The claim that restrictions on women’s lives are a temporary necessity is not new to Afghan women. The Taliban made similar claims the last time they checked Afghanistan, said Heather Barr, associate director of women’s rights at Human Rights Watch.
“The explanation was that the security was not good, and they waited for the security to be better, and then women would have more freedom,” she said. “But of course, in those years they were in power, that moment never came — and I can promise you Afghan women who hear this today think it never will this time either.”
Brian Castner, a senior crisis adviser at Amnesty International who was in Afghanistan until last week, said that if the Taliban wanted to treat women better, they should retrain their troops. “You can’t have a movement like the Taliban that has been working one way for 25 years, and then just because you take over a government, all the fighters and everyone in your organization are just doing something different,” he said.
But, Mr Castner said, there is no indication that the Taliban intend to honor those or other promises of moderation. Amnesty International has received reports of fighters going door-to-door with lists of names, despite their leaders’ public pledges not to retaliate against Afghans who collaborated with the previous government.
“The rhetoric and reality don’t match at all, and I think the rhetoric is more than just unfair,” Mr Castner said. “If a random Taliban fighter commits a human rights violation or violation, that’s just random violence, that’s one thing. But if there’s a systematic way to go into people’s homes and find people, it’s not a random fighter who’s untrained – it’s a system that works. The rhetoric is a cover for what is really happening.”
In Kabul, women in parts of the city where the Taliban had a minimal presence went out on Wednesday “in normal clothing, as it was before the Taliban,” said a resident named Shabaka. But in central areas with many Taliban fighters, few women ventured outside, and those who did wore a burqa, says Sayed, an official.
Ms. Barr of Human Rights Watch said in the week since the Taliban said the new government would protect women’s rights “within the bounds of Islamic law,” the Afghan women she spoke to expressed the same skeptical assessment: “They try to look normal and legit. And this will last as long as the international community and the international press are around. And then we’ll see how they really are.”
It might not be long, Mrs. Barr suggested.
“This announcement makes it clear to me that they don’t feel like they have to wait,” she said.
Sharif Hassan and Norimitsu Onishic reporting contributed.
