Like the leopard and its indelible spots, the extremist Islamic group running Afghanistan, the Taliban, is manifesting its true, ugly colours. Its recent bans on women from attending universities, and from working in local and international NGOs are its latest blows to women’s rights. They have outraged the free world, but they conform perfectly to the character and goals of international jihadism. The Taliban is incorrigible; the world should wake up to this reality and adopt resolute measures to deal with its human rights abuses and the humanitarian catastrophe its primitive rule portends.

The world is affronted. Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, described the ban on university education as neither Islamic nor humane. “Is there an Islamic explanation? On the contrary, our religion, Islam, is not against education; on the contrary, it encourages education and science.”The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the UN would meet with Taliban leaders to receive further clarity on the edict. The statement read, “Any such order would violate the most fundamental rights of women, as well as be a clear breach of humanitarian principles.”

A United States State Department spokesperson said the move would “further alienate the Taliban from the international community and deny them the legitimacy they desire.”US Ambassador, Robert Wood, declared, “The Taliban cannot expect to be a legitimate member of the international community until they respect the rights of all Afghans, especially the human rights and fundamental freedoms of women and girls.”

The Taliban is not fit to be in power. People who subsist on religious extremism, gender apartheid and medieval barbarism should not be running a government in the 21st century, ruling over 40 million people.

When it returned to power in August 2021, after the withdrawal of the US-led coalition troops, the Islamist group promised, among other commitments, as it struggled for international recognition, to honour women’s rights “within the norms of Islamic law.” It pledged that “schools will be open and the girls and the women, they will be going to schools as teachers, as students.” It has reneged on all.

This comes straight from the Salafist playbook; doggedly bent on imposing its narrow, blood-thirsty interpretation of religion on everyone, its adherents lie, dissemble, make temporary alliances, and promises just long enough to establish themselves and thereafter manifest their true character.

In September 2021, the group had announced that women could attend universities where they were separated from the men while wearing their hijabs, but six months later, the government barred girls from attending secondary schools. Now, women are barred from using gyms, entering parks, and prohibited from working in most sectors. The war against Afghan females, who make up 48.7 per cent of the population, is in full swing.

The last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan (1996 to 2001), women were banned from working, girls’ schools were closed, women were forced to wear the burqa, forbidden from travelling without a male chaperone, and restricted from medical care. This was the deplorable situation until they were driven from power.

After the US-led invasion, restrictions on women eased, female education soared, and there was a collective effort by local and international groups to improve women’s rights and create new legal protection for them. In 2009, the Elimination of Violence Against Women law criminalised sexual violence, battery, and forced marriage, and made it illegal to stop women or girls from studying or working. By February 2021, 27 per cent of the country’s parliamentary seats were held by women, according to the United Nations Women Count.

World leaders must realise that the Salafist ideology to which the Taliban subscribe does not accommodate modernity; what it does is to adapt to it as situations demand. The Taliban will resort to deception and religious manipulation to achieve its ends; but its unshakeable ultimate goals are to suppress women, prevent western education, oppose reason, interdict democracy, restrict science, destroy human freedom, and impose their variant form of religion on the populace.

The Taliban has embarked on a sadistic enforcement of its rules. It abolished the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and rolled back progressive laws and the gains of two decades.

World leaders should leverage all legal diplomatic options to isolate the barbaric regime and encourage change from within.

UNESCO estimates Afghanistan’s illiterate population (age 15 and above) at 12 million. However, studies have shown that no country can achieve sustainable economic development without significant investment in female education. It is a basic factor in the growth and development of a country.

GlobalData in 2021 listed countries such as Taiwan, Estonia, Italy, Ukraine, Singapore, and Cyprus with a high female literacy rate. Rankings by the World Economic Forum indicated that Norway, Switzerland, the US, and Costa Rica that score high on female education also have high development and economic diversity.

There is a rational link between women gaining equal access to education at all levels and their professional, technical, and managerial contributions to societal growth. Conservative countries such as Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia have discovered this and in recent years relaxed their austere rules.

The ascendancy of the Taliban should be another stark warning to the Nigerian government that keeps speaking of “repentant terrorists.” This is a contradiction in terms; Salafist terrorists do not ‘repent’; the ideology is apocalyptic. Like Afghanistan, Nigeria is vulnerable to territorial assault from within by non-state actors, enabled by the over-politicisation of religion. State governors who neglect education but have refused to separate politics from religion are playing with fire.

Nigeria is currently the sixth most terrorised country in the world on the Global Terrorism Index; individuals with extremist ideology holding various key political and religious positions should be flushed out. The terror groups menacing the country should be quickly defeated.

The international community should not compromise with the Taliban. Pressure should continue through sanctions and isolation until their hapless victims are rescued from their tyranny.

•PHOTO:Afghan women hold placards as they take part in a protest in front of the Iranian embassy in Kabul on September 29, 2022. - Taliban forces fired shots into the air on September 29 to disperse a women's rally supporting protests that have erupted in Iran over the death of a woman in the custody of morality police. (Photo by Wakil KOHSAR / AFP)

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