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The Olympic and Paralympic committees have four years to Save Women’s Sport - we’re watching It’s all over for another four years. The pinnacle of every sportswoman’s dream – the Olympics and Paralympics – are done and dusted. The big-wigs at the top of the Olympic and Paralympic committees are no doubt patting themselves on the back for ‘a job well done’. We say hold your horses lads…there’s the little matter of IOC sanctioned male violence against women to discuss, and that child rapist you invited to the Games, and don’t forget widespread condemnation of the opening ceremony that saw children sharing the stage with drag queens in a tableau of the Last Supper.   We can’t unsee that!   There were a lot of lows at these Games. Thankfully there were also some inspiring sporting highs to help us remember what it was all about. Over 9 million people in the UK watched Keely Hodgkinson win Gold in the 800m, making it the most watched Olympic event on the BBC (who says women’s sport doesn’t attract viewers, huh?). The rowing, kayaking, athletics, speed climbing, cycling, swimming, and more, had enough thrills and spills to entertain and inspire. Our women were amazing. But…and it’s a big but… Paris24 will go down as one of the most woman-hating Games in the history of the modern Olympics, and that’s saying something for an organisation that turned a blind eye to state-sponsored doping of women and girl athletes by the Eastern Bloc countries in the 70s and 80s. First, there was the awful spectre of the Dutch child rapist who was selected for his country’s volleyball team, which IOC press spokesman Mark Adams dismissed as a ‘matter for the Dutch selectors’. No concerns for the safeguarding of young women athletes, volunteers and staff who would have contact with this convicted paedophile who is still on the UK Sex Offenders’ Register. We also witnessed disgusting scenes of @IOCmedia sanctioned male violence against women in the boxing ring, and downright cheating at the Paralympics. The efforts of the men at the top of the IOC to justify allowing blokes into women’s events were frankly pathetic. Men stated that other men were ‘female in the passports’ and that made it okay for them to punch women… there are no words… (well there are but they’re not printable). The Olympics’ reputation hit rock bottom when a global audience of millions watched as one woman after another (eight in total) was forced to step into the ring to fight males who had ‘failed gender tests’ at the previous year’s women’s world championships. Angela Carini When Angela Carini of Italy bowed out after 46 seconds in fear of her life we all thought ‘surely this can’t continue’? But it did. The sight of boxers Svetlana Staneva (Uzbekistan) and Ezra Yildiz (Turkey) making an X sign with their fingers was heartbreaking. This small act of protest was soon taken up worldwide as the symbol of women’s resistance against the destruction of their sports. On the football pitch we saw players who had ‘failed gender tests’ in African championships, waved through by the Olympic selectors. There were rumours of males competing in sports such as judo and basketball (unverified because… ‘Female in the Passport’). If it stops making sense then that’s because it doesn’t. Then, the Paralympics was brought into disrepute by rules that allowed a fully-intact male to race in the women’s 200m and 400m races. The whole world could see that this was a fully-intact male because Lycra doesn’t lie… Women put in danger. Women excluded from the Games and from their rightful places in semi-finals. The Olympic and Paralympic Games can’t sink any lower. Outright misogyny and blindness to the impact of the ‘Olympic Framework’ (that there should be no presumption of advantage of males in women’s sport) has led to policies of Inclusion of Males at the expense of Fairness and Safety for Women and Girls. Something has to change. Women’s Rights Network calls on the International Olympic Committee and the Paralympic Committee to put their houses in order. Los Angeles is in four years. There is time to root out the misogynistic policies that have led to women being hurt in the name of ‘inclusion’. IOC President Thomas Bach stands down from the presidency of the International Olympic Committee, in 2025, there are, of course, no guarantees that his replacement will be any better disposed towards fairness, safety and equality for females. But we live in hope. To the new President of the International Olympic Committee, this needs to go to the top of your In-Tray: 1)       Scrap the Olympic Framework. A document drawn up by ‘gender scientists’ is not worth the paper it’s written on. Bring in some actual sports scientists and biologists to write rules that will put female safety and fairness first. This paper on Eligibility in Female Sport is a good starting point and any of the experts who put their name to this will be able to advise you.  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/sms.14715      2)       Write rules that state female sport is for females only. Individual sports federations cannot be trusted to put female safety and fairness first. This has to come from the top. Only SIX of the 32 sports federations represented at the Games have policies that exclude men (and only one of those – Aquatics – requires females to take a sex verification test).   3)       Bring back sex verification tests. Female athletes want them. That’s because they want their sport to be fair and safe (and they’re not happy about males coming in their changing rooms either). Anyone who achieves national selection should be screened (before they get to an international event), this would weed out males with DSDs and allow them to access psychological / medical services out of the glare of the public eye.   4)      Put safeguarding at the heart of the Games. Athletes are uniquely vulnerable to bullying and sexual exploitation. The most rudimentary safeguarding procedures would have stopped males being allowed to hit women, and screening of all athletes and officials for criminal records would have kept the child rapist at home. These are the changes that need to happen BEFORE more women are put in danger or lose out because males are included in their sport. The next Winter Olympics are in February 2026 and the Summer Games are in Los Angeles 2028. The clock is ticking. We hope that the IOC is listening. Women all over the world will be watching.

