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Speaker 1: Already and this is the Dailyah, this is the daily

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Speaker 1: ohs oh, now it makes sense.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Thursday,

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Speaker 2: the twenty ninth of August. I'm zara, i'm emma. You

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Speaker 2: might have seen headlines this week that women in Afghanistan

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Speaker 2: can no longer show their faces or speak in public. Now.

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Speaker 2: It's the latest in a long string of restrictions that

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Speaker 2: have been imposed on civilians, and in particular on women,

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Speaker 2: since the Taliban seis power of the country just over

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Speaker 2: three years ago. In today's deep dive, we're going to

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Speaker 2: explain this latest ban, how it came to be, and

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Speaker 2: the broader context of women's rights in Afghanistan. But first,

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Speaker 2: em what's making headlines.

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Speaker 1: Inflation went up by three point five percent in the

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Speaker 1: year to July. According to new figures from the Australian

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Speaker 1: Bureau of Statistics. Inflation slowed slightly from the three point

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Speaker 1: eight percent figure for the twelve months to June. This

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Speaker 1: means prices are still increasing, but at a slower rate

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Speaker 1: than they previously were. Fruit and vegetables saw one of

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Speaker 1: the biggest increases, with prices up seven point five percent

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Speaker 1: in July twenty twenty four compared to July twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 1: According to the ABS, the total cost of housing including electricity,

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Speaker 1: rent and house prices increased by four percent for the

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Speaker 1: same period. The RBA's target range for inflation is two

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Speaker 1: to three percent.

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Speaker 2: PM Anthony Albanesi will leave Tonga today following a meeting

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Speaker 2: with the leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum. It comes

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Speaker 2: after the PM announced an agreement between Australia and the

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Speaker 2: Polynesian island of Tuvulu has now come into force. Both

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Speaker 2: countries signed the Australia tu Vulu Falipili Union Treaty in November.

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Speaker 2: It requires Australia to assist Tubulu in the face of

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Speaker 2: a major natural disaster, health pandemic or millik tree aggression.

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Speaker 2: That's in exchange for security and defense cooperation. Tuvalu's Prime

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Speaker 2: Minister for Lettitio said the treaty marks the first time

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Speaker 2: that a country has quote committed legally to come to

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Speaker 2: the aid of Tuvlu.

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Speaker 1: Police in Kolkata, India, have fired tear gas at demonstrators

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Speaker 1: protesting against sexual violence following the rape and murder of

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Speaker 1: a thirty one year old student doctor earlier this month.

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Speaker 1: Tens of thousands of health workers and women have turned

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Speaker 1: out at nationwide protests to demand the Indian government to

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Speaker 1: make hospitals safer. Earlier this week, protest is charged into

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Speaker 1: a government building calling for the resignation of a senior official.

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Speaker 1: There are reports around one hundred people were arrested during

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Speaker 1: the most recent unrest.

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Speaker 2: And today's good news, NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has begun

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Speaker 2: a new mission as it journeys on a steep climb

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Speaker 2: to the rim of a crater on the planet's surface.

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Speaker 2: The climb is about three hundred meters high with up

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Speaker 2: to twenty three degree step slopes. The rover will collect

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Speaker 2: samples which could help scientists understand more about what the

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Speaker 2: planet's climate was like billions of years ago. An update

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Speaker 2: on the rover's ex account said, my team had a

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Speaker 2: few spots for me to explore along the way, including

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Speaker 2: an ancient Martian crust. Three years ago, kibbl fell and

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Speaker 2: the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan. After the US and

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Speaker 2: its allies withdrew their troops from the country, Taliban fighters

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Speaker 2: have broken through the front line. The Taliban has claimed

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Speaker 2: victory in a two decade conflict.

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Speaker 1: This seems to be a complete teak over, no, does

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Speaker 1: it not.

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Speaker 2: Since that time, the Taliban has introduced a whole host

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Speaker 2: of new laws to try and I guess, regulate how

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Speaker 2: they would like the Afghan community to work, to function,

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Speaker 2: to learn. And so what we have seen is that

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Speaker 2: the lives of Afghan citizens, and disproportionately the lives of

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Speaker 2: Afghan women, have over time become more and more restricted.

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Speaker 2: That's included things like banning women from high schools, universities,

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Speaker 2: and most forms of employment. Now the latest restrictions include

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Speaker 2: a ban on women's faces and voices in public, and

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Speaker 2: that is what we are talking about today.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's really been the big headline this week.

