Interview, Fireside Chat
What’s life like as a woman under the Taliban? | The Economist
- Widespread compliance with restrictive dress codes, including face coverings and niqabs, is anticipated for most women on streets.
- Only approximately 10 percent of girls are expected to receive formal secondary education, with some attending privately run madrassas.
- Many girls and women express pessimism regarding their future, while one student reported having no hope under the current regime.
- A majority of Taliban members are expected to support girls' education and oppose the Emir's policies but remain unable to effect change.
- Students at a private Kabul madrassa are predicted to possess perfect English and high professional ambitions, such as law, which they fear will be extinguished.
- Parents are expected to reassure students that conditions will improve by graduation, though a student stated she does not believe this prediction.
- The issuance of hardline decrees by the Emir is expected to persist without abatement, consistently generating outrage in the West.
- Moderate Taliban factions are predicted to remain incapable of halting the Emir's decrees.
- The Emir is expected to maintain control through an armed force loyal to him for ethnic, social, and financial reasons, comparable to Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
- Over the last five years, the Emir is expected to have prevailed in all arguments regarding women's and girls' education while continuing to silence internal critics.
- The sustainability of the Emir's control is doubted for the next five years due to real fractures and widespread dissatisfaction within the Taliban leadership.
- The discrepancy between leadership in Kabul and Kandahar is expected to remain a notable point of observation for many Afghans.