Taliban’s War on Women: Mina Sharif EXCLUSIVE on Crushed Dream, Despair and Global Silence

Asianet News English

Afghan-Canadian author and women’s rights activist Mina Sharif reveals the harsh realities of life for women under the Taliban regime. She compares the hope and progress Afghan women once experienced in Kabul to the despair and suffocation they face today, stripped of education, work, and even the right to dream. From Taliban bans on women-authored books and human rights education to the hypocrisy of the international community that normalizes their rule through trade and dialogue, Shareef highlights how Afghan women are fighting an imposed erasure of their identity and voices.   #Exclusive #Taliban #AfghanWomen #MinaSharif #WomensRights #AfghanistanCrisis #HumanRights #TalibanRule #StandWithAfghanWomen #YourWarOurLives #InternationalCommunity #World   🔊 LIKE ➡ SHARE ➡ SUBSCRIBE  Download the Asianet News App now!  Available on Android & iOS  👉 Android:  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vserv.asianet&hl=en_IN   👉 iOS:  https://apps.apple.com/in/app/asianet-news-official/id1093450032   For More Updates:  Follow us on our What's app Channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va5Bq3yKwqSLSQTxam0r  English: https://newsable.asianetnews.com/  Hindi: https://hindi.asianetnews.com/  Malayalam: https://www.asianetnews.com/  Kannada: https://kannada.asianetnews.com/  Tamil: https://tamil.asianetnews.com/  Telugu: https://telugu.asianetnews.com/  Bengali: https://bangla.asianetnews.com/  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AsianetNewsa...  Follow us on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/AsianetNewsEN  Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ann.newsable/  ➡ If you like our video, give us a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel to get the daily dosage of news, entertainment, sports and more.

Transcript

00:00to understand in a better manner what sort of struggles and challenges women deal with while

00:26they live in afghanistan under taliban regime i have a very special guest with me her name is

00:32mina sharif she is an afghan canadian author producer and an advocate for women's rights

00:38in afghanistan she was raised in canada as part of the afghan diaspora and then in 2005 she moved

00:46to kabul and she lived there for a very long time of 14 years until 2019 thank you so much for

00:53speaking on such an important issue which we all must talk about and continue to talk about as an

01:00international community because women in afghanistan are really suffering and suffocating under the

01:05taliban regime you went to kabul in 2005 you lived there for such a long time how was your experience

01:12at that time and how it is in contrast to now what you hear coming out of afghanistan from your

01:19friends or maybe from people you are in touch with um i would like to thank you um not only for having

01:26me but for addressing this topic i'd like to start by really reminding everyone that when women's

01:32rights are infractured it's not only an afghanistan issue it really affects women all over the world

01:37because when it's allowed in one place that kind of um struggle carries out into the rest of the world

01:44when we offer the permission for women to be treated this way it really opens the door for a lot of

01:51patriarchal and inhumane treatment of women around the world when i first arrived in afghanistan it was

01:58very soon after the first round of taliban and initially in my earlier year uh years um there was a lot

02:06of hesitation from women and to participate in society to really be out i mean they were coming from

02:13uh years of um really intense suffering and what i noticed was in a very short time it took so

02:24little time so much movement happened so fast we would have women so actively participating that you

02:31could from one day hardly seeing them in public spaces in society to really seeing them at almost a

02:3850 50 50 in every sector um not necessarily by job position but by representation they were

02:45they were really taking um leadership roles and actively contributing to society what i see and

02:53hear now is not a loss of that drive to be part of society but the loss of the opportunity not only to

03:00do it but to even dream about doing it and that is continuously cut off further by the decrees that keep

03:06piling up on them right um you know one of the dictates which taliban gave very recently was

03:14the ban on women authored books i mean that's obviously their goal is isolation erasure lack

03:22of opportunity and really crippling the women of afghanistan um because it's not only afghan uh sorry

03:28afghan women authors or women authors in general that they can't read from it's the subject matter that