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Speaker 1: Women's faces and voices banned in public under this new

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Speaker 1: Taliban ruling. But I think to really understand the headline

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Speaker 1: and what that means, we need to understand a lot

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Speaker 1: more about the context of Afghanistan, the country, and the

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Speaker 1: Taliban as a group themselves. So, Zara, can you start

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Speaker 1: by telling us a bit about the Taliban and how

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Speaker 1: they came to power.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a good question, and you're right,

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Speaker 2: that does explain or go part of the way in

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Speaker 2: explaining where we find ourselves today. So the Taliban, which

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Speaker 2: roughly translates to students in English, is an Islamist militant

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Speaker 2: group in Afghanistan. Now, the group is by no means new,

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Speaker 2: except that we are hearing about them more and more

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Speaker 2: often now and I'll get to why that is soon.

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Speaker 2: But the group actually has origins dating back to the

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventies in northern Pakistan. They properly emerged in the

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Speaker 2: early nineteen nineties after the group consolidated power and began

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Speaker 2: seizing territory in a civil war. The Taliban then took

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Speaker 2: power and began governing in Afghanistan in nineteen ninety six. Now,

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Speaker 2: under the Taliban's rule at that time, women were oppressed

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Speaker 2: under strict regulations that it said are firmly rooted in

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Speaker 2: Islamic teachings. There were public displays of punishment, and ancient

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Speaker 2: sites were destroyed at that time. And remember we're talking

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Speaker 2: about a rule that started in nineteen ninety six. The

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Speaker 2: majority of the world did not recognize the Taliban as

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Speaker 2: a legitimate government. Then everything changed. After nine to eleven,

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Speaker 2: the US accused the Taliban of hiding and protecting al Qaeda,

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Speaker 2: which was the group who claimed responsibility for the attack.

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Speaker 2: And then in October two thousand and one, the US

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Speaker 2: and its allies in Afghanistan again because of what I

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Speaker 2: just said, they said that the Taliban was helping al Qaeda.

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Speaker 2: At that point, the Taliban was defeated and was forced

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Speaker 2: to flee Able on December sixth, two thousand and one.

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Speaker 2: What happened from two thousand and one to twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: one is an extremely long period, and you know, would

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Speaker 2: require a podcast of its own, but I think it's

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Speaker 2: fair to say it was a long it was a

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Speaker 2: tragic twenty year war. It's often referenced as the Forever

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Speaker 2: War because of just how long it went on. But

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Speaker 2: then in twenty twenty one, as I mentioned, US President

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Speaker 2: Joe Biden announced that finally US troops were going to

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Speaker 2: be withdrawn from Afghanistan. It was hoped, and at least

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Speaker 2: the Biden administration made clear that their intention was that

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Speaker 2: the Afghan government and the security forces there locally would

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Speaker 2: be able to defend themselves and that peace talks initiated

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Speaker 2: with the Taliban would find a long term solution. That is,

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Speaker 2: of course, not what happened. And once the US and

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Speaker 2: its allies withdrew the Taliban almost immediately seized power, and

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Speaker 2: that is when we started hearing that Kabul had fallen.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so we had twenty years of a US bolstered

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Speaker 1: Afghan government, and then when US and Allied troops left

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Speaker 1: the region, that government fell to the Taliban.

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Speaker 2: So I mean it just created a sort of vacuum

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Speaker 2: that the Taliban then took a huge opportunity to just

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Speaker 2: fill themselves.

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Speaker 1: And I don't think that many leaders in the West

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Speaker 1: expected it to happen as quickly as it did. But

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Speaker 1: we're talking about a matter of days, So that's twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty one. What has happened ever since.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think it's safe to say that the concerns

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Speaker 2: that the international community held about what a Taliban rule

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Speaker 2: might look like, you know, we had seen it happen

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Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety six and nothing had really changed. The

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Speaker 2: Taliban of today very much resembled the Taliban of back then,

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Speaker 2: and those fears about what Taliban rule would mean for

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Speaker 2: Afghan people, but specifically what it would mean for women,

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Speaker 2: those fears have been realized. So Senior Una Fish describe

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Speaker 2: Afghanistan under Taliban rule as the quote most repressive country

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Speaker 2: in the world.

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Speaker 1: For women's rights.

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Speaker 2: I tapped in Taliban to our website to just, you know,

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Speaker 2: give myself a run through of what we've written over

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Speaker 2: the past couple of years, and the top two results were,

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Speaker 2: and I'm quoting here, the Taliban has banned women from

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Speaker 2: working for humanitarian organizations in Afghanistan, and the Taliban has

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Speaker 2: suspended women from universities in Afghanistan. And so that gives

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Speaker 2: you a sense of what sort of stories we have

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Speaker 2: seen coming out of Afghanistan over the past few years,

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Speaker 2: and does paint a picture as to the fact that

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Speaker 2: Afghan women's access to education in particular has been remarkably

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Speaker 2: limited just in that three year time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're talking about women and girls. We're talking

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Speaker 1: about girls education too, because we saw a shift to

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Speaker 1: restricting high school education access, so girls could go to

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Speaker 1: primary school, but they are no longer educated past that level.

