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00:00 Well, this Friday, March 8th, is International Women's Day, a time to check in on the state
00:04 of gender equality around the world and call for more progress.
00:08 We're going to take a closer look at the situation in one of the worst countries for
00:11 women's rights in the world.
00:13 That's Afghanistan.
00:14 And we're going to talk about it with someone who knows the situation very well, our senior
00:17 reporter, Catherine Norse-Trent.
00:18 Catherine, good to see you.
00:20 Hi, Alison.
00:21 Since the Taliban took over in August 2021, the situation for women in Afghanistan has
00:25 gone from bad to worse.
00:27 Take us through what's changed since then.
00:29 Well, remember when the Taliban rolled into Kabul in August 2021, there were a lot of
00:33 fears about what it could mean for women's rights.
00:36 And you know, from activists I've been speaking to on the ground, they're saying that a lot
00:39 of these fears have basically come true for them.
00:44 So the Ministry for Women's Affairs was pretty much instantly turned into the Ministry for
00:49 Vice and Virtue, the Taliban's moral police, the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue
00:53 and Prevention of Vice.
00:55 And they go around checking basically that people are obeying Sharia law properly, so
00:58 rather than looking into concerns about women's health and etc. and rights, well, they're
01:03 cracking down on things like dress code.
01:05 The Taliban have introduced a very strict dress code, even in places like Kabul.
01:10 In May 22, they put out a decree saying that women had to basically cover their face.
01:18 The only part showing could be their eyes, or they would prefer women to just basically
01:22 wear the full on burqa or chador, you know, the blue all covering garment that we can
01:28 kind of see in a lot of pictures of Afghanistan throughout the ages, such as this one here,
01:33 which doesn't allow any part of a woman to be visible.
01:37 And they have been having a crackdown on this dress code in the past year.
01:40 So women being arrested in Kabul in streets or in private learning centres, running English
01:46 courses, things like that.
01:47 There's been cases of women being whipped or arrested and taken into police custody
01:52 because Taliban say they're not respecting the hijab dress code.
01:56 Then we've had things like beauty salons or gyms, places for women only being closed down.
02:02 Some of those have been taking place in private apartments in cities like Kabul.
02:05 But there's been a crackdown on those too.
02:08 We know women have been banned from public and private universities as well as girls
02:12 over 12 attending school and public spaces such as parks in Kabul.
02:17 The Taliban say that women there weren't respecting Sharia law in their judgments.
02:20 So they're not allowed out basically in a lot of places, especially without a guardian,
02:25 a male guardian, a mahram for journeys over 72 kilometres or going outside of the country.
02:30 Women cannot go on their own without a close male relative.
02:33 So you can see there's a whole raft of measures around 50 decrees in all which have curtailed
02:39 women's rights in the public spaces.
02:40 And women I've been speaking to say basically they feel that they have to just stay home,
02:43 that there is no space for them outside.
02:46 And you mentioned that ban on education for women over 12.
02:49 That was one of the things that sort of shocked the outside world the most.
02:52 How has that situation changed?
02:54 Has it gotten any better?
02:55 Are women sort of finding ways to access education?
02:58 Well, the Taliban had initially pledged after closing secondary schools for girls over 12,
03:04 basically they weren't allowed access to schools anymore.
03:06 They said they would come back on this.
03:08 Remember in March 2022, there was hope that girls could return.
03:12 In fact, some of them turned up at the school gates.
03:15 But there was a U-turn on that.
03:18 Girls were in tears.
03:19 They couldn't go to their secondary schools.
03:20 It is still the case.
03:22 They're still not open.
03:23 Now, there are some secret schools such as this one that I filmed in Kabul myself.
03:28 Quite a few of these anecdotally are open.
03:30 We don't have figures on that.
03:32 Where basically teachers and students take risks by going every day to these locations
03:36 and learning.
03:37 Now, they won't graduate with an official diploma, which means, I mean, obviously their
03:40 access to higher education and university is pretty much impossible, posing big questions
03:45 about the future.
03:46 But they are still going.
03:47 And some of the schools have had links with international universities or educational
03:51 establishments to get those girls further education.
03:55 That's if, of course, they can travel outside of the country.
03:57 For that, you need money.
03:58 You need, again, a male guardian.
04:00 So it's very, very complicated.
04:01 But some are trying to continue to learn, taking big risks in doing so.
04:06 And Catherine, just after the Taliban takeover, we did see some protests from women out in
04:10 the street.
04:11 What's the situation now?
04:12 Have they been able to sort of keep up with those protests?
04:14 Well, no, is the short answer.
04:16 We all remember those pictures of women coming out with the hand-drawn signs in defiance
04:21 of the Taliban in those days after August 15th, 2021.
04:27 That has really pretty much stopped at the moment.
04:30 These pictures, which I guess you can see behind me, are very chaotic.
04:33 They're of a women's protest in 2023, which was broken up by the Taliban firing at protesters.
04:40 And that's basically what happened.
04:41 They cracked down on them and broke them up with gunfire, arresting women.
04:46 Women had started protesting at home.
04:48 And so this is rather chaotic footage as well.
04:50 But it shows them entering a home and women would, you know, they'd get together and just
04:53 hold up signs and put that out on the internet.
04:56 And that even is not possible anymore.
04:58 Those were women there being arrested after attempting such a gathering.
05:01 There are still women's rights activists in Afghanistan.
05:05 Some of them have fled.
05:06 Some of them have been arrested.
05:07 And then that's, you know, still a matter of great shame within Afghanistan and for
05:11 their families.
05:13 But they're very much isolated.
05:15 So they're kind of reaching out online, communicating, but it's getting harder and harder for them
05:19 to have spaces to protest, basically.