ANKARA - Stating that women in Afghanistan are being forced to beg on the streets, and some were forced to sell their kidneys after Taliban siezed power, R.M from Afghanistan made a call to the international public and said: "See us. Take us seriously."

 

The Taliban, which seized power in Afghanistan in August last year, continues to target women. While many women were forced to leave the country and change their names after being kidnapped and held in unknown places by the Taliban, women who remained in Afghanistan are fighting for their rights. Women, who are in financial difficulties due to the Taliban's excluding women and girls from education and business life, are forced to beg if there is no man to work at home. R.M., whose many friends were detained by the Taliban the other day, said that some women had to sell their kidneys and children.

 

'MEETING WITH FRIENDS HAVE BECOME A CRIME'

 

R.M who reached our agency and had to hide her name for security reasons told that 13 women who refuse to wear burqa was detained last week. R.M said: "We were going to meet with our friends in a restaurant the other day. There were going to be 30 women. Some of our friends went there a little earlier. Taliban raided that restaurant and detained and tortured 6 of our friends. They were accused of 'Meeting in a place where unrelated people goes to and not wearing burqas". They were whipped and dragged out of that restaurant. We don't know where they are held right now, or how they are."

 

Underlining that the meeting did not have a political aim, R.M said: "There were activist women among us, but it was not a political meeting. We just wanted to do something normal. However, even simply meeting with your friends in Taliban's Afghanistan have become a political action and 6 of our friends were detained as a result."

 

GOING OUT WITHOUT BURQA IS PROHIBITTED

 

Underlining that just like scores of women in Afghanistan she is not doing well, R.M said: "I am depressed. I am not safe. I am not in a safe place. I have anxiety attacks thinking about the future. This is not a sustainable situation. I haven't gone out after our friends were detained the other day, but I will. We refused to wear burwas, and we still do. I will go out without a burqa and see what they'll do. Will they beat and detain us like our friends? We'll see.."

 

WOMEN ARE FORCED TO BEG

 

Pointing out that with Taliban most of the women lost their jobs and incomes, R.M continued as follows: "I lost my job when Taliban siezed power. I have a lot of children. There is no men at our house. I have the economic responsibility for these children. How will I feed them? Taliban violated my right to work. Who will take responsibility of these children? Most women are in this situation in Afghanistan. It is getting worse day by day. This is a tragedy. There are a lot of houses in Afghanistan where there are no men. There are women who lost their husbands and fathers. These women have no income. They are forced to beg. You see lines of women begging on the streets of Kabil today. All women will become beggars if this continues. These women were working with their honour a few months ago. No one deserved such humiliation. These women have to beg to stay alive and to keep their children alive. No one sees that."

 

Expressing that men are not doing well either, R.M underlined that the still the current situation effects women more. R.M said: "I am so depressed even thingking about what is going to happen to us next terrifies me. My friends are looking after me and my children because I am out of a job. Some women are getting help from their friends living abroad, but how long this is going to last? A week, two weeks, a month? We have to be taking care of ourselves. We are not incapable women that can not take care of themselves, so how are we so helpless?

 

WOMEN ARE SELLING THEIR CHILDREN

 

Stating that lately a lot of women had to sell their kidneys and their children, R.M said the following: "Dozens of women I know had to sell their children of their kidneys! Women had to sell their own children, can you make sense of it? These women thought that their children would have a better life elsewhere. But I don't wnat to sell my children or my kidneys. Please make my voice heard."

 

CALL TO INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC

 

Stating that she and her children do not have passports and no countries are granting them visas, R.M told that everyone forgot about what's happening in Afghanistan after the war that broke out in Ukraine and underlined that there is a social disaster experienced in Afghanistan. Underlining that they risked their lives and their family's lives time and time again to be able to tell the world about what's going on in Afghanistan and took to the streets and made calls to the women abroad and international institutions but their calls were not heard.

 

R.M said: "We risked everything to make the situation of the women in Afghanistan visible. Dozens of our friends were abducted by Taliban, they were whipped, tortured, abused, displaced. Our right to work was violated. Women's rights in Afghanistan is suspended. Women are stripped of their basic rights in Afghanistan. Hear us! No one hears us including the international institutions. No one cares. Our call to the international public is this; See us. Hear us. What is going on here is very serious and very real. Take us seriously and very serious measures must be taken for the people in Afghanistan."

 

 

MA / Gözde Çağrı Özköse