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      After victory in the US, now the far right is coming for abortion laws in Europe | Sian Norris

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      After victory in the US, now the far right is coming for abortion laws in EuropeSian NorrisThe attack on Roe v Wade has roots in well-funded organisations whose tentacles have spread across the Atlantic For those of us who have been watching the assault against abortion in the US for years, this week’s leaked supreme court draft opinion – which could pave the way for an overturning of Roe v Wade – came as no surprise.Roe v Wade protects the right to an abortion in the US up to the point a foetus can survive outside the womb, and the religious and far-right have been gunning for it since it was introduced in 1973. Evangelical ideologues, far-right actors and radical-right billionaires have organised to undermine women’s right to safe, legal abortions through a combination of violence against clinics and doctors, dark money and political influence.‘Unnecessary suffering and death’: doctors fear for patients’ lives in a post-Roe worldRead moreSo, how did the US get here?After years of legal assaults that restricted abortion access and targeted clinics in Republican states; years of disinformation spread by “crisis pregnancy centres”, where women are persuaded to not have abortions; and years of burdensome demands on women to endure ultrasounds, gain parental consent and put up with counselling in order to have a termination, Trump’s election opened the door for abortion rights to end in the US.Ultimately, it required courts, not politicians, to end abortion. That’s where the Federalist Society comes in. Headed by Leonard Leo, the legal organisation supported anti-abortion lawmakers across the US into positions of influence where they could draft laws to ban abortion after 15 weeks … 12 weeks … six weeks … and completely. The end goal was for anti-abortion states to try to implement one of these laws, where it would be challenged again and again until it reached the supreme court.To do that, the anti-abortion movement needed supreme court justices who would enact its agenda. They got their way with the help of the leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, who blocked President Obama from nominating a supreme court judge, leaving the field open for Trump to promote the anti-abortion Neil Gorsuch. After that came two more Trump-appointed justices: Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.That was the judicial assault on abortion rights. But that assault could only happen with the help of money … and lots of it. Luckily for the anti-abortion movement, there are plenty of wealthy foundations keen to fund the cause. They include the DeVos, Prince, and the Templeton Foundation, which have helped to support organisations such as the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the Heritage Foundation and Focus on the Family.Backed by billionaire funding, organisations such as the ADF took the fight against abortion rights to the courts – helping to secure a ban on buffer zones and so-called “partial birth abortion”, and supporting the notorious Hobby Lobby case, which stated that employers should not have to cover birth control on employees’ healthcare plans if it was against the owner’s religious beliefs.These organisations and their billionaire backers have transatlantic reach. Take the DeVos and Koch Foundation-supported Heritage Foundation, which has welcomed a range of Conservative MPs to discuss free speech – including Oliver Dowden, Priti Patel and Liam Fox. It was announced on the day of the supreme court leak that Lord David Frost would soon be addressing the organisation.Then there’s the ADF, which spent $23.3m in Europe between 2008 and 2019, when its European arm’s youth conference played host to the Conservative MP Fiona Bruce.ADF International intervened in Belfast’s notorious “gay cake” case and is allied with organisations that lobbied to further restrict abortion in Poland. The US anti-abortion legal organisation, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a second religious freedom organisation that takes on legal cases to challenge abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, has also operated in Europe. Set up by the Republican Pat Robertson, who famously accused feminism of turning women into lesbians, ACLJ’s chief counsel is a former Trump defence attorney, Jay Sekulow. ACLJ spent $15.7m in Europe from 2008-2019.So far you can see how big money, the judiciary and religious freedom movements have come together in the US and Europe. But there’s another active force that has pushed us towards the end of Roe: the far right.Across the far-right infosphere, men discuss the need to ban abortion in order to reverse what they term the “great replacement” – a conspiracy theory that posits white people are being “replaced” by migration from the global south, and that, in the US in particular, this replacement is aided by feminists repressing the white birthrate via abortion.Conspiracy theories such as the “great replacement” sound extreme. But when it comes to the US abortion row, such views are mainstream. Take this quote from the former Republican congressman Steve King, who represented Iowa between 2003-2021. He claimed “the US subtracts from its population a million of our babies in the form of abortion. We add to our population approximately 1.8 million of ‘somebody else’s babies’ who are raised in another culture before they get to us.” Far-right theories circulate globally – that’s why people outside the US shouldn’t just act in solidarity with American women at this time, but prepare to stand up against the possible erosion of their own hard-won rights.
      Sian Norris is the chief social and European affairs reporter at Byline Times. She is writing a book about the far-right attack on productive rights called Bodies Under Siege
      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.comTopicsRoe v WadeOpinionAbortionUS supreme courtWomenHealthUS politicsLaw (US)commentReuse this content More