It’s amazing what you can find in libraries these days. From films to job adverts, from broadband access to magazines and books, the library service is like a trusted friend who lends you all their best stuff and offers to keep the children entertained on a wet weekend in the summer holidays. And they’ve been around forever, too. Well, since the Public Libraries Act (1850) in England and Wales, and extended to Scotland and Ireland in 1853. Financed by all of us, available to all of us, trusted by all of us.   But that trust has been betrayed. Like an unexplained receipt found in a pocket, or lipstick on the collar of a cheating spouse, the evidence is there in plain sight. It goes unnoticed because we trust our libraries to keep their side of the bargain and make sure that the books in the children’s section are the best and most appropriate available.   And for nearly all of the 174 years since the library service was established, that was the case. I’m sorry to have to reveal, that is no longer true. Like too many other of our civic institutions, libraries – and CILIP the librarians’ professional body – have let us and our children down.   The women of WRN Somerset & West Dorset looked at the books in the children’s sections of our local libraries. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Books promoting gender identity ideology and the belief that people can change their sex were available for even the youngest of children (including board books for babies). We found books that erase women and girls as a sex class, that erase the concept of same sex attraction. Books that undermine safeguarding, encourage risky sexual behaviour and are inappropriately sexually explicit for the age of their target audience.   Take a look for yourself – a copy of our report can be downloaded here .   We sent the report to the relevant local councillors and in news that will come as no surprise to anyone, not one council in an area covering 2.1 million people had a problem with any of this. In fact, they told us that some of these books are included in the Reading Agency’s national Reading Well for Teens  collection, a scheme that:   “ supports the mental health and wellbeing of teenagers, providing information, advice and support to help teens better understand their feelings, handle difficult experiences and boost confidence. The books included are quality assured and chosen by experts including doctors and other health professionals.”   Which rather begs the questions; what expertise do these doctors and health professionals have and why are they recommending books that, amongst a host of other concerns:    ●       signpost children to Mermaids, the charity that is under investigation by the Charity Commission for safeguarding failures  ( Coming Out Stories ); ●       encourage the kind of extreme dieting that results in eating disorders ( Welcome To St Hell ).   We’d like to know why our libraries promote children’s books that  ●       normalise anal sex for heterosexual couples ( This Book Is Gay ); ●       describe how to make your own breast binders ( Trans Mission ).     It was clear from the councillors’ responses that our report had been seen as a demand for censorship from women who were offended  by these books, which is not the case and entirely misses the point. We explicitly state in the report that we do not want the books to be banned, and nowhere do we claim offence. The problem is the lack of child safeguarding.   Our report was taken seriously enough to be discussed by the partnership of 7 library services that comprises Libraries West, and at least two of those services recatalogued Coming Out Stories  as not suitable for pre-teens.   So they do understand that material should be age-appropriate, and that cataloguing books in an age-appropriate manner is not censorship.   Are these books age-appropriate? Here’s what Juno Dawson has to say in This Book Is Gay :   "For some, cheating is cheating and that is that. Jealousy and paranoia are enough to make a peen shrivel like a salted slug or a vag slam shut like a clam - NOT SEXY. For most, having sex with other people is a deal breaker and you may have to accept that or find a more compatible partner.   However, all people - gay or otherwise - must recognise that there is one universal truth of the universe:   WE ALL WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH LOADS OF PEOPLE."   And this is what he has to report about lesbian sex:   "But back to orgasms. I love a good shag from a hand or a dildo - vaginal or anal - but, honestly, that’s not about the orgasm that’s about the pleasure of being shagged. And sometimes that pleasure is pleasure enough in itself."     It’s not exactly Enid Blyton, is it? And it makes a mockery of their “robust safeguarding” policies and practices that This Book Is Gay is recommended for children from 13 years old.    The councils confirmed that those “robust safeguarding” policies and practices don’t review publishers’ target age recommendations. All are accepted as gospel despite every council acknowledging that these recommendations are just guidance  and not legally binding. Several respondents consider the age recommendations arbitrary  which is frankly baffling and suggests that dictionaries are in short supply.   