Amit Diwan/New Delhi

Afghan women refugees held a demonstration at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Saturday to highlight the atrocities against women and children in Afghanistan and the violation of their rights.

A large number of Afghan refugee women took part in the demonstration. The participants had tears in their eyes as they raised slogans and spoke to the media persons covering the event.

Everyone's story was heartbreaking. They all blamed the Taliban for the blatant abuse and denial of basic rights to the women in their home.

Among the demonstrators, someone had lost her father and someone her brother. Everyone is worried about the women trapped in Afghanistan, and they fear for their lives, safety, and survival.

The protestors wanted the international community to intervene in Afghanistan so as to prevail upon the Taliban to stop the violating the basic rights of the Afghan women, who are deprived of education and right to livelihood.

Scores of Afghan women from different parts of the capital, including children and the elderly, took part in the demonstration, held under the banner of Afghan Refugee Women's Association that had collaborated with NGO Awaaz-e-khwateen.

Sharifa Shahab, President of the Afghan Women Refugees Association, said the purpose of the sit-in and demonstration was to draw the attention of the international community to the plight of Afghan women.

Afghan women holding demonstration

The demonstrator displayed placards with slogans demanding rights for the women in their country and asked the world to intervene in the situation in Afghanistan. The placards also had pictures of Afghan woman killed under the Taliban rule and raised slogans.

Shahab said the women and children in Afghanistan are facing crisis, violence and human rights abuse.

She said the world must pay attention to the gross human rights abuses in Afghanistan and save the oppressed.

Protesters chanted slogans in favour of Afghan women and called for an end to atrocities against women in Afghanistan.

Many women said the return of the Taliban has not only made their stateless but many are living away from their families and relatives.

Women narrated shocking stories of lives back in Afghanistan and the conditions under which they fled their native places and came to india as refugees.

Hashmi, who lives in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar, an Afghan colony, served as a police officer in the central Afghan city of Ghazni.

She was attacked by the Taliban on June 7, 2020. She was brutally beaten and suffered a head injury. her attackers left her unconscious and she continued to be in that state for four days. The assailants stabbed her in the eye leaving her blind.

Zarghona was a judge in Afghanistan. Zarghona had to flee her homeland to escape persecution at the hands of the Taliban. She has left all her success and status behind. She now works as a mason in India to earn a living.