Biden State Department spokesperson Ned Price recently called on the Taliban to form an “inclusive and representative government, insisting that they include the full and meaningful participation of women. As Newsmax Emerald Robinson pointed out, “the same people who were flying a rainbow flag two months ago in Kabul are now asking the Taliban to be inclusive.” The Biden Administration has not only become a laughing stock to the American people but the rest of the world too. They’ve done nothing but increase confusion and desperation.
The Taliban’s takeover in recent weeks left many of the country’s residents filled with fear, particularly women, who are afraid of losing many rights they’ve gotten back under the last two decades of U.S military occupation.
Just last month, an Afghan mother of four was murdered by Taliban militants who’d demanded that she cook food for up to 15 fighters. “My mother told them, ‘I am poor, how can I cook for you? The Taliban started beating her. My mother collapsed, and they hit her with their guns — AK47s,” the daughter explained.
The Taliban threw a grenade into the next room and fled from the scene. The mother-of-four died from the beating.
During the Taliban’s last takeover from 1996-2001, the Taliban treated women as second-class citizens. The U.S State Department released a report saying that the Taliban “reduced women and girls to poverty, worsened their health, and deprived them of their right to an education, and many times the right to practice their religion.” Many egregious acts of violence were committed against the women including rape, abduction, and forced marriages.
Taliban spokesperson Enamullah Samangani recently shared on Afghan television that the Taliban is ready to “provide women with the environment to work and study, and the presence of women in different (government) structures according to Islamic law and in accordance with our cultural values.”
Longtime Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid also stated that the extremist group would honor women’s rights and offer amnesty to Afghans who worked for the country’s U.S-backed government.
While Ned Price said that the Taliban could recognize a new government of Afghanistan, it was only last month that they brutally attacked a poor woman for not cooking for them. The Taliban has already captured dozens of provincial capitals and it has not been enough time for women to buy a burqa to comply with Taliban rules. Taliban rules state that a woman should be covered up and accompanied by a male relative when they leave the house. Headscarves are currently being handed out to women at work and girls at school.
The Taliban also reportedly shot and killed a woman for not wearing a burqa in Afghanistan on the exact same day that they promised on television to “honor women’s rights.” Despite their pledge to respect women’s rights, they’ve had nothing but a history of denying women their freedoms. Videos were recorded of Taliban vehicles patrolling residential areas and gunshots can be heard down the street.
“There was kids, women, babies, old women, they could barely walk. They [are in a] very, very bad situation, I’m telling you. At the end, I was thinking that there was like 10,000 or more than 10,000 people, and they’re running into the airport … The Taliban [were] beating people and the people were jumping from the fence, the concertina wire, and also the wall,” said an Afghan and former State Department contractor.
As many as 11,000 Americans remain in the country as the Biden Administration scrambles to arrange flights. But even White House press secretary Jen Psaki said she couldn’t promise on evacuating everyone. They also couldn’t offer any solutions or help to the thousands of Afghan women and children, whose lives are in danger due to the Biden Administration’s sloppy withdrawal.
The Taliban will not protect the rights of women and girls and there’s no telling when they’ll be degrading women back to second-class citizens. It only took the Taliban the course of a long weekend to retake the country. If the Biden Administration had been focused on being an effective fighting force instead of a ‘woke’ military, we wouldn’t be in mess at all. Afghan women wouldn’t have to fight for their dress code or education and American citizens wouldn’t be trapped in another country.