Don’t be fooled into thinking that target age grading is anything like the British Board of Film Classification  – book publishers don’t need to engage any sort of safeguarding panel when they set them. The target audience for a book is determined by how difficult the book is to read – how many words, how many chapters, and whether it is a picture book – not its subject matter.   And the problem remains that there are dozens of copies of a book that encourages extreme dieting in the teens section of our public libraries. There are dozens of titles promoting the idea that gender identity is a reality. And that normalise anal sex for heterosexual couples.   One book ( Queer: A Graphic History ) includes a picture of a couple “pegging”. In a children’s book in a public library. (Why is this something children need to know about?)   For teenage girls in particular, extreme dieting is very dangerous and can be life threatening. Anal sex causes faecal incontinence and irreparable anal sphincter injury because girls’ and women’s bodies are not sufficiently robust to cope with it. It is far from harmless . And there is plenty of evidence for the numerous harms caused by breast binding . These are just the most obvious safeguarding failures – it’s nothing to do with offence  and censorship .   Children don’t need to go looking on the shelves for books that encourage them to believe that they can change sex through synthetic hormones and surgery because libraries are helpfully promoting them on colourful displays that seem deliberately designed to appeal to little children; covered in rainbows and sporting big bold typefaces.   There are no such displays of accessible books explaining that mammals cannot change sex, and that surgical and hormonal interventions are largely experimental and have a significant and detrimental impact on health.   Photographed in a Weston-Super-Mare library in August 2024 And it’s not just the books that are signposting children to Mermaids, the charity that fast tracked children to the infamous Tavistock and Portman gender clinic in London with direct referrals. The display photographed at Weston-Super-Mare is actively promoting Mermaids too, including a QR code for donations. Lest we forget, Mermaids is the charity that, until October 2022, had a Trustee who in 2011 spoke at a conference organised by a group supporting paedophiles . This is going well beyond making legal material available to the public.   It turns out that there are in practice no controls on the books a child may borrow, and an 11-year-old girl was able to borrow all  the books on this display. So even if the library does catalogue titles as teen non-fiction, pre-teens can hardly avoid seeing them and are able to read and borrow them.   It’s quite likely that children younger than 11 would be able to borrow these books, too, because there appear to be no checks, even though Coming Out Stories  was removed from the pre-teens section in at least 2 of the 7 library regions.   If you have time, have a read of the books that 11-year-old girl borrowed: ●      Coming Out Stories ●      What's the T? ●      This Book is Gay ●      Queer Up ●      Welcome to St. Hell   It is particularly troubling that our libraries see the provision of these concerning books to children as a duty . Several told us that “ Librarians also have to bear in mind that not everyone can afford to buy specific books, nor may it be safe for them to do so ” with a couple mentioning that “ we have a duty ”. This looks very like an acknowledgement that they know that parents would not consent to their children reading these books, and that parents’ wishes are being actively undermined. It drives a coach and horses through any suggestion that it is up to parents to ensure their children only read books that are age appropriate.   The librarians probably don’t read all of these books. They might not read any of them. And they probably still think that the “progress pride” flag indicates some civil rights struggle for an oppressed minority. Perhaps this is why they were comfortable scattering 2BU stickers and cards throughout one library we visited. On shelves, on doors, on staff laptops. 2BU Somerset is one of those LGBTQ+ organisations that promotes gender identity ideology to children and young adults, including a myriad of identities and the sort of science denialism that claims that sex is “assigned at birth”.    Perhaps this is what the respondents were referring to when they spoke of creating a “safe and inclusive space for everyone”. At least, for everyone who supports gender identity ideology. Not so much for those who don’t.   Check out the children’s shelves at your local public library. If you don’t like what you see, let the librarians and your local council know. The removal of harmful material from the children’s section  of public libraries is not censorship. It is safeguarding.