03:34they're that they're isolating as well um there's a ban on gender and development as a subject there's

03:40a ban on women in sociology as a subject uh they're not allowed to learn about human rights that's

03:45literally been said that they're not allowed to learn about it and i think their hope is that with

03:49time and the continued ignoring from the rest of the world they can isolate um women to the extent that

03:56they're no longer demanding those rights because they don't know to um i think that's the ultimate goal

04:02um however the past has shown us that their powers did not work over women in afghanistan women even in

04:09their last reign of power continued to learn had secret schools continued to pass down lessons

04:15continued to teach literacy wrote poetry wrote stories i don't think that they have the control over afghan

04:21women that they dream of having and i don't think they ever fully will you also recently wrote a book

04:26which is titled your war our lives what is this book about what do you address how it can be of help

04:34for people around the world to understand better what women in afghanistan go through um sure i mean

04:41it's a fiction collection so it's really not like uh meant to be like a textbook or fact base there's so

04:49many books out there that can kind of um enlighten people on the history of afghanistan how we got here how

04:56women are treated um my book was meant to offer a glimpse into what daily life really looked like

05:02for people especially in the era that i was there it's it's um it's set in that time and to see the

05:08kind of growth and the kind of hopes and dreams and strengths of the afghan population while war is

05:14still present while fear is still present while limitations are still present because they were they

05:19were all the the difficulties were present in that glory period as well so that's what the book

05:26focuses on and um within that book is also the reality that taliban made this difficult taliban made

05:33people um fear re-entering society because of the the threat of violence and the continued violence

05:41that they inflicted on the exact population that they claim to understand so well now but these

05:48fictional stories that you've written the stories in your book it must have some sort of uh understanding and

05:55you hearing firsthand accounts of people who are living in afghanistan yeah sure i mean this was

06:00what i was the community i was i was a part of so while it's not from my point of view i'm sharing

06:07stories like a young woman who has her own television show something that just a few years before that era

06:15it was impossible to dream about kind of like right now as asking a young woman right now to dream about

06:21having her own television show would be outside of her realm of imagination possibly because you're

06:26not even allowing her to read a book however they kept their dreams alive in those in those times and

06:32then they reached those goals so quickly and that's what gives me hope that this era too is a pause and

06:39not a complete end to anything in the book i follow um their successes but also want to illustrate that it

06:47has never been fully easy just because the opportunities arose it still came with combating

06:54mindsets and combating security threats and combating all kinds of things and i kind of wanted

07:00to show the nuance in that yes we're we are hard like hard-working women resilient women um and not

07:07just women children men resilient people but the challenges are always there while the strength is

07:16evident at all times as well so the stories are anecdotal that you'll you'll hear about her

07:21you'll hear about a young boy who lives in an orphanage you'll read about um a woman who was a cleaning

07:26lady for um foreign visitors i want really people to see that while this uh 20 years of international

07:36presence in afghanistan was happening they were failing to ask about the people themselves so this is what

07:42the stories are focused on what their life looked like i was reading a story very recently where

07:49it was talking about how yes of course there are not opportunities in education healthcare work you

07:54can't go to an office and work there but there are opportunities where women can take up work from home

08:00they can do some handicraft work and there was a lot of exaggeration how they are still getting

08:06opportunities do you think this is hypocritical of the international community to be talking about

08:12opportunities in afghanistan but not truly giving them what they desire for yeah i mean offering the

08:17option of handicrafts to somebody who wanted to be a doctor is highly insulting and it's very

08:23whitewashing of the um of the infringement of human rights that's going on in afghanistan

08:28um it's the biggest disappointment i think the afghan population has had the taliban is just being the

08:34taliban they're being who they've always been it's the world that's really disappointed the

08:38population because not only should they be doing better for 20 years they claimed they were there

08:45to support the women they were there to support the population but that all just disappeared overnight

08:50but now when you talk to people living there them they must be you know adapting to the situation

08:56because they can't really do much they can't flee because the neighboring nations are no good