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Speaker 1: And then the generational kind of gaps and inequalities that

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Speaker 1: come out of that will remain to be seen for

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Speaker 1: generalations to come exactly.

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Speaker 2: And I mean, it's difficult to assess what has happened

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Speaker 2: in such a short period of time and what the

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Speaker 2: kind of long term impacts of that look like. But

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Speaker 2: un Women has done a bit of that analysis, i'd

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Speaker 2: say preliminary analysis, and they found that by twenty twenty six,

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Speaker 2: the impact of leaving one point one million girls out

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Speaker 2: of school and over one hundred thousand women out of

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Speaker 2: university is correlated with an increase in the rate of

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Speaker 2: early childbearing by forty five percent and an increased risk

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Speaker 2: of maternal mortality by at least fifty percent. So those

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Speaker 2: are just some of the stats that the un is

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Speaker 2: really looking at as what have we seen happened so

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Speaker 2: far over the last three years and what could that

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Speaker 2: mean for civil society moving forward.

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Speaker 1: And when we say that increased risk of maternal mortality,

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Speaker 1: that's referring to deaths during childbirth, correct, So that gives

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Speaker 1: us a picture of the last three years of Taliban

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Speaker 1: rule in Afghanistan and the restrictions on the lives of

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Speaker 1: women in particular. So let's get back to the big

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Speaker 1: news this week, that headline around women's voices and faces

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Speaker 1: being banned in public? What do we know about this

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Speaker 1: tranch of restrictions?

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Speaker 2: Before I answer that, I do think that it's important

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Speaker 2: that now we've set out that timeline, I think it's

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Speaker 2: important to know that so many people watching Afghanistan are

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Speaker 2: not surprised by this latest news. That it does come

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Speaker 2: in a string of events, that we have slowly seen

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Speaker 2: women's rights eroded in the most explicit ways, but that

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Speaker 2: this didn't happen out of nowhere. It has slowly been

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Speaker 2: happening for the past three years. And as you said,

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Speaker 2: this is now just the latest tranch of laws. So

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Speaker 2: last week we learned that the Taliban's Ministry of Propagation

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Speaker 2: of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice announced several new laws.

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Speaker 1: So that body is they manage the Morality Police, that

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Speaker 1: is the kind of Taliban appointed ministry or agency that

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Speaker 1: oversees the rolling out of these regulations, that determines these

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Speaker 1: laws for the lives of civilians and in turn manages

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Speaker 1: the enforcement of them exactly.

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Speaker 2: And so they announced these new laws, and I mean

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Speaker 2: these laws really covered a whole spectrum of activities and

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Speaker 2: of parts of society. There were thirty five articles included

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Speaker 2: in this announcement. The mandates, as I said, were fairly broad.

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Speaker 2: They ranged from things like banning music and photos of

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Speaker 2: living beings, so people can't walk around with photos of

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Speaker 2: their loved ones.

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Speaker 1: And this one has raised concerns about free press and

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Speaker 1: media in Afghanistan. You know, if you can't broadcast the

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Speaker 1: image of a person, what does that mean for any

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Speaker 1: kind of news coverage.

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Speaker 2: A missing person? You know, you can't post the missing

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Speaker 2: person because they could hopefully be alive and they are

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Speaker 2: not allowed to have their image published, so it could

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Speaker 2: have you know, all sorts of ramifications. Some of the

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Speaker 2: other things that were included in this was forbidding men

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Speaker 2: and women who aren't related from looking at one another.

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Speaker 2: And then aside from those, there were also several men

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Speaker 2: that specifically restricted women outside of the home. And this

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Speaker 2: is I think the part that most of the headlines

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Speaker 2: have really been focusing on. For example, the Taliban has

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Speaker 2: banned the sound of women's voices in public. That's prohibiting

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Speaker 2: them from speaking, and it also has introduced to the

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Speaker 2: requirement that women's faces and bodies must be covered at

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Speaker 2: all times in public. The explicit rule here is I'm

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Speaker 2: quoting whenever an adult woman leaves her home out of necessity,

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Speaker 2: she's obliged to conceal her face, her voice, and her body. Now,

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Speaker 2: the Taliban spokesperson said that the laws are derived from

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Speaker 2: Islamic sources.

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Speaker 1: I think if you look closely at the restrictions and

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Speaker 1: the kind of way that the Taliban has rolled them

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Speaker 1: out in stages over the last three years. What becomes

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Speaker 1: clearer and clearer is this move towards completely restricting women's

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Speaker 1: lives from outside of the home in an effort to

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Speaker 1: kind of, I suppose, force women to stay home because

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Speaker 1: the only real freedoms they can and enjoy are inside

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Speaker 1: the huh, within the confines of their home. So these

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Speaker 1: are obviously really significant laws. And while there were restrictions

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Speaker 1: previously on the lives of women in Afghanistan, you know,

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Speaker 1: this has just ramped that up even further. What have

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Speaker 1: we seen in terms of the response to this specific announcement.

