Video Producer: Shohini Bose
Video Editor: Ashutosh Bhardwaj
In what is termed by many as the 'first agitation of its kind', Afghan women were seen taking to the streets of Kabul — staging a protest and demanding equal rights.
In a viral video posted on Twitter, four women are seen in hijabs, holding signs and shouting slogans. This happened, even as visuals showed Taliban members patrolling the streets.
The men were walking by and pointing towards the women, the visuals showed.
In a press conference earlier on Tuesday, 17 August, the Taliban said that they would provide certain rights to women.
“We are going to allow women to work and study. We have got frameworks, of course. Women are going to be very active in the society but within the framework of Islam,” Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban Spokesman, said at a press conference in Kabul.
What Happened in Previous Taliban Rule
When the Taliban occupied Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, they imposed the strictest of patriarchal rules.
Girls were not allowed to enter schools, they most definitely were not allowed in universities. Women could not step out of their homes without a male relative to escort them, and they had to cover their face at all times.
The women who defied these rules not just suffered humiliation but also public beatings under the Taliban's ultra-conservative police.
Exactly 20 years later, a new generation of Afghanistan women find themselves in a place that their mothers fought hard to get out of.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)