In the latest atrocities on women in Afghanistan, Taliban commanders refused to let scores of women board various flights, including some to other countries, since they were not accompanied by a male guardian.
According to reports, Dozens of women who arrived at Kabul’s international airport on Friday to board domestic and international flights were in for a rude shock. They were informed that they couldn’t do so without a male guardian, according to two Afghan Airlines officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid consequences from the Taliban.
Women were refused boarding Kam Air and the state-owned Ariana Airline flights to Islamabad, Dubai, and Turkey, due to the dictate of the Taliban authorities. Several of the ladies were dual citizens returning to their homes abroad, including those from Canada.
According to one official, the order came from the Taliban leadership. He said that several ladies had been granted permission to board an Ariana Airlines flight to western Herat province by Saturday, but they missed their flight by the time the clearance was provided.
The airport’s president and police chief, who are both Taliban members and Islamic clerics, met with airline executives on Saturday. “They’re working on it,” the official added.
This news comes days after the Taliban ordered the closure of secondary schools for girls.
Women’s predicament under the Taliban
After the Taliban returned to power in the country in August 2021, Afghan women are suffering persecution at the hands of the hardliner Islamic government. The Taliban continues to discriminate against women, and doesn’t extend to them the freedoms that men in the country enjoy. The Taliban also believe and disseminate that whatever is occurring with the women in the nation right now is their own problem, and that there is no trouble or injustice to the women at all.
After seizing power in Afghanistan, the Taliban attempted to portray itself as a progressive organisation dedicated to ‘safeguarding’ the rights of women, children, and minorities. However, analysts and observers throughout the world have repeatedly criticized them for their treatment of women, claiming that the Taliban’s new strategy is to seek Western funding to shore up the country’s faltering economy.
