The Taliban: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Subjugation of Women On September 27th, 1996, the extremist militia, the Taliban, seized control of the capital city of Afghanistan, Kabul. Up until that day, women and girls in Afghanistan could go to school, work, and walk freely. Then the Taliban issued decrees banning woman and girls from receiving education, entering the workforce or leaving their homes without a close male relative as an escort, wearing a burqa. The Taliban violently plunged the occupied territories of Afghanistan into a brutal state of gender apartheid in which women and girls have been stripped of their basic human rights. The Taliban claims religious reasoning behind this gender apartheid, using the Muslim faith as their backing, though many critics denounce this logic, saying that The Qur’an condones no such thing. Woman in Afghanistan have become but a shadow of real people. Not only can they no longer enter the workforce or attend school, they cannot choose what they wish to wear, or call to friends in public for fear of being beaten, stoned or killed. The female sex has truly been enslaved by the Taliban, however what rarely comes to light, is that males in Afghanistan have also had strictures of dress and conduct imposed on them. These conditions have roused quite a varied response from the Western World. Western-born Muslim identify with some of the Taliban’s strictures, such as wearing the burqa. Others who do not know the Muslim faith, are outraged that woman can be subjugated so completely while the rest of the world simply watches complacently. Human rights atrocities are committed towards women everyday by the Taliban in the name of their religion and their god. When the Taliban first revealed themselves to the general public, they gave the world the impression that they had come to rid Afghanistan of its problems. At first, all recognized the Taliban as a legitimate Afghan force that had br...