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Speaker 1: Have the international community said much?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, the UN has been very loud in

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Speaker 2: their condemnation of these new laws. So we heard from

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Speaker 2: the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. The head there, Rosa Ottenbayeva,

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Speaker 2: said banning the sound of a female voice outside the

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Speaker 2: home was an extension of the already intolerable restrictions on

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Speaker 2: women and girls in Afghanistan. She said that the Taliban

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Speaker 2: could use severe enforcement mechanisms to ensure community compliance with

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Speaker 2: its significant restrictions and then she added, and I'll quote

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Speaker 2: here the Afghan people deserve much better than being threatened

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Speaker 2: or jailed if they happen to be late for prayers.

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Speaker 2: Glands at a member of the opposite sex who is

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Speaker 2: not a family or possess a photo of a loved one,

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Speaker 2: And there she is, of course referring to the kind

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Speaker 2: of full spectrum of those restrictions that have since come

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Speaker 2: into place.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of criticism that has fallen quite squarely

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Speaker 1: at the feet of the Taliban. Have we heard from

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Speaker 1: the group themselves.

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Speaker 2: Yes, So the Taliban has criticized, specifically the UN for

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Speaker 2: its comments against the regime. They've said that the concerns

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Speaker 2: are quote unfounded. A Taliban spokesperson said that rejecting the

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Speaker 2: laws without a thorough understanding of quote Islamic values was

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Speaker 2: an expression of arrogance. He also stated that the restrictions

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Speaker 2: would be enforced without violating any rights and that no

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Speaker 2: individual will be subjected to injustice. He said, these laws

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Speaker 2: will be applied universally and equitably across our society.

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Speaker 1: So you have mentioned that the Taliban kind of defend

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Speaker 1: these regulations as being rooted in Islamic teachings, and that

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Speaker 1: is something that is sort of brought up time and

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Speaker 1: time again by the regime as the kind of guiding

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Speaker 1: light of the restrictions it imposes. But this is an

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Speaker 1: extremist group and an extreme interpretation of Islam. And I

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Speaker 1: might add the Australian government itself continues to condemn the

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Speaker 1: actions of the Taliban and says that it will continue

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Speaker 1: to judge the Taliban regime by its actions. On that note,

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Speaker 1: specific to this story, have we heard anything from the

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Speaker 1: government in response to these new restrictions, Yeah, we have so.

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Speaker 2: Penny Wang, Australia's Foreign Minister, she issued a statement that

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Speaker 2: said Australia condemns the Taliban's efforts to silence the voices

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Speaker 2: of Afghanistan's women and girls, and she said that Australia

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Speaker 2: stands together with those women and girls of Afghanistan and

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Speaker 2: in support of their human rights. So very clear statement

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Speaker 2: there from the Australian government about how they have responded

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Speaker 2: to this latest measure by the Taliban.

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Speaker 1: Zara, thank you so much for explaining all of that

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Speaker 1: to us today. Obviously, we will stay on top of

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Speaker 1: what happens from here in terms of the morality, police

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Speaker 1: and enforcement, and you know how the citizens of Afghanistan

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Speaker 1: will respond, will remain to be seen, you know, maybe

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Speaker 1: we will see a wave of protest action, will stay

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Speaker 1: across it, and as always, we will keep you updated

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Speaker 1: on The Daily OS.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that this is one of those stories,

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Speaker 2: you know, when Cabul fell and there were so many

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Speaker 2: concerns about what the reality for women and girls would

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Speaker 2: look like. You know, there was this real moment in

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Speaker 2: time where I feel like a lot of the Western

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Speaker 2: world really you know, had their eyes firmly on Afghanistan,

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Speaker 2: like anything in the New Cycle. I think that that

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Speaker 2: has diminished over time, and that stories like this are

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Speaker 2: a reminder that just because the New cycle moves on

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Speaker 2: doesn't mean that the reality for so many changes at

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Speaker 2: all on the ground. And I think that, you know,

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Speaker 2: three years on, it's an important story to cover, and

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Speaker 2: it's an important story to keep talking about and to

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Speaker 2: keep monitoring, as you said, over the coming months and years.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode

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Speaker 1: of The Daily OS. Don't forget to follow us wherever

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Speaker 1: you listen or subscribe to our YouTube channel if you're

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Speaker 1: watching the podcast over there. We'll be back with another

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Speaker 1: episode tomorrow. O Until then have a great day.

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Speaker 2: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 2: Bungelung Kalkutin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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