‘between the dragon and his wrath’, 1994–2017implementation remains problematic. The government again employed
female staff and the harsh segregation imposed by the Taliban was slack-
ened, allowing foreign aid agencies to employ women too. The Constitution
reserved seats for women in the Loya Jirga, Wolusi Jirga and Meshrano
Jirga, although outspoken female members have faced a barrage of verbal
abuse and physical threats. Malalai Joya, an elected member of the Wolusi
Jirga, was suspended indefinitely for her repeated call for ex-mujahidin
commanders to be called to account for war crimes and crimes against
humanity. The new government established a Ministry of Women’s
Affairs but its first minister, Sima Samar, a Shi‘a Hazara from Jaghuri and
long-standing advocate of women’s rights, was forced to resign after she
was accused of questioning the supremacy of Islamic law. In 2005 President
Karzai appointed another Hazara, Dr Habiba Sarobi, as Afghanistan’s first
female governor.
Girls returned to school and hundreds of schools were constructed or
rehabilitated, but in some remote areas mullahs continued to ban female
education and the government was not prepared to confront them. As the
insurgency has grown, the Taliban have targeted girls’ schools, poisoned
wells and forced the closure of rural schools by threats. Abuse of women
and violations of the rights accorded to them under the 2004 Constitution
have continued and are reported to be on the increase. Child and forced
marriages, arbitrary divorce, wife beating, honour killing and denial of
the mahr, the gift presented to a wife by her husband at the time of the
marriage, remain unchecked. Many women still wear the full-length burqa
and there is increasing concern at the number of female self-immolations.
In 2012 two officials of the Department of Women’s Affairs were killed
in Laghman, while the lynching of Farkhunda during Nauroz celebra-
tions in 2015, following a false allegation by a mullah that she had burnt a
portion of the Qur’an, highlights how little progress there has been when it
comes to changing embedded gender attitudes, especially among religious
elites. As was the case during the reign of Zahir Shah, the greater freedom
for women is confined mainly to the urban areas and the middle classes
and has little impact in rural Afghanistan. Since the military drawdown,
women’s organizations have reported increasing attempts by conservatives
to roll back gender legislation, 31 while a poll of experts commissioned by
the Thomas Reuters Foundation in 2011 voted Afghanistan as the most
dangerous place in the world for women.
Foreign donors have made much of the hundreds of school build-
ings rehabilitated or constructed since 2001 and the millions of children
that now attend school. Recent surveys by the Afghanistan Research and