Bangor Rotary Club members honour International Women’s Day with thoughts about strong women as well as highlighting the plight of Afghan women
In Afghanistan today you don’t see female teachers, female doctors, female Businesswomen – in fact you don’t see any women at all!
Since the Taliban again took over Afghanistan in August 2021, the life of Afghan Women has become extremely difficult due to Sharia Law re-introduced by the Taliban. The regulations affecting women have become even stricter and completely erase female presence from public life.
Nowadays only young girls are allowed to attend school at a very basic level until they are perceived to have reached puberty. They can no longer attend further and higher education and are being denied any training even for medical situations that affect directly their health and wellbeing. Furthermore, the new legislation sees them entombed in their homes with windows being bricked up that no one can see their silhouettes or hear their voices. They are forbidden to visit parks and public spaces and if they need to leave the house, they can only do so under the guardianship of a male relative. Girls and women are to speak quietly and in hushed tones and they are forbidden to sing. “We are being suffocated”, they secretly texted friends who have managed to flee and who could communicate this to the world outside. “We are no longer seen!” Happy times of cinema visits, of university life and public office are distant memories of those days when Afghan women had some freedom. Complaining publicly, however, would mean punishment and even death – any dreams must therefore be buried deep in the heart.
Some women have managed to escape Afghanistan and its oppressive regime. As refugees they now live in different parts of the world and some express their feelings of loss and pain through art: producing paintings, music, song and dance. Their personal stories are often heartbreaking. ‘Beyond Skin’, a Belfast charity which works with musicians from around the world and helps them integrate into Northern Irish society with a variety of cross-community projects, was able to bring some of these women to Belfast for a special solidarity concert on International Women’s Day on the 8th of March 2025.
Two performances were held at Townsend Street Church, the new home of the Ulster Orchestra, whose members collaborated with the Afghan musicians to create breathtakingly beautiful harmonies. To help fund the project, a t-shirt with the simple slogan “I am an Afghan Woman” was produced and sold – which also helped raise awareness for the women living under the Taliban and who are no longer seen.
Is Rotary doing anything to help Afghan women? The answer is “yes”!
The motto for International Women’s Day 2025 was “accelerate action” and “Peace” – and this was also the motto of the Rotary Digital conference last month in Istanbul. 1,000 delegates from 88 countries travelled to the conference in Turkey and spend 3 days discussing how to build peace using modern technology such as AI.
In the conference newsletter ‘Rotary Digital’ Björn Lange reported that Peace Fellows Susan Hartley and Frances Jeffries presented the “Right to Learn” project, a 2016 Rotary education initiative for Afghan women in collaboration with UNESCO. The program has already trained hundreds of women, established libraries, courses, and classrooms, and set up digital learning centres in Pakistan and Turkey to enable Afghan refugees to complete their education.
Already in 2022 most Islamic countries, from Saudi Arabia to Turkey, have unanimously condemned the Afghan Taliban’s ban on higher education for women and girls. Ashraf Ghani, the former Afghan president who escaped the country as the Taliban seized power in August 2021, has called the denial of higher education for women “a vivid sign of gender apartheid in the 21st century.” Unfortunately, the condemnations have had no effect and the situation for women and girls living in Afghanistan has got even more desperate.
We Rotarians must support all efforts to challenge the current Afghan government to let Afghan women take part in education and public life.