As the Taliban complete two years of returning to power in Afghanistan, a vast majority of people in the impoverished country feel virtually abandoned, their fundamental rights being crushed and their miseries increasing manifold. The West, which gave so much hope to the Afghan women, seems to have forgotten their plight. Women continue to be barred from education and employment as the ultra-orthodox rulers have imposed draconian restrictions on society. Contrary to the optimistic projections made by some analysts, the Taliban of today are no different from their earlier avatar of the 1990s in terms of brutality and totalitarian hold over the country. Imposing their strict interpretation of Islamic law, the new rulers have stopped women staffers from working with aid agencies, closed beauty salons, barred them from parks, and curtailed their travel in the absence of any male guardian.
Women were often publicly flogged or executed if they violated the Taliban’s rules. For many Western governments, the ban on girl education is a major obstacle to any hope of formal recognition of the Taliban administration. As global interest in the war-torn country has diminished over the last two years, many Afghans feel that they are left in the lurch. In a country of about 40 million people, international aid agencies estimate that about 15 million people will face crisis levels of food insecurity this year, with 2.8 million in the “emergency” category, the fourth highest in the world. The World Health Organisation on its part has expressed concern over the Afghans’ lack of access to basic health services. About 20% of the population suffer from mental health problems and four million from drug addiction and associated disorders.