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      Advising women on abortions in 1960s New York | Letter

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      Advising women on abortions in 1960s New YorkJenny Wright recalls her time helping women from around the US who wanted abortions that were possible, though illegal I worked for the Abortion Law Reform Association in New York in 1968-69 (US shaken to its core by supreme court draft that would overturn Roe v Wade, 3 May). At that time, abortion was possible – but not legal – up to 12 weeks. My job was to scrutinise the hundreds of letters that poured in after an article in Life magazine that gave advice on obtaining an abortion in New York.I replied to all of them to weed out the women who were more than 12 weeks pregnant and advised them to go the UK. I remember that the majority of the letters were from other states. They were mostly from women who had more children than they could manage. Many were Roman Catholic and their husbands refused to let them use contraception. Very few were teenagers, though the common perception at the time was that only promiscuous young women wanted to use the services.My immediate superiors were arrested for committing a federal offence because we facilitated crossing state lines to commit a crime. I ceased working for them at that time, as I was British and a “registered alien”, and I would have been deported.Jenny WrightDublin, IrelandTopicsAbortionRoe v WadeWomenUS politicsGenderlettersReuse this content More

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      The Guardian view on overturning Roe v Wade: a human rights catastrophe | Editorial

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      The Guardian view on overturning Roe v Wade: a human rights catastropheEditorialAccess to safe abortion is vanishing fast. The US supreme court appears poised to deal it the worst blow yet If the supreme court overturns Roe v Wade, as a leaked draft opinion indicates, it will be a crushing blow to the fundamental right of women in the United States to control their own bodies. It is the grim culmination of a crusade by zealots, against the will of the majority, to risk the health, happiness and lives of women. An accelerating erosion of rights and services has already slashed access to abortions, and many feared that Donald Trump’s judicial legacy would be the curtailment or reversal of the 1973 ruling, which effectively legalised abortion nationally. But this text, obtained by Politico and written by Justice Samuel Alito, looks worse than expected. Excoriating Roe v Wade as “egregiously wrong from the start”, it abandons the issue to states – nearly half of which have, or will soon have, laws banning abortion.Such a decision will force women to give birth in a country with high maternal mortality rates and no national paid maternity leave; it will risk lives as they access illegal abortions; it will threaten to criminalise vulnerable women and those who help them (and even those who have miscarriages); it will push yet more children into poverty. Experts warn that states are likely to pass further restrictions targeting those who travel to obtain abortions, or order medication to manage their abortions at home. These days there are new ways for women to obtain abortions, but also new ways to track them, and those supporting them. Overturning the five-decades-old decision could also help to pave the way for a nationwide abortion ban.Moreover, it throws into doubt other established rights, such as gay marriage, which are similarly rooted in the right to privacy. Though it states that it does not do so – arguing that abortion is a unique issue because it involves the right to life or potential life – that is little reassurance. After all, two of the justices backing this decision were confirmed after describing Roe v Wade as “settled law”.This catastrophic decision, assuming it proceeds, both highlights and solidifies the gulf between different Americas. First, the geographical division between states that ban abortion – home to the majority of women – and those that do not. Second, the socioeconomic and racial divide between those whose wealth and connections will allow them to access abortion, and the rest. Finally, it captures the gulf between American public opinion and the institutions that have been captured by the right because the electoral college, the Senate and supreme court are all skewed in favour of Republicans. A poll in January found that only 30% of voters wanted to see Roe v Wade overturned; 69% were opposed.The move is also strikingly out of step with the rest of the world. With a few exceptions – notably Poland – the trend has been overwhelmingly towards the liberalisation of abortion laws, including in countries such as Chile and Ireland. The UN special rapporteur on the right to health, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, has warned that overturning abortion rights would set a dangerous precedent, as well as violate international human rights treaties, including the convention against torture.But this decision, of course, can only be fixed at home. Democrats demand the codification of Roe v Wade, knowing that it would require overturning the filibuster, a Senate procedural rule. Calls for supreme court reform will gain ground, with the introduction of term limits a more straightforward move than expanding the court. Beyond the immediate crisis is the greater challenge of fixing a political system now tilted decisively towards Republicans through the systematic pursuit of power, from gerrymandering to voter suppression to control of elections themselves. The right’s victory is the fruit of an orchestrated campaign over decades; the fightback will demand equal ferocity and commitment. This blow could yet help to create some of the momentum required. November’s midterms will be the first test.TopicsRoe v WadeOpinionAbortionUS supreme courtHealthUS politicsWomeneditorialsReuse this content More

