At a time when the United States is talking to the Taliban about a way out of its longest wars and Afghanistan is heading towards some form of peace agreement, Afghan women fear that peace can come from their freedoms.

If security means returning to the same rules as the Taliban in that decade, the taste of peace will be more bitter. A whole generation of women has grown up in Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001. But many of those women who have changed the country through school management, working as journalists or politicians still have memories of some women's hatred of women.

Hamira Qadri, who later became a journalist and a female activist, was preparing her clothes to go to school when her father came to tell her she no longer needed school clothes because the Taliban had taken over the city. During the next five years, she never left the house because of the strict rules imposed by the group on women. "I can never forget those years," she says. She had her first press experience when the Taliban were still in control of Herat. She was publicly flogged by the press.

good move

"I think trying to reach a peace agreement with the Taliban is a good step," says MP Fawzia Koffi, one of only two women who took part in recent talks in Moscow between the Taliban and dozens of mediators. What we are facing about this process is that the Afghan people are not part of this process, especially the women who paid the highest price under the Taliban government. Women do not know what will happen to their lives in the future, and what is the fate of the freedoms they obtained after the expulsion of the movement from power? .

When the Taliban took control of Kabul in 1996, they prevented women from going to school, dismissed them from most jobs, forced them to wear the closed burqa when they left the house, and even removed their shoes and clothes. "The Taliban have fought for four years of my life when I was in my youth," says Adele Kabiri, a professor at Herat University. "I had to have time to study and enjoy my life, but they did not let me leave our house. Those years forever. "

The Taliban exercised strict rules and imposed harsh penalties even for minor offenses. Two of the relatives of activist Susan Bhobodzada were severely punished when they forgot to wear the burqa when they went shopping. "They were punished by the skin so that one died 20 days later, and the other has been suffering from mental problems for the past 19 years," she says. Bhuboudzada ran a secret school for girls, but often the students did not come to study because they feared the consequences. She believes the Taliban has changed. "I think the Taliban today is different from the one they were in power 20 years ago," she says, referring to her decision to sit down for serious peace talks. "They think differently, so they accepted the talks," she says.

Answers

In Moscow, the Taliban appear to provide some answers to women's concerns, promising that Islam guarantees women's rights to education and employment. But they also attacked women's rights activists to spread "immorality" and "obscene". These mixed messages have raised fears that the Taliban may return to the past when the danger of American presence fades.

"There have been many reports of beatings and public trials of women by the Taliban in recent years," says the editor of the Afghan Women's News Agency (ONA). "If we see the Taliban as part of any government, I'm not sure they will consider us full members of society," she says. "I'm really worried that the restrictions that were imposed on women in the 1990s will be back in the first place."

Swap Rights

Few women are opposed to trying to reach a peace agreement. But there are also few who do not worry that women will not have enough room on the table. Without women being represented in the talks, and without women being able to pursue the negotiations in detail, they fear that it will be easy for men to trade their hard-earned rights.

No one expects to see women in the Taliban delegation, so women's rights activists are focusing their efforts on putting pressure on the international community and prominent members of the Afghan elite. Before the talks in Moscow, the Afghan women's network called on the men organizing the talks to "bring women to the table"; women shared photos and messages on social media using the Hashtag # Afghan women would not go back.

There are a few

Of women who

Oppose an attempt

Reach agreement

Peace, but there

Also a little who

They do not worry that women

They will have no room

On the table.