By Mahwish Inam
9/11 has introduced Afghanistan as an extremist State with less tolerant society and patterns ofharsh social behaviors. Afghanistan has been and is currently is the significant topic of interest inPakistan’s national media. Afghanistan matters have been occupying a prominent placement ininternational media as well.
We have been reading many stories on the situations in the countryand its relations with neighbours and in the region. Now that the Taliban have taken the control of the entire Afghanistan there is a chaos on groundwhich is translated in the media as well. The entire social media was vibrating with images andvideos of situation inside Afghanistan when Taliban surrendered Kabul and then gained controlof the capital entering into the presidency.
The whole episode which was developing minute byminute created an excitement like an adventure among audience. Much was expressed byspectators on social media regarding Afghanistan’s abruptly developing situation. Twenty yearsof US in Afghanistan were questioned, Ashraf Ghani’s exit was termed as betrayal with Afghanpeople, Taliban rolling the Afghan flag in presidential palace was talked about, Taliban nextmove was predicted, fears of Afghans associated with the control of Taliban were discussed, thefall of Kabul and the throngs of people trying to flee at Kabul Airport were prominent topics aswell.
But the topic which happen to catch considerable attention on social media was womenrights and freedom of women in Taliban govern. Many female journalists and influencers from west were posting about Afghan women andexpressing their apprehensions after Taliban take over Kabul.
Facts and figures reveal thataround 500,000 women are raped in the US each year, 50,000 women are sex trafficked into theUS each year and 10 million women are subjected to domestic violence in the US each year. Indians also appeared quite concerned about the status of women after Taliban control inAfghanistan. Several Twitter accounts associated with India are terrifying public by propagatingthat this is end of one occupation and beginning of another one.
The Taliban terrorists will crushthe liberty, freedom and women. Indians were doing propaganda and projecting that women willnot be secure and will be vulnerable to violence living a suffocated life under Islamic rules. It isessential at this point to remind Indians about what their present BJP government did in Gujaratin 2002 with women. Majority of the women were brutality raped or gang-raped and thenmurdered ruthlessly.
Amnesty International issued a comprehensive report in 2005 and reportedthat the State of Gujarat failed to safeguard women from abuse. Investigators estimated that therewere between 250 and 330 girls, attacked by thousands of violent Hindu attackers who raped,often gang-raped, beaten with sticks and swords, had breasts hacked off and wombs slit open byswords and rods brutally thrust into their vaginas before a substantial number of them were cutinto pieces or burned to death. Indians must not twist the recorded facts.
Whereas Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen while giving interview to international mediaevidently announced that Taliban restricting women and depriving them of their rights is apropaganda which has no connection with reality.
Taliban spokesman assured that they do nothave any problem with women rights and they will be allowed to go to school and women will be allowed to work. We hope and wish that Afghanistan may rise strong after this chaos and emerge as a progressive Islamic State giving the due rights to the Afghan women.