that wants the ban on female education lifted. One such voice is that of the Taliban’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Stanikzai, who initially was tipped to be the country’s prime minister but got pushed aside because of his outspokenness. He has long been challenging his government’s ban on female education, arguing that Islam makes it obligatory for both men and women to get an education. He calls the ban on women and girls’ education “oppressive and unjust.”

Quieter voices also oppose the ban, prominent among them the ministers for defense and the interior, who see the ban as inconsistent with international norms. Defense Minister Yaqoob Mujahid’s dissent carries greater weight because of his heritage. He is a son of the founder of the Taliban Movement, Mullah Omar, and is widely respected by the rank and file of the movement. So is Sirajuddin Haqqani, the minister for the interior, whose father Jalaluddin Haqqani is credited with crafting military strategies that, years later, paved the way for the Taliban’s return to power.

Who is, then, opposed to women and girls’ right to education and work? It is the Taliban’s Supreme Leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, who is a recluse, hermit, blinkered, bigoted and inveterate misogynist with zero formal education, except for a few years of undistinguished religious instruction. Unlike many world scholars of Islam, Akhundzada has never traveled outside of  his birth country of Afghanistan and the remote village in neighboring Pakistan where he was in exile. This insularity has turned him into a literalist reader of religious texts. His medieval interpretations of Islam are rejected by every single Muslim religious scholar, including the world’s largest Islamic movement of Nahdatul Ulema in Indonesia, which boasts 100 million members.

Similarly, religious scholars in Cairo, Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia rebuffed Akhundzada’s orthodox reading of Islam. This universal repudiation has further turned him inward. He now refuses to meet with any visiting Islamic scholars. In parallel, he claims it is Pashtun culture, not necessarily religion, that doesn’t permit women to learn or work outside the home.

This citation of Pashtun culture did appeal to some. In 2021, Pakistan’s then Prime Minister Imran Khan, whose ancestors hail from Ghazni and Kandahar in Afghanistan, echoed Akhundzada’s position and urged the world to be understanding of Pashtun culture that discourages women’s education. His ambassador at the UN defended this stance saying that the Taliban’s ban on women’s education is part of Pashtun culture, which created a huge backlash. Afghanistan’s former President Hamid Karzai admonished Imran Kahn for peddling ignorance about Afghan culture. Afghan women, however, fared best under the Afghan communist regime (1979-1989), when 60% of university students in the country were women. The second best era for them was in 2001-2021, when 25% of university students were women.

If Pashtun culture were to blame for opposing women’s education, then Pashtun women in Pakistan would not be studying in co-ed schools, colleges, and universities. The Nobel laureate Malala Yousufzai, who risked her life for education, is a Pashtun. The 50 million Pashtuns in Pakistan outnumber the entire population of Afghanistan. Pakistani Pashtuns should be the true north of Pashtun culture, not Mullah Akhundzada.

Tragically, Afghanistan has fallen into the hands of those who are impervious to rational thought. Millions of Afghans have been fleeing their irrationality. Since 2021, 700,000 Afghans have sought refuge in neighboring Pakistan alone. How to stop Afghanistan from bleeding its best and brightest? All overseas Afghan assets, including the $7 billion that the United States has frozen since 2021, should be released only to Afghan women for their education. Any Afghan woman living inside or outside the country seeking higher education should be entitled to these funds. There are around 12,000 universities in India, Indonesia and the United States alone. If each of these universities offers one spot for them, 12,000 Afghan women can graduate every year. With an investment of just $7 billion, a million Afghan women can receive university education. This should be a realistic way to counter Taliban misogyny.

Unfortunately, the international community has provided the Taliban regime with $10 billion in “international aid and civilian support” since 2021, with zero accountability or transparency. The UN must engage with the Taliban to have them be accountable, transparent, meet their international obligations, and most importantly further women’s interests, i.e., their right to education, work, and public life. If the Taliban are responsive, they should be welcomed into the world community; if not, they should be shunned until they renounce their antiquated ideas. The Doha III meeting that shut out civil society and women’s voices was a nod to Taliban misogyny. This mistake needs to be undone, and soon.