Human rights group Afghan Witness has reported a disturbing rise in online abuse and hate speech targeting women in Afghanistan, especially those politically engaged, since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. Abusive posts against this demographic are said to have tripled, after analyzing a significant tranche of 78,000 posts between June and December across the years 2021 and 2022. The data was supplemented by interviews with Afghan women.Afghan Witness documented a wide spectrum of abuse, including gender, sexual, political, ethnic and religious attacks and offensive content.
The character of these online attacks is varied but highly offensive, using sexualized terms and racial slurs, portraying Afghan women as promiscuous and falsely accusing them as “agents of the West” seeking asylum. The collateral damage of these attacks is profound, instilling feelings of stress, anxiety, fear, and eroding self-esteem among their targets. Some of the interviewed women reported the experience to be “psychologically traumatic.”, leading them to self-censor on social media to avoid a backlash.
In response, Afghan Witness has called on social media platforms to shoulder their share of responsibility and implement stronger measures to protect women from such acts. These include revising hate speech policies and dedicating resources towards detecting hate speech in minority languages and regional dialects. A recommendation was also put forth to create an online network enabling Afghan women to collaborate on initiatives aimed at cultivating a safer online space.
Unfortunately, this is not the isolated instance where concern about human rights situation in Afghanistan has been raised. Prior to this report, UN experts had voiced their warning about the deteriorating human rights situation in Afghanistan on October 20, with UN Special Rapporteur Richard Bennet highlighting that the core issue was the policies of the Taliban, fueled by the economic and humanitarian crises in the country. By September end, UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous had already called for the UN Security Council to intervene in the rights crisis Afghan women were experiencing – she also noted that women’s rights in Afghanistan were deteriorating under Taliban rule.JURIST – News.