09:01so what do they then do i mean how do they cope with the situation i don't think adapting is really

09:08possible just because there's no end in sight they don't know what one day will bring a new um limitation

09:15and another limitation and they really don't know what's left to be taken away but they know that the

09:20taliban continues to find new ways to limit their opportunities um so they live in the fear of what is next of

09:28course um and the emotions really range from people i speak to obviously because different

09:33people react in different ways but uh anger is consistent the ones who find the energy are angry

09:39there are still people protesting even to this day which is mind-blowing to know that you've been

09:44ignored for four years and to continue demanding and risking your life knowing no one is coming to

09:49help you is just um i think uh such a symbol of of their insistence for human rights for themselves um

09:58but also many are depressed also many are extremely tired and it can be very hard to continue keeping

10:04yourself busy in the hopes that things will change i think that's what they're they're forced to do i

10:10often ask this question to people when i talk about afghanistan what is it that we can do to resolve it

10:17because seems like people talk about it but there's not much happening a lot of countries say we don't

10:23want to legitimize taliban which some say quote unquote a terrorist group um then what is it that we can

10:31do there is no arrest there is no diplomatic pressure there are no sanctions uh which is so big so that

10:38taliban can act right i mean there's two ways to look at it it's what can we do to stop the taliban

10:47but i always look at it as what can we do to stop supporting the taliban right they they are not they

10:53are not in power all by themselves unfortunately even countries like india are interacting with their

10:58leadership um taking them in the direction of legitimacy although they haven't recognized them as

11:04an official government they're leading they're meeting with their leaderships uh just in january

11:08in dubai for example having conversations with their ministers talking about trade in taliban is

11:14quite happy and um recognizing india as a trade partner when you speak out against your own government

11:21for the uplifting of taliban i think that's the strongest move versus anything else because it's when we

11:27stop giving them the power that we can talk about solutions on uh alternatives but we can't just

11:34talk about how do we get rid of them while still uplifting them while watching our governments from

11:40the west and from everywhere else continue to just not only look the other way but start to

11:47explore opportunities to work with them that just makes them stronger but i think ultimately i mean

11:52definitely it's very important for governments to put pressure on taliban but it's also about

11:57the people of afghanistan who are living there because ultimately if even if you're carrying out

12:01trade uh it is somehow helping the economy of afghanistan and it will ultimately lift the people of

12:08afghanistan you know what do you think because often when i talk to uh people who are activists for

12:15the rights of people in afghanistan they talk about how resilient are the people over there of course

12:20you talked about various emotions that they deal with anger sadness depression but they are also very

12:26resilient resilient but they're not i think i'm i think as afghans we're very tired of being called

12:31resilient all they're doing is not dying they don't want to be resilient they want they want rights they

12:37want prosperity they want to be able to i mean and there's two conversations i agree with you that trade

12:44helps economy of afghanistan to an extent but there's separate conversations today we're talking about women

12:50when you do that trade you are whitewashing what this government is doing with the women and it has

12:56to be all one package unfortunately when we see a government um conducting this kind of violation

13:02we have to say although we want this with you it has to be on the condition that you do not violate

13:09human rights this way so i think if we could demand our governments to do that that is kind of a win-win

13:16right um but i don't think that resilience is something we want to be proud of we want to say

13:21hey we deserve rights like everybody else please stand with us demand it for us and also it will

13:28carry out into the rest of the world i think in particularly the west is ignoring it as as if it's

13:33never going to get over here and it's never going to reach europe and it's never going and it will

13:38and that's the scariest part i think is that people are uh uh i think uplifting the behavior as well

13:45the countries around the world uh we have a really bad habit uh to forget about things when

13:52kabul fell it was very hot topic a lot of people are you know putting out statements condemning

13:58taliban but now people don't seem to care about afghanistan and i think

14:02our international bodies need to do more about it thank you thank you likewise and thank you again

14:07for keeping the voice of afghan women alive i appreciate that

14:15thank you

14:32so

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