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Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, Iran to the west, Turkmenistan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, Tajikistan to the northeast, and China to the northeast and east. Occupying 652,864 square kilometres (252,072 sq mi) of land, the country is predominantly mountainous with plains in the north and the southwest, which are separated by the Hindu Kush mountain range. Kabul is the country's largest city and serves as its capital. As of 2021, Afghanistan's population is 40.2 million, composed of ethnic Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Qizilbash, Aimak, Pashayi, Baloch, Pamiris, Nuristanis, and others.
The foreign relations of Afghanistan are in a transitional phase since the 2021 fall of Kabul to the Taliban and the collapse of the internationally-recognized Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. No country has recognised the new regime, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Although some countries have engaged in informal diplomatic contact with the Islamic Emirate, formal relations remain limited to representatives of the Islamic Republic.
The history of Afghanistan, preceding the establishment of the Emirate of Afghanistan in 1823 is shared with that of neighbouring Iran, central Asia and Indian subcontinent. The Sadozai monarchy ruled the Afghan Durrani Empire, considered the founding state of modern Afghanistan.
The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) is a women's organization based in Kabul, Afghanistan, that promotes women's rights and secular democracy. It was founded in 1977 by Meena Keshwar Kamal, an Afghan student activist who was assassinated in February 1987 for her political activities. The group, which supports non-violent strategies, had its initial office in Kabul, Afghanistan, but then moved to Pakistan in the early 1980s.
The Taliban, which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist and Pashtun nationalist militant political movement in Afghanistan. It ruled approximately three-quarters of the country from 1996 to 2001, before being overthrown following the American invasion. It recaptured Kabul on 15 August 2021 following the departure of most coalition forces, after nearly 20 years of insurgency, and currently controls all of the country. However, its government is not recognized by any country. The Taliban government has been criticized for restricting human rights in Afghanistan, including the right of women and girls to work and to have an education.
The treatment of women by the Taliban refers to actions and policies by various Taliban regimes which are either specific or highly commented upon, mostly due to discrimination, since they first took control in 1996. During their first rule of Afghanistan (1996–2001), the Taliban were notorious internationally for their misogyny and violence against women. Since 1996, women were mandated to wear the burqa at all times in public. In a systematic segregation sometimes referred to as gender apartheid, women were not allowed to work, nor were they allowed to be educated after the age of eight. Women seeking an education were forced to attend underground schools, where they and their teachers risked execution if caught. They were not allowed to be treated by male doctors unless accompanied by a male chaperone, which led to illnesses remaining untreated. They faced public flogging and execution for violations of the Taliban's laws. The Taliban allowed, and in some cases encouraged, marriage for girls under the age of 16. Amnesty International reported that 80 per cent of Afghan marriages were forced.
The Northern Alliance, officially known as the United Islamic National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, was a military alliance of groups that operated between late 1996 to 2001 after the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) took over Kabul. The United Front was originally assembled by key leaders of the Islamic State of Afghanistan, particularly president Burhanuddin Rabbani and former Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud. Initially it included mostly Tajiks but by 2000, leaders of other ethnic groups had joined the Northern Alliance. This included Karim Khalili, Abdul Rashid Dostum, Abdullah Abdullah, Mohammad Mohaqiq, Abdul Qadir, Asif Mohseni, Amrullah Saleh and others.
Afghan refugees are citizens of Afghanistan who were forced to flee their country as a result of wars, persecution, torture or genocide. The 1978 Saur Revolution followed by the 1979 Soviet invasion marked the first major wave of internal displacement and international migration to neighboring Iran and Pakistan; smaller numbers also went to India or to countries of the former Soviet Union. Between 1979 and 1992, more than 20% of Afghanistan's population fled the country as refugees. Following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, many returned to Afghanistan, however many Afghans were again forced to flee during the civil war in the 90s. Over 6 million Afghan refugees were residing in Iran and Pakistan by 2000. Most refugees returned to Afghanistan following the 2001 United States invasion and overthrow of the Taliban regime. Between 2002 and 2012, 5.7 million refugees returned to Afghanistan, increasing the country's population by 25%.
Education in Afghanistan includes K–12 and higher education, which is under the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Higher Education. In 2021, there were nearly 10 million students and 220,000 teachers in Afghanistan. The nation still requires more schools and teachers. Soon after the Taliban takeover of the country in August 2021, they banned girls from secondary education. Some provinces still allow secondary education for girls despite the ban. In December 2022, the Taliban government also prohibited university education for females in Afghanistan, sparking protests and international condemnation.
In 2022, Freedom House rated Afghanistan’s freedom as 10 out of 100.
