In a statement marking Nov. 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, the Free Women’s Movement of Afghansitan declared that women and girls in the country “are neither silent nor defeated.”
“We are the voice of justice, dignity and resistance against the misogynist and ignorant Taliban rule,” the movement said in the release. “In the heart of obscurantism, Afghan women have kept alive the torch of awareness, hope and liberation.”
Under the slogan “No to discrimination, no to silence,” the group said that “no power, culture or religious interpretation” has the right to justify “oppression of women.” It affirmed that women are the foundation of Afghanistan, “teachers of knowledge, nurturers of generations and architects of a humane society.” The statement said that “the exclusion of women means the destruction of Afghanistan’s future, and women’s freedom is the beginning of liberation from ignorance and the progress of society to the peaks of victory.”
The movement said that for four years millions of Afghan women and girls have been living in “house‑arrest,” deprived of education, work, recreation and even “the right to breathe freely.” They expressed fatigue with “empty promises and performative sympathy from the world and human‑rights organizations.”
“We, like other women of the world, have the right to live, to learn, to work and to breathe freely,” the women protesters said. They added that belief in women is belief in change and human dignity, and “as long as even one woman remains imprisoned, none of us are free.”
The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women is observed annually on Nov. 25.
It was chosen to honor the brutal 1960 killing of the Mirabal sisters in the Dominican Republic and aims to raise awareness of violence against women and girls while prompting global action to end it.