By Jane Sullivan After the Rio 2016 Olympics the issue of athletes with a Disorder of Sexual Development (sometimes called a Difference of Sexual Development) or DSD came to the fore. In the women’s 800m three male athletes with DSDs won Gold, Silver and Bronze. The three women who were placed fourth, fifth and sixth in the event were cheated out of their rightful medals by sports’ governing bodies and the International Olympic Committee that had failed to protect the fairness and integrity of female categories. Melissa Bishop (Canada), Joanna Jozwik (Poland) and Lynsey Sharp (Great Britain) are the women who are the true winners of those medals. At the time, there was a media blackout on discussing what was pretty obvious – three men had won medals in a women’s event. Melissa Bishop’s coach Peter Eriksson, was threatened with a life-time coaching ban  after he called the results into question. Lynsey Sharp who set a personal best to come sixth, suffered appalling online abuse after her tearful interview indicated the true nature of the winners. https://youtu.be/4JeLO8RCtoQ?si=ohxXzV5PCW9GLn8i In truth, World Athletics has been awash with males competing in the women’s categories for at least two decades (and probably more). Since sex-testing of Olympians stopped in the late 1990s the door to women’s sport has been open to men who have a genetic condition that may have led to them being incorrectly assigned female at birth. At Rio 2016, the women’s 800m Gold went to South African Caster Semenya, a male who has a DSD. The Silver medallist, Francine Niyonsabi from Burundi, and the Bronze medallist, Kenyan Margaret Wambui, are also both male and both have a DSD. Rio Olympics 2016, the women’s 800m gold, silver and bronze winners There are at least eight more runners who have competed in international women’s events – all sanctioned by World Athletics. At Tokyo 2020, Christine Mbomba of Namibia won a silver medal in the women’s 200m – Christine is male. Also at Tokyo, Nigerian Aminatou Seyni competed in the women’s 200m, as did Beatrice Masilingi of Namibia – both males. Fiordazila Cofil from the Dominican Republic is a male athlete who in 2022 won gold in the World Championships women’s 4x400m relay. Then there’s Kenyan 400m women’s record holder Maximilla Imali. Annet Negesa of Uganda who won the 800m at the All-African Games in 2011. In 2023, fellow Kenyan athlete Evangeline Makena won the women’s 10k in the Kenyan Athletics Track and Field Championship. The Indian runner, Dutee Chand, competed in the women’s 100m at Rio 2016. All of these runners are male. They have XY chromosomes. We name them here, not out of personal malice to the individuals (all the information about their condition is in the public domain) but to demonstrate the scale of the problem and to highlight how their inclusion in women’s sport has been to the detriment of female athletes. For every male runner listed in the women’s events, there is a woman who has been excluded from the race. For every male runner who wins there is a woman who has been denied a prize, and the recognition, sponsorship and career opportunities that a medal could bring. Aside from Caster Semenya of South Africa you are unlikely to have heard of many of the runners. And if you look them up in the mainstream media who will see them described as ‘she’ or ‘her’. You will read that Semenya has ‘unnaturally high levels of testosterone’. A common description is that they are ‘XY DSD athletes with naturally high testosterone levels’. You may feel compassion for these ‘women’ who look like men and appear to have been ‘banned’ from their sport. This BBC sports story about Caster Semenya  is a good example of how reporting of male athletes with DSDs has set out to confuse. Throughout the article Semenya is referred to as ‘she’ which naturally inclines the reader to assume that Semenya is female.  The article states that Semenya was ‘born with differences of sexual development (DSD) which mean she has an elevated level of testosterone - a hormone that can increase muscle mass and strength.’ This indicates that Semenya is a female who has higher than normal levels of testosterone for a female. In fact, Semenya is male and has normal levels of testosterone for a male – but much higher than those seen in women. World Athletics has moved to tighten up its rules. For Paris 2024 there are stricter eligibility criteria  for male athletes with a DSD who wish to compete in the female category. Many of the male athletes who competed at Tokyo and were aiming for women’s events in Paris have failed the new eligibility criteria. Will there be males with DSDs at Paris? Time will tell. We have focused in this article on athletics as that is the only sports governing body that had written a policy. There could be males in other sports – basketball is one sport where there are suspicions about the sex of several players. But without sex-testing of all ‘female’ competitors we may never know if teams are all female or not.    