Kandahar: Afghan students Fauzia used to meet the needs of voicing advertisements on the radio station in the heart of Taliban Kandahar, but who appeared suddenly when Islamists swept power in August.
Their order is clear: no female sound in the air.
Afghan’s new ruler has promised more moderate governance than their last task in power, when women are banned from work and education, and are prohibited from leaving a non-messy house.
But there are distrust that are widespread in the promises of their women’s rights.
Most girls throughout the country have been banned from attending high school, and most women cannot return to work.
When AFP visited Kandahar last month, only a few women were seen on dusty shopping streets in the south city, hastily dragging a bag from the store to save while wearing a burqa head-toe.
Taliban “posting messages on Facebook says they don’t want to hear music or women (sound) in the air,” Fauzia said, who asked not to use her real name.
The 20-year-old medical student situation has become increasingly desperate after losing his income from radio ads – Fauzia and his four younger siblings are orphans, and he struggles to put food on the table.
Even though the Taliban promised softer rules this time, women remained depressed and unclear about their place in the community, while their business had been hired they were alert to disappointing Islamists.
Former Fauzia boss said the radio station was forced to stop airing on a woman’s voice.
He has shared our resume throughout Kandahar, without luck.
“I was told to wait,” he said.
Because taking power, Islamists have repeatedly said they will respect women’s rights within the limits of Islamic law, without describing.
Women, with some exceptions, have been banned back to work or education, and say that they must delay until the arrangements have been made, including the separation of men and women.
So far, “we have not forbid anything for women”, Mullah Noor Ahmad Saeed, a Taliban official in Kandahar Province, told AFP “if they did not feel safe or not returned to work, it was their fault.” But many are skeptical.
“On the street, people say nothing, but we see a bad appearance of the Taliban,” said Fereshteh Nazari, who had been able to return to work as the only elementary school principal.
However, female teachers and women have been removed from returning to high school.
“Before we are happy to come to school.
Now we are stressed,” Nazari told AFP at school.
On AFP day visited, around 700 students were present, less than a third of 2,500 registered girls.
“Most parents don’t send their girls to school after 10 years of age because they don’t feel safe,” Nazari said.
Zohra, a major in the 20s of the 20s who asked not to use his real name, was among the students who moved away, his fear was exacerbated by rumors about towering the roar of the Taliban.
“For me, life is more important than anything,” he told AFP by telephone.
For many women, the ability to work is very important now because Afghanistan suffers from a deteriorating economic crisis.
It has had a severe impact even in some women who are still allowed to work – Nazari and his teacher colleagues have not received their salaries since the government supported by the West collapsed in August.
“Previously, we had a good life.
Now we might have to go and beg for a bazaar,” said the principal, who was in his 20s.
“My husband is unemployed, and we must feed our two children.” The Taliban has promised all the security and peace of Afghanistan, including women.
But for Fauzia, mere presence Islamists put social pressure in women to stay away.
“Except (for) food ingredients, we don’t go anywhere else,” he said, and even then, the woman “returned home very quickly”.
“Even my younger brother told me to cover my face, not to see friends anymore, and didn’t go anywhere except class,” Fauzia said.
This is a change in excitement for many Afghan young women, who benefited from the previous government’s encouragement for girls’ education.
“We want freedom,” said a 12-year-old girl on the Nazari school yard.
But he added that with the Taliban now in power, girls and women must do “whatever they say”.
“If not, we will face a problem.”
Anxiety and fear for women in the Taliban fortress
