The rule of the Taliban from 1996 to 2001 had denied Afghan women almost all basic human rights: security and protection from all types of danger, health and medical assistance, personal development and even freedom of expressing themselves. Afghan women are forced to cover themselves from head to toe, and even mandated to cover their eyes.

The rule of Islamic extremists in the country have made women second class citizens, and at worse having a disposition similar to slaves. Afghan women who used to be doctors and teachers were forced to beg and prostitute themselves just to feed their families.
When the Taliban fell in 2001, changes in terms on the political and cultural disposition of Afghan women have started to improve. The new Afghan consititution demanded that both men and women must have equal rights before the rule of law. In effect of this, women are now allowed to work, and the government no longer forces them to wear burqa and are even allowed to hold positions in the government.

Despite of this, women repression is still prevalent in rural areas. Many families still restrict their own mothers, wives and sisters to create their own life. They are still forced into marriages and are still being denied a basic education.

Most Afghan women are still being burned down or are even being poisoned to death on attempts of going to school or welcomming democratic ideas that are against their normative Islamic views.

While women in other parts of the country are celebrating their individuality, freedom, personal develpment and triumph, other women in the Arab region are still battling for their basic human rights.

The feminist ideals of political and social equality in currently at democratic and liberal countries though decades old appears to be a utopia that every Afghan woman desires to attain. Religious extermists in the Arab region and other parts of the world have always belittled the intrinsic value of women and have been treating them as an object serving the purpose of men.

Religion still remains as a source of evil that have inflicted pain for centuries. Despite the developments of human knowledge, goverment, science and technology and various endeavors, aged-old problems are still dominant and are perpetuating in various areas of the world which could be unknown to us until recently.

The fight of women for equality and freedom is a classic and ongoing battle. When free and educated women like us think about Prada or Channel, there are women in other parts of the world who think of marrying a 60 year-old man just to feed her brothers and sisters who are starving to death.

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