Editor-DN
From Iraq to Afghanistan to the United States, women’s basic freedoms are being eroded as governments begin to roll back existing laws.
Just a few months ago, Afghans were banned. Women speak in public. It was the latest move introduced by the Taliban, who took back control of the country in 2021. The ban since August includes singing songs, reading aloud, reciting poetry and even laughing outside homes.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Proclamation of Virtue and Prevention of Evil, which enforces one of the most fundamental interpretations of Islamic law, enforces these laws. They are part of a wider set. “Good and Evil” Laws that severely restrict women’s rights and freedoms. Even women are banned. By reading the Quran Loud for other women in public.
Over the past three years in Afghanistan, the Taliban have taken away many of the basic rights of women living there, allowing them to do very little.
From 2021, The Taliban started. Introducing restrictions on girls getting an education, starting with a ban on mixed education and then banning girls from attending secondary schools. It then closed schools for blind girls in 2023, and made it mandatory for girls in grades four to six to cover their faces while going to school.
Women can no longer attend universities or obtain a degree certificate nationally, or receive midwifery or nursing training in the Kandahar region. Women are no longer allowed. Become a flight attendant, or take a job outside the home. Bakeries run by women have now been banned in the capital, Kabul. Women are now mostly unable to earn money or leave home. In April 2024, the Taliban in Helmand province asked the media to avoid even broadcasting women’s voices.
Afghanistan is at the last place in this list. Women, Peace and Security Index And officials at the United Nations and elsewhere have called for it. “Sex Discrimination”. Afghan women are risking their lives — facing surveillance, harassment, assault, arbitrary detention, torture and deportation. Protest against The Taliban
Many diplomats debate how important this is. “engagement” With the Taliban, however, this has not stopped the assault on women’s rights. When diplomats are “busy,” they are dealing with counterterrorism, counternarcotics, business deals, or Hostage Return despite all that has happened to Afghan women. Over a short period of timecritics believe it rarely makes it to diplomats’ priority lists.
Afghan women are protesting against the Taliban through song. Iraq’s age of consent
Meanwhile, in Iraq, on August 4, 2024, an amendment to Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status Law will likely lower the age of consent for marriage. By the age of nine 18 to 15 (or 15 with judge and parental permission) was proposed by MP Ra’d al-Maliki and supported by conservative Shiite factions in the government.
The law would have the ability to have family law matters – such as marriage – decided by religious authorities. This change could not only legalize child marriage but also take away women’s rights related to divorce, child custody and inheritance.
Iraq already has a higher rate. Early marriage7% of girls married by age 15, and 28% Married before the legal age of 18.
Unregistered marriages, which are not legally recorded in court but performed by religious or tribal authorities, Prevent girls from accessing civil rights.and leave women and girls vulnerable to exploitation, abuse and neglect, with limited options for seeking justice.
Many women’s groups already exist. Active against the law. But there is an amendment. He passed his second studies. in Parliament. If introduced, it could pave the way for further amendments that would deepen communal divisions and move the country further away from a unified legal system. This would be a particularly troubling step backwards in protecting children’s rights and gender equality.
Abortion Rights in America
Meanwhile, in the United States, women’s access to abortion has declined significantly over the past few years. In late 2021, the United States was officially labeled a. Backward democracy by an international think tank.
Six months later, the US Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v Wade decision, which had protected the constitutional right to abortion for nearly 50 years, was overturned. This led to a flurry of prohibition laws, with more than a quarter of US states imposing outright bans or Strict restrictions on abortion.
Republican US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green suggested in May 2022 that women should remain celibate if they do not. Want to get pregnant?. If only all women had that choice. In fact, sexual assault does happen in America. Every 68 seconds. One in five American women has been affected. Attempted or completed rape. From 2009-13, US Child Protective Services agencies found strong evidence indicating that 63000 children are sexually abused every year..
This development reflects a disturbing trend. There is evidence from Donald Trump’s first term that women’s rights may be further eroded in his second term. were very important during his previous term. Efforts to undermine access to health carealong with revitalizing its foreign policy “Global Gag Roll” Limiting women’s access to reproductive health care worldwide through funding conditions.
Fragility of women’s rights
If the world can tolerate the Taliban’s excesses, Iraq’s restrictive laws and US restrictions on access to abortion, it shows the fragility of women’s and girls’ rights globally and how easy it is to take them away.
The United Nations agency UN Women says that it may take another time. 286 years To close the global gender gap in legal protections. No country has yet achieved gender equality.based on the gender pay gap, legal equality and Social inequality In all corners of the world, women and girls continue to face discrimination and it seems to be getting worse. But despite everything, women Keep resisting.
(Author: Hind al-HanawiSenior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University)
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