DSD Fact Check – a guide for journalists and spectators Male or female? Sex is determined by the sex chromosomes. In females the sex chromosomes are XX. In males the sex chromosomes are XY. The Y chromosome contains a section of genes that code for ‘maleness’. Occasionally, something goes wrong with this bit of genetic code and results in a Disorder of Sexual Development. What is a DSD? A DSD is a Disorder of Sexual Development (sometimes called a Difference of Sexual Development). In the past the term ‘Intersex’ was sometimes used – this term is not used as it implies that people affected are part-male / part-female. This is not the case. In sport the most common DSDs are ·       5α-reductase type 2 deficiency; ·       partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (aka PAIS) Other, very rare, DSDs are: 17β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 3 (17β-HSD3) deficiency and ovotesticular DSD. 5α-reductase type 2 deficiency This is the most common DSD seen in male athletes competing in women’s event. Individuals with this DSD have XY sex chromosomes and are male. A fault in the genetic code means that they cannot convert testosterone hormone to the more potent di-hydro-testosterone (or DHT). They have a genetic disorder that blocks the development of normal-looking penis and testicles before birth. The male foetus needs DHT to masculinise the sex organs – that’s form a penis and testicles. At birth, these babies often have a micro-penis and their testes may be inside the body, instead of descended into the scrotum. A baby boy who has 5-ARD may look ‘female’ (although midwives often report that the baby doesn’t look ‘right’) and in the absence of a chromosome sex test the boys may be recorded female at birth. These individuals do not have any female organs (uterus, ovaries) and do not develop breasts at puberty. While these individuals may have female written on their birth certificate, this is incorrect. They are male, they have normal male levels of testosterone and their development from birth onwards follows a normal male trajectory. That’s because boys do not need DHT to develop into men – they need, and have, testosterone. When they hit puberty they develop, as boys should, into men, with increased height and muscle mass compared to girls, facial hair, deepening voice, penis and testes growth (in most, but not all, the testes descend outside the body cavity). The incidence of 5α-reductase type 2 deficiency is extremely rare. A 2020 study  found only 434 cases across 44 countries. In the Dominican Republic where the incidence of DSDs is higher than average, the word Güevedoce, which translates as testes at 12, describes children who are ‘assigned’ female at birth but who ‘become boys’ at puberty. These children have 5α-reductase type 2 deficiency. Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS) This is a DSD in which the cells of the body are resistant to the effects of testosterone. These individuals usually have normal male levels of testosterone in their blood but the tissues that need to use it cannot do so because of a genetic anomaly. PAIS only occurs in males. Babies are born with genitalia that may ‘look female’ as for 5α-reductase type 2 deficiency. It is not within the scope of this fact sheet to expand on medical aspects of this condition but suffice to say these individuals are male, not female. If these athletes are regarded as female with higher-than-normal testosterone what’s the harm in letting them compete? These athletes are not female – they may have been ‘assigned female at birth’ but after birth they generally follow the developmental pathway of a normal boy to man. They have normal testosterone levels for males because they are male. Their testosterone levels are way above the norm for females and this gives them a huge sporting advantage over women, such as bigger heart and lungs, they are taller and stronger, with more muscle mass. They do not have female organs and therefore do not experience menstrual issues and bleeding that female athletes have to factor into their training and competition. What are normal testosterone levels? Males and females both produce the hormone testosterone. In females aged 18-49 the normal blood level of testosterone ranges from 0.06 to 1.68 nmol/L. In males aged 18-49 the normal blood level of testosterone ranges from 7.7 to 29.4 nmol/L. When a news outlet describes a DSD athlete as having higher than normal testosterone levels, they are stating that a male has higher testosterone than a female. This is an immutable biological fact. Male athletes with DSDs have normal levels of testosterone for males. How come there are so many athletes with DSDs in sport? It’s easy to see how a child wrongly assigned female at birth and who excels in girls’ sport could end up being fast-tracked to national and international stardom. No questions asked. In the absence of sex-testing of female athletes there has been no verification of the sex of athletes. In the past all female athletes had a sex test (a simple one-time-only cheek swab that removes all ambiguity) but these were phased out during the 1990s. In its place, World Athletics have introduced ELIGIBILITY REGULATIONS  which require athletes to reduce their testosterone levels to <2.5nmol/l for a minimum of 24 months before competition. While 2.5nmol is well below normal male testosterone levels it is still significantly higher than the normal range for females. This also raises ethical questions about a requirement for athletes to take powerful medication to reduce normal male levels of a hormone to abnormally low levels for a male. Will there be DSD athletes at Paris 2024? We don’t know. World Athletics has (belatedly) worked to protect fairness in the female category and a number of male athletes with DSDs who had their sights set on competing at Paris have not been cleared to compete as they have not fulfilled the testosterone requirements. Other sports do not have the rigorous procedures that World Athletics has introduced and it is rumoured that males are competing in women’s basketball, football and hockey. Without sex testing we will never know and the gossip mill will continue to work overtime.