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      ‘An abomination’: how campaigners reacted to report on US supreme court’s draft decision on Roe v Wade

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      ‘An abomination’: how campaigners reacted to report on US supreme court’s draft decision on Roe v WadeLeaked initial draft majority opinion suggests court is poised to overturn ruling that legalised abortion across US0A leaked initial draft majority opinion suggests the US supreme court is poised to overturn the Roe v Wade decision that legalised abortion nationwide, Politico has reported.The unprecedented leak stunned Washington. It holds the potential to reshape the political landscape ahead of US midterm elections in November. Here is some reaction to the report.Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood president “This leaked opinion is horrifying and unprecedented, and it confirms our worst fears … While we have seen the writing on the wall for decades, it is no less devastating, and comes just as anti-abortion rights groups unveil their ultimate plan to ban abortion nationwide… [W]e will continue to fight like hell to protect the right to access safe, legal abortion.”National Women’s Law Center“The language in the draft opinion leaked from the supreme court is outrageous, irresponsible and shocking. Any justice who signs on to this opinion is fuelling the harm and violence that will happen to people who become pregnant in this country.”American Civil Liberties Union“If the supreme court does indeed issue a majority opinion along the lines of the leaked draft authored by Justice Alito, the shift in the tectonic plates of abortion rights will be as significant as any opinion the court has ever issued.”Hillary Clinton, former US secretary of state “This decision is a direct assault on the dignity, rights, and lives of women, not to mention decades of settled law. It will kill and subjugate women even as a vast majority of Americans think abortion should be legal. What an utter disgrace.”Elizabeth Warren, Democratic senator“An extremist supreme court is poised to overturn #RoeVWade and impose its far-right, unpopular views on the entire country. It’s time for the millions who support the constitution and abortion rights to stand up and make their voices heard. We’re not going back, not ever.”Chuck Schumer, Senate majority leader, and Nancy Pelosi, House speaker “If the report is accurate, the supreme court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past 50 years – not just on women but on all Americans. The Republican-appointed justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history.”Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democratic representative “As we’ve warned, Scotus [supreme court of the United States] isn’t just coming for abortion – they’re coming for the right to privacy Roe rests on, which includes gay marriage and civil rights. [Joe] Manchin is blocking Congress codifying Roe. House has seemingly forgotten about Clarence Thomas. These two points must change.”Amy Klobuchar, Democratic senator “If nothing can get done in Washington because of Republican obstructionism, then the American people and women are going to have to vote and people who believe in choice are going to have to vote like they never voted before, because that’s the only way we can change this.”Kathy Hochul, Democratic New York governor “This is an absolutely disgraceful attack on our fundamental right to choose, and we will fight it with everything we’ve got. Let me be loud and clear: New York will always guarantee your right to abortion. You have our word.”Bernie Sanders, independent US senator “Congress must pass legislation that codifies Roe v Wade as the law of the land in this country now. And if there aren’t 60 votes in the Senate to do it, and there are not, we must end the filibuster to pass it with 50 votes.”Ken Paxton, Republican Texas attorney general “I hope that Scotus returns the question of abortion where it belongs: the states. This is why I led a 24-state coalition in support of MS’s law banning them after 15 wks. I’ll [continue] to ensure that TX protects the unborn and pray for the end of abortion across our nation.”Tom Cotton, Republican senator “The supreme court and the DoJ must get to the bottom of this leak immediately using every investigative tool necessary. In the meantime, Roe was egregiously wrong from the beginning and I pray the court follows the constitution and allows the states to once again protect unborn life.”Josh Hawley, Republican senator “The left continues its assault on the supreme court with an unprecedented breach of confidentiality, clearly meant to intimidate. The justices mustn’t give in to this attempt to corrupt the process. Stay strong. I will say, if this is the court’s opinion, it’s a heck of an opinion. Voluminously researched, tightly argued, and morally powerful.”Rick Scott, Republican senator “The supreme court’s confidential deliberation process is sacred and protects it from political interference. This breach shows that radical Democrats are working even harder to intimidate and undermine the court. It was always their plan. The justices cannot be swayed by this attack.“TopicsRoe v WadeWomenAbortionHealthUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Birthing while Black’ is a national crisis for the US. Here’s what Black lawmakers want to do about it