The 1996–2001 Afghan Civil War took place between the Taliban's conquest of Kabul and their establishing of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on 27 September 1996, and the US and UK invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October 2001: a period that was part of the Afghan Civil War that had started in 1989, and also part of the war in Afghanistan that had started in 1978.
Women's rights in Afghanistan have oscillated back and forth depending on the time period as well as the regime in power. After King Amanullah Khan's attempts to modernize the country in the 1920s, women officially gained equality under the 1964 Constitution. However, these rights were taken away in the 1990s through different temporary rulers such as the mujahideen and the Taliban during the Afghan civil war. During the first Taliban regime (1996–2001), women had very little to no freedom, specifically in terms of civil liberties. When the Taliban was overthrown by the United States following the 9/11 attacks, women's rights gradually improved under the presidential Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Women were de jure equal to men under the 2004 Constitution.
The Afghan conflict, also called the Afghan crisis or Instability in Afghanistan is a series of events and wars that have kept Afghanistan in a near-continuous state of armed conflict since the 1970's. The country's instability began after the collapse of the Kingdom of Afghanistan in the 1973 coup d'état; with the overthrow of Afghan monarch Mohammed Zahir Shah, who reigned for almost forty years, Afghanistan’s relatively peaceful period in modern history came to an end. The triggering event for the first major war in Afghanistan during this period was the Saur Revolution of 1978, which overthrew the Republic of Afghanistan and established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Rampant post-revolution fighting across the country ultimately led to a pro-government military intervention by the Soviet Union, sparking the Soviet–Afghan War in the 1980s.
Television in Afghanistan started broadcasting in August 1978, flourishing until the 1990s, when hostilities in the capital Kabul destroyed broadcasting infrastructure. Between 1996 and 2001, the Taliban government outlawed television, though some stations in areas outside Taliban control continued to broadcast. After their removal, country-wide television broadcasting was resumed beginning with the government-run channel Afghanistan National Television. It was reported that Afghanistan currently has over 200 local and international television channels, 96 in Kabul and 107 in other provinces of the country. In 2014, the country commenced a switch from analog to digital TV transmission.
Homeira Qaderi born in 1980 is an Afghan writer, advocate for women's rights, and professor of Persian literature, currently serving as a Robert G. James Scholar Fellow at Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Research, Harvard University.
Roya Rahmani is an Afghan diplomat who served as Afghanistan's first female ambassador to the United States and non-resident ambassador to Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic from December 2018 to July 2021. She is currently the Chair of the international advisory company in development finance — Delphos International LTD. She is also a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security, a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center, and a senior fellow for international security at the New America Foundation. From 2016 to 2018, she served as Afghanistan's first female ambassador to Indonesia, first ever ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and non-resident ambassador to Singapore.
Protests in Afghanistan against the Taliban started on 17 August 2021 following the Fall of Kabul to the Taliban. These protests are held by Islamic democrats and feminists. Both groups are against the treatment of women by the Taliban government, considering it as discriminatory and misogynistic. Supported by the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, the protesters also demand decentralization, multiculturalism, social justice, work, education, and food. There have been pro-Taliban counterprotests.
On 15 August 2021, the city of Kabul, the capital of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, was captured by Taliban forces during the 2021 Taliban offensive, concluding the War in Afghanistan that began in 2001. The fall of Kabul provoked a range of reactions across the globe, including debates on whether to recognize the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan, on the humanitarian situation in the country, on the outcome of the War, and the role of military interventionism in world affairs.
The Taliban has ruled Afghanistan as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan since taking control by force in 2021, overthrowing the internationally recognized Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The takeover was widely criticized by the international community, and no countries have extended diplomatic recognition to the new regime, despite nominally maintaining relations with Afghanistan. The Taliban has aggressively campaigned for international recognition since the takeover. Several countries have vowed never to recognize the Islamic Emirate, and others have said they will do so only if human rights in the country are respected. Some countries have accredited Taliban diplomats at the chargé d'affaires level despite not recognizing the Islamic Emirate.
The 20-year-long War in Afghanistan had a number of significant impacts on Afghan society.
References
- ↑ "BBC 100 Women 2021: Who is on the list this year?". BBC News. 2021-12-07. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
- ↑ Development, PodBean. "28. Sahar Fetrat - On the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan | The Voices of War". www.thevoicesofwar.com. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
- ↑ "Sahar Fetrat". Human Rights Watch. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
- ↑ "War Studies student is one of BBCs most inspiring and influential women of 2021". www.kcl.ac.uk. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
- ↑ "Afghan University Women Feared This Dark Day - Afghanistan | ReliefWeb". reliefweb.int. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
- ↑ "CEU Alumna Sahar Fetrat Named to BBC '100 Women 2021' List". Alumni Relations Office. 2021-12-09. Retrieved 2023-01-28.