But what should be alarming the rest of the world right now is what Samar calls a “new form of modern slavery”. Forced marriage and child brides have always been a vexed feature of Afghan culture, but the situation has worsened badly as more families are pushed into poverty. When I visited Afghanistan at the height of the war against the Taliban, the legal age for a girl to marry was 16. Now much younger, pre-menstrual girls are sacrificed.
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Samar bristles at the description of “marriage”. “It is slavery,” she says, “when a 12-year-old girl is given in marriage she has no control over her life. She is a tool to be used.”
Unsurprisingly, suicide rates and depression are reportedly skyrocketing among women and girls. The violence meted out to women is so extreme, so comprehensive that the world of politics is dumbfounded by how to stop it. So, it doesn’t.
Instead, nations turn a blind eye. Thirty-nine member states of the United Nations quietly provide de-facto legitimacy to the Taliban by allowing them to take control of embassies. Others, such as China, Russia and Uzbekistan, have broken rank with the UN and accepted the terrorist Taliban as the rightful rulers of Afghanistan and do business with them.
Australia’s position on this is complicated. Despite an enduring respect for the Afghan ambassador in exile, Wahidullah Waissi – who was appointed by the government ousted by the Taliban – Australian officials have notified him that his diplomatic credentials will not be renewed. Given the Taliban refuses to acknowledge any passports, visas or documentation issued in Australia, the embassy has become a lame duck.
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But in a bold move, Australia has joined Canada, Germany and the Netherlands in prosecuting a case against the Taliban in the International Court of Justice for its gross violation of women’s rights. It’s a long shot, but something Australians can be proud of.
Samar is hopeful Australians will use that courage and commitment to force others to stop pulling down the blinds on the world’s most egregious, large-scale abuse of women.
She saves her sharpest criticism for the men of Afghanistan and their total lack of resistance to the nationwide violent crackdown on women. Unlike neighbouring Iran in 2022, where men joined women-led protests – “Women, Life, Freedom” – Afghan men simply rolled over. “It doesn’t have to be resistance with gun and violence,” Samar says. “They could use civil disobedience to demand girls’ right to education.”
Meanwhile, with about 63 per cent of the Afghan population aged under 25, the Taliban is busy churning boys through madrasas, schooling them in an ideology of hatred for women, and the West. “They radicalise them and they are raising a future generation of jihadis,” Samar says.
And yet, still, the world turns away.
Virginia Haussegger is a Canberra-based writer. Her new book, Unfinished Revolution: The Feminist Fightback, was published last month.