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      ‘Birthing while Black’ is a national crisis for the US. Here’s what Black lawmakers want to do about it For Black women in Congress, maternal mortality hits close to home. The Black Maternal Health Caucus seeks changeWhen Alma Adams’s daughter complained of abdominal pain during a difficult pregnancy, her doctor overlooked her cries for help. The North Carolina congresswoman’s daughter had to undergo a last-minute caesarean section. She and her baby daughter, now 16, survived. “It could have gone another way. I could have been a mother who was grieving her daughter and granddaughter,” Adams told the Guardian, following a week in which the White House highlighted the crisis of pregnancy-related deaths among Black women. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Black women die at three times the rate of white women.For Adams and other Black women in Congress, who formed the Black Maternal Health Caucus, the issue hits close to home. Last week, during Black Maternal Health Week, they talked about how their experiences and the work of advocates had propelled legislation, known as the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act of 2021, to fight a healthcare crisis that disproportionately affects Black women regardless of income.The US has the highest maternal mortality rate among industrialized countries. Since 2000, the maternal mortality rate has risen nearly 60%, making it worse now than it was decades earlier. More than half of these deaths are preventable.Health experts point to the fact that other industrialized countries have significantly different approaches to motherhood than the US, including paid maternity leave, access to comprehensive postpartum care and enough maternity care providers, especially midwives, to meet the needs of their populations. Policy advocates add that the crisis among Black women is a symptom of racism in the nation’s healthcare system – from who has access to care to attitudes toward Black people and their bodies.“It doesn’t matter what your socioeconomic status is. It doesn’t matter how much insurance you have, or how much education you have,” Adams said, adding that her daughter, Jeanelle Lindsay, had a master’s degree and health insurance. “Those things don’t matter. This could happen to anyone. Look at women like Beyoncé and Serena Williams, who had these near misses because the doctors really didn’t pay the kind of attention that they should have.”Black women in the House used the week of recognition to bring attention to several bills that are part of a sweeping Momnibus package to address the dangers of birthing while Black. Their efforts to elevate the longtime work of organizations such as the Black Mamas Matter Alliance showed the power of representation in putting issues affecting Black women on the congressional agenda, said Lauren Underwood, an Illinois congresswoman and registered nurse.“It takes women in these spaces to call out problems, set an agenda, and bring together a coalition of legislators, advocates, and community members to work toward comprehensive, evidence-based solutions that will save moms’ lives,” Underwood said in an email.In January 2019, after Underwood received her committee assignments, Adams met with her to see if she wanted to launch a caucus focused on Black maternal health. One of Underwood’s friends, an epidemiologist at the CDC, had died three weeks after she gave birth. “I was still grappling with her death when I came to Congress,” Underwood said.Three months later, they launched the caucus with 53 founding members, including Ayanna Pressley, Lucy McBath and Barbara Lee. Today, it has 115 members from both parties.After consulting with maternal health advocacy groups, Underwood and Adams introduced the Momnibus Act in March 2020, nine bills aimed at combating maternal health disparities through investment in community-based programs and other efforts to rectify social determinants of health – the conditions in which people live, work and grow up – that affect who lives and who dies in childbirth.Their legislative pursuit was timely, coming before a pandemic that would