Sexuality and women’s issues are the top concerns of fundamentalists’ mindset, based on which they resort to bloody wars and merciless killings to the point that even refuting God comes as a pretext to open the door for unrestrained sexual expression. Taliban come on top of the list of fundamentalists with such mentality. Lately, Taliban’s acting minister of higher education said “in retrospect establishment of schools during king Amanullah and late Zahir Shah was an imported western culture, and is debauchery promotion”.
Over the past 20 years, Taliban’s main propaganda focused on women’s issues and sexuality to pretend as if prostitution is rampant throughout the country, and foreigners have come to rape Afghan women and girls. According to a research by the former Afghan Intelligence Agency, the majority of the Taliban foot soldiers who were interviewed, joined the group because they believed these propagations were true. Often, the very young and naive brainwashed in the Taliban Madrasas in Pakistan were prepared for suicide attacks because they were made to believe that Muslim women’s honor is at stake.
The belief that women symbolize the honor of men is deeply rooted in the Afghan culture. This belief is used to establish women’s dependency on men and to demean their identity as independent human beings. Women bear this burden because mostly during military campaigns women were stolen and were taken captive to humiliate the enemy. There is abundant examples of war crimes and atrocities throughout history; but it is a tragedy when a war crime becomes part of culture, and as a result women lose their social status and rights.
In the madrasas that Taliban train their soldiers, neither women exist nor their rights are recognized. On the contrary, women are introduced as mentally deficient creatures that rob families of their honors and reputations. According to Taliban, women’s freedom spreads prostitution and licentiousness, and is part of the web of sins that make men fall victim to their temptations and seductions. There is a vacuum and strange depravity regarding sexuality with opposite sex in Taliban’s mind that makes them numb to the rape and sexual abuse of a large number of under-age boys’ in their own madrassas. Such devious views about sexuality and women show their debauchery. Unfortunately, this view is prevalent among Taliban leaders and is the reason why Afghan women are deprived of their rights to attain education and work.