Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan: A Narrative of Systematic Erasure of Women؛Writer and Women’s Rights Defender Shahbanoo Noori

Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan: A Narrative of Systematic Erasure of Women؛Writer and Women’s Rights Defender
Shahbanoo Noori

Violence Against Women in Afghanistan
In Afghanistan today, violence against women is not merely individual behavior or a social aberration; it is a reality that has cast a heavy shadow over the lives of millions of women, deepening with each passing day. The Afghan woman lives in a land where not only has her voice been silenced, but her very existence is at risk of erasure and destruction. In an era where the Taliban rules the country, violence against women has surpassed injustice and discrimination, reaching the stage of collective torture—torture whose manifestations can be seen in public floggings, silent murders, forced marriages, and the breath that escapes women’s throats with fear.
From their very first days in power, the Taliban targeted women, as if the woman were their primary enemy and had to be cleansed from society. They closed the gates of schools so that the future generation of girls would remain illiterate and silent. They shut down universities so that no woman would have the opportunity to think, gain independence, or build her own future. They banned women from working so that the Afghan woman would not be a citizen, but a prisoner in a home where she is not even safe. This systematic erasure became the prelude to a cycle of violence that now flows through every aspect of a woman’s life.
In city squares, before the eyes of the public, women have been seen being flogged simply for “incorrect” hijab. The lashes that landed on their bodies were not only physical pain but the annihilation of the soul and human dignity. By flogging women, the Taliban sent a clear message: a woman must not have individuality, must not choose, must not protest, and must not even walk except as they command. Every sound of the whip has spilled a drop of blood from women’s hope onto the ground, and the world has remained silent in the face of it.
However, the true pain is not in the squares, but in the homes—behind doors that are supposed to be shelters but are, in reality, prisons. The narratives heard of suspicious deaths of women shake the soul of every listener: girls who die just a few weeks after marriage, women who suddenly “fall,” victims who vanish in a halo of ambiguity. Families are forced to hide every truth because they fear that if they speak, not only will justice not be served, but the Taliban’s wrath will threaten their lives as well.
The mysterious murders of Afghan women are the darkest angle of this violence. Deaths that are neither investigated, nor recorded, nor followed up on. Women whose names do not remain in reports and whose faces do not remain in memories. These deaths are not accidental; they are the result of policies that view women as secondary beings—without the right to protest, without the right to choose, and without the right to live.
More bitter than all of this is the indifference of the international community. There was a time when the world gave speeches for the rights of Afghan women; today, however, it has fallen silent in the face of their pain. Global powers, instead of pressuring for the observance of human rights, have turned to dealing with the Taliban, as if the suffering of the women of this land is a price that can be ignored in exchange for political stability. This global silence is a wound added to the wounds inflicted by the Taliban.
Despite all this suffering, the women of Afghanistan have not yet surrendered. Although they have been removed from the streets, from universities, from the media, and from hundreds of other arenas, they have not been removed from their pens, their narratives, or their resistance. The Afghan woman still writes, still narrates, still bears witness. She knows that if she remains silent, the cycle of violence will continue, and tomorrow, more girls will be silenced in the darkness.
Violence against women in Afghanistan is not just a national crisis; it is a human catastrophe dragging the future of a generation into darkness. Every lash that strikes a woman’s body, every girl buried in silence, every woman deprived of education is a blow to the foundation of society and the soul of a nation. Yet, amidst all this darkness, the women of Afghanistan continue to carry a small light—the light of hope, which, even if trembling, will not be extinguished.
Writer and Women’s Rights Defender
Shahbanoo Noori