bring racial health disparities to the public’s attention. Between 2019 and 2020, the mortality rate for Black and Latina women and birthing people rose during the first year of the pandemic.Kamala Harris, the nation’s first Black and South Asian female vice-president, amplified the issue last week during a speech at the Century Foundation, a progressive thinktank based in Washington DC. Harris called for “building a future in which being Black and pregnant is a time filled with joy and hope rather than fear”.As a US senator from California, Harris was lead sponsor for the Senate version of the Momnibus Act in 2020, which stalled in committee. Underwood and Adams, along with Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, reintroduced the Momnibus bill in February 2021.Most of the proposals in the package are included in the Build Back Better Act, a social spending bill that is stuck in gridlock.“Were it not for Black women in the Congressional Black Caucus, there would not be a Black Maternal Health Caucus,” said the Massachusetts representative Ayanna Pressley. “When we say that we are the voice of Congress, we mean that.”Pressley lost her paternal grandmother, whom she never knew, when she died giving birth to Pressley’s uncle in the 1950s. “Decades later, the Black maternal mortality crisis continues to rob us of our loved ones and to destabilize families,” she said during the Century Foundation event.What explains the disparities in outcomes between Black and white mothers boils down to what Pressley called “policy violence”. It’s not just the discrimination that Black women and birthing people experience, but also the lack of access to quality healthcare and medical coverage.“These are the result of centuries of laws in a systematic, systematically racist health care system that too often discounts our pay, ignores our voices, disregards our lives,” Pressley said. “Birthing while Black should not be a death sentence.”In November 2021, Joe Biden signed into law one of the bills in the Momnibus package that invests $15m in maternity care for veterans. But other legislative efforts remain stalled in Congress. Eight bills that were part of the original Momnibus package are part of the Build Back Better Act, according to a tracker by The Century Foundation. They include awarding grants to community organizations to help pregnant people find affordable housing, documenting transportation barriers for pregnant and postpartum people, expanding food stamp eligibility and permanently expanding Medicaid coverage for mothers in every state for a year after childbirth.And on Friday, Booker and seven other lawmakers introduced Mamas First Act, which would expand Medicaid to cover services from doulas and midwives.“We’ve made historic progress, from the enactment of the first bill in my Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act to the recent cabinet meeting Vice-President Harris led, the first-ever White House cabinet meeting convened to address maternal health disparities as a national priority,” Underwood said.Adams pointed to another piece of the legislation that feels very close to home: the Kira Johnson Act, named after a 39-year-old Black mother who, after complaining of abdominal pain, died in 2016 from a hemorrhage following a routine caesarean section. The bill would direct the health and human services department to send grants to community groups focused on improving the maternal health outcomes for Black, Latino and other marginalized communities and for training to reduce racial bias and discrimination among healthcare providers.The connection between Johnson’s and her daughter’s situations resonated with Adams. The pain they experienced was dismissed – a familiar form of racial bias that the Momnibus package attempts to address.“Either you have a mother, you are a mother, or you know women who are moms,” Adams said. “When we raise the tide for Black women, who are among the most marginalized and the most vulnerable, we ultimately raise the tide for all women.”TopicsUS CongressParents and parentingFamilyKamala HarrisAyanna PressleyHouse of RepresentativesUS SenatefeaturesReuse this content More

