If American Feminists Feel ‘Oppressed,’ Check Out Afghanistan
Lynsey Addario, with funding by the National Geographic Society/Getty Images

Opinion

If American Feminists Feel ‘Oppressed,’ Check Out Afghanistan

Afghan women are no longer allowed to speak in public, show any skin or leave their home without a male chaperone.

Tessa Gervasini

Last month, the Taliban put into effect new laws stripping the women of Afghanistan of the last of their basic human rights. While here in America, feminists like to define their basic human rights as access to abortion, Afghan women are no longer allowed to speak in public, show any skin or leave their home without a male chaperone.

As of late August, the Taliban received approval from supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada to put into place its “Vice and Virtue decree,” which prohibits Islamic people from many religious and daily practices. Females were, unsurprisingly, hit the hardest by these new laws. Afghan women have been deemed as temptations, and therefore cannot show any skin or use their voices in public for any reason. They also may not make eye contact with men to whom they are not married, or blood related, out of fear of punishment and torture.

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