By Jane Sullivan Paris 2024 is being marketed at the ‘Gender Equal’ Olympics. Thirty-two sports are represented at the Games from Archery to Weightlifting. Only SIX international sports federation specifically exclude males who have been through male puberty from the female category. They are: athletics (but see note below); cycling (all disciplines); rugby; sailing (including windsurfing); swimming (all disciplines including diving and water polo); weightlifting. There are two  ‘mixed’ sports. Equestrian is not ‘gender-affected’ and is a mixed sex competition. Shooting has male and female categories but states that it is not a ‘gender-affected’ sport therefore has no policy. The other TWENTY-FOUR  sports either have no international policy and allow national governing bodies to set their own rules, have policies that allow males to compete in female categories or follow IOC guidelines. How would this affect the athletes? No international policy Different National Governing Bodies set different rules so Country A could decide to exclude males from the female category, while Country B decides that males may identify into the female category. Women from Country A would be rightly aggrieved to come up against a male at the Olympics from Country B. Take Badminton as an example. England Badminton restricts sanctioned competitions to female at birth. World Badminton has no policy but a ‘case-by-case’ approach. In theory a woman could qualify for the Olympics under the fair English system and then be drawn against a male at international level. That’s not fair. Policies that allow males to identify into the female category Eight of the sports at the Olympics set specific testosterone (T) levels for males to achieve before being cleared to compete in the female category. They are: Archery Rowing Skateboard Surfing Taekwondo Tennis Triathlon Wrestling There is no consistency between the sports. In skateboarding a male would have to reduce his testosterone to 2.5nmol/l for 12 months while in wrestling the rules are to reduce testosterone to 10nmol/l T for 24 months. Some sports ask for 5nmol/l T for 12 months or 24 months, others 2.5nmol/l for 24 months. It’s a mess. And completely ignores the elephant in the room that reducing testosterone does nothing to erase male advantage. Following IOC Guidelines IOC guidelines published in 2015 stated "The athlete's total testosterone level in serum must remain below 10 nmol/L throughout the period of desired eligibility to compete in the female category".   This has been superseded by the 2021 document 'Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations' with no testosterone requirements. In this document, the IOC states that there should be no presumption of advantage  when it comes to allowing males to compete in female sports. Sports that follow the IOC Framework are opening the door to any male who wants to self-identify into the Olympic Games. There are bizarre anomalies. Athletics, cycling and swimming exclude trans-identifying males from the female category. Triathlon, which is running, swimming, cycling, does not. British Triathlon has protected the female category but World Triathlon hasn’t. It’s the same for rowing. In the table below, we list the Olympic sports with links to their policies. While the ‘big’ name sports have moved to protect the female category, there are still too many – football, tennis, hockey, basketball – where males could easily self-identify into the female category making Paris the Unequal Olympics. For more details about sports policies read the blog:   Paris – The Unequal Olympics         Sport Policy Link 1 Archery Allows males who reduce testosterone to <2.5nmol/l for 24 months into female category World Archery Policy 2 Athletics Transgender policy:  No males if they have gone through male puberty. DSD[1] policy:  Allows males with DSDs into some female races if testosterone is <2.5nmol/l for 24 months. World Athletics Policy 3 Badminton No specific policy. Case-by-case basis Badminton Eligibility Policy 4 Basketball No international policy – governing bodies follow their own policies Basketball Eligibility Policy 5 Boxing No formal policy but states that opponents must be fairly matched World Boxing Council statement 6 Breaking No international policy World Dance Sport Federation Policy 7 Canoeing (all disciplines) No international policy International Canoe Federation Statement 8 Cycling (all disciplines) No males who have transitioned after male puberty or age of 12 years International Cyclists Union Policy 9 Equestrian Mixed sport. Not gender-affected. International Equestrian Federation Statement 10 Fencing No international policy International Fencing 11 Football Current policy dates to 2011 