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      Congress steps up fight to get guns out of domestic abusers’ hands

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      Congress steps up fight to get guns out of domestic abusers’ handsThe reauthorization of the Violence Against Women act gives authorities new powers to crack down on domestic abusers with illegal guns Editor’s note: This story was produced by the non-profit newsroom Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. Get email alerts on its investigations.State and local prosecutors and law enforcement across the US will have sweeping new powers to crack down on domestic abusers with illegal guns under a bipartisan deal approved by Congress.The measures, included in a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act – part of a $1.5tn spending bill passed Thursday night – come after an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting that was published in the Guardian and showed that domestic violence gun homicides leaped 58% over the last decade. Many of those victims were killed by abusers whose criminal histories prohibited them from possessing guns, Reveal found.A father used a ghost gun to kill his three daughters. It’s a sign of a growing crisisRead moreJoe Biden, who sponsored the first Violence Against Women Act almost 30 years ago, is expected to quickly sign the bill. The package includes domestic programs, military spending and $13.6bn in aid for Ukraine.Federal law bars felons and some people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence from possessing firearms. But state and local law enforcement authorities, who handle most domestic violence cases, can’t enforce those federal laws and federal prosecutors haven’t prioritized them, so even egregious violations of gun bans often go unpunished. In addition, because federal law and most state statutes don’t address how to retrieve weapons from people who aren’t legally permitted to have them, gun bans are largely enforced on an honor system that relies on abusers to disarm themselves.Advocates and gun policy experts said Reveal’s reporting spurred lawmakers to break a partisan logjam.“The reporting definitely lit a fire for members of Congress to act on this issue,” said Marissa Edmund, senior policy analyst for gun violence prevention at the Center for American Progress.The investigation, which chronicled scores of people killed in domestic violence-related gun homicides in recent years, showed lawmakers “that these are lives that are lost and the pain of that loss extends to their families and communities and knowing that it was preventable. This is a huge win for survivors and advocates to close loopholes that allow some domestic abusers to access firearms.”“We’re closing gaps that exist between state and local and federal law enforcement,” Edmund added. “There will be more coordination on the state and federal level so abusers won’t have access to those firearms. It will save hundreds of lives.”The Violence Against Women Act has been reauthorized several times since it was first enacted in 1994, but the most recent update had been stalled in Congress since 2019. The new bill includes the highest funding level ever to support programs for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. It also includes broad provisions that address some of the law enforcement failures that Reveal highlighted in its reporting.One new provision empowers the US Department of Justice to appoint state, local, territorial and tribal prosecutors to serve as special assistant US attorneys to prosecute violations of federal firearms laws. Another aims to expand the reach of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the chief federal agency charged with enforcing the nation’s gun laws, by allowing the attorney general to deputize local and state law enforcement officers to act as ATF agents to investigate abusers who break federal firearms laws.To determine where those special prosecutors and law enforcement officers should focus, the legislation directs the justice department to identify at least 75 jurisdictions across the country where gun-related domestic violence is soaring and local authorities lack the resources to respond. The justice department will also establish contacts in every US attorney’s office and ATF field office to handle requests for assistance from state and local police about intimate partner violence cases involving suspects believed to have guns illegally.The updated act also instructs federal authorities to notify local law enforcement when felons and domestic abusers attempt to buy a gun illegally.The federal government doesn’t track the number of abusers who kill their intimate partners with illegal guns. As part of its investigation, Reveal tracked down at least 110 people across the US who were shot to death from 2017 through 2020 by abusers barred from possessing firearms, providing an unprecedented accounting of such killings. The pandemic has been an especially lethal period for abuse victims. Gun homicides involving intimate partners rose a stunning 25% in 2020 compared with the previous year, to the highest level in almost three decades.TopicsUS gun controlGuns and liesDomestic violenceGun crimeWomenBiden administrationUS CongressUS politicsReuse this content More

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      The Taliban Uses Violence Against Women as a Bargaining Chip

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      After the collapse of the Afghan government last August, the only significant challenge to the Taliban’s primitive totalitarianism was mounted by women in big cities — the capital Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif in the north, and Herat in the west, among others. The Taliban’s approach to women’s rights brought fears of violence that engulfed the country in the 1990s when the Talibs first won power. But Afghan society has undergone considerable changes since then, and many Afghan women refuse to accept the militants’ restricted approach to their right to work and education.

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      In response, the Taliban have deployed various oppressive measures. In September, they replaced the Women’s Affairs Ministry with morality police, which enforces the armed group’s strict religious doctrine on the country. At the same time, while trying to confine women to their homes by forbidding them to work or study, the Taliban are using the threat of violence against women as a bargaining chip against the Western powers.

      Violent Tactics

      In September last year, the Taliban attacked the media to prevent them from covering the women’s protests in Kabul. Two Etilaatroz journalists were tortured. Etilaatroz is one of the leading Afghan newspapers and a critical voice mainly focused on investigative journalism. An attack on the newspaper was a clear signal for everyone covering the protests against the Taliban.

      Since the armed group took control of the country, at least 318 media outlets closed in 33 of 34 provinces and, according to the International Federation of Journalists, 72% of those who lost their jobs are women.

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      But the Taliban quickly changed their tactics to tackle women’s protests through more intimidating methods, including nighttime house searches to locate those who dared raise their voice. Tamana Zaryabi Paryani, a member of the movement demanding rights to work and education, is just one of the women taken from their homes in Kabul in the middle of the night; her whereabouts remain unknown. Some families report being contacted by detainees from Taliban prisons in undisclosed locations.

      The Taliban deny capturing, detaining or killing women and other opponents. This tactic aims to mislead public opinion, the media and policymakers in Western countries. The situation may be even more critical in the provinces, beyond the eyes of the media. In September last year, the Taliban killed a former police officer with the ousted Afghan government in front of her family in Gor province; she was pregnant at the time of her murder.

      There is no way to assess the true number of disappeared women across the country. Some of them are known by the media, such Mursal Ayar, Parwana Ibrahimkhel, Tamana Paryani, Zahra Mohammadi and Alia Azizi. Most of them belong to the protest movement against the Taliban’s policies. Azizi worked as a senior female prison official in Herat and went missing when the Taliban took control of the city. Amnesty International urged the Taliban to investigate the case and release her “immediately and unconditionally” if she is in their custody.

      Last week, the UN repeated its call and asked the Taliban to release the disappeared women activists and their relatives. The German Embassy, currently operating from Qatar, has called for an investigation into the missing women. It is entirely possible that the Taliban will eventually release some of the captives, claiming that they were rescued from the clutches of the kidnappers, in order to portray themselves as a responsible government.

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      Gang rape is another tactic that the Taliban deploy against women in detention. The Independent reports that last September, bodies of eight detainees arrested during a protest in Mazar-e Sharif were discovered. According to reports, the girls were repeatedly gang-raped and tortured by the Taliban. Sexual assault is a many-sided weapon against women in a society based on strict honor codes. Some of those who survived the rapes were killed by their families.

      In January, The Times reported that the staff in the government-run Mazar-e Sharif Regional Hospital claim that they receive around 15 bodies from Taliban fighters each month — mostly women with gunshot wounds to the head or chest.

      Bargaining Chip

      Violence has been the Taliban’s primary tool both in war and during negotiations with Western powers. Over the course of two decades of conflict, the Taliban used violence as a means to win recognition as a political force. During their talks with the US and the Afghan government, the Taliban escalated violence to enhance their position at the negotiating table. Now, they are pursuing the same strategy by trading repression for recognition.

      Since the Taliban took control of the country, women’s rights are a constant subject of ongoing diplomatic discussions that have so far brought no result. The international community has failed to press the Taliban to form an inclusive government and respect women’s rights.

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      But the armed group wants the international community to recognize their government. In January, a Taliban delegation was invited to Oslo to talk with Western powers and representatives of Afghan women for the first time. At the meeting, Hoda Khamosh, a civil society activist, asked the Taliban delegation: “why are the Taliban imprisoning us in Kabul and now sitting here at the negotiating table with us in Oslo? What is the international community doing in the face of all this torture and repression?”

      Since then, nothing has changed. The reality is that the Taliban used the talks in Oslo as an opportunity to make an international appearance to advertise their government. They are deploying precepts like women’s rights to force more international engagement. While Norway was criticized for inviting the Taliban and offering them exposure, Switzerland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that it invited the Taliban to talk about “the protection of humanitarian actors and respect for human rights.”

      The Taliban is an ideological, zealot religious movement, and years of experience suggest that they are unlikely to revise their position on women’s rights and other fundamental issues, including human rights and political pluralism. Talking about women’s rights in Western capitals is just an opportunity for them to normalize their regime and travel abroad. Human rights violations, particularly violence against women, not only serve the Taliban’s ideological purposes but have turned into a convenient bargaining chip against the international community.

      It is critical that Western powers support fundamental human rights in the country without providing the Taliban with opportunities for blackmail, implementig realistic measures to press the group to release activists and to respect women’s rights. First, it is important to maintain or escalate the current sanctions regime against the Taliban leadership. Second, making sure that there is no rush to recognize the Taliban regime mong foreign governments is another key leverage point.

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      Third, there is a need to appoint a special rapporteur to monitor the human rights situation and document violations to hold the Taliban accountable. Fourth, it is important to extend and support the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan to help monitor the human rights situation in the country.

      Finally, the international community can continue its humanitarian support through UN agencies and other organizations without recognizing the Taliban. Recognition of the group will not only increase human rights abuses but will send the wrong signal to other extremists in the region. All these measures will reduce the Taliban’s ability to use violence as a bargaining chip against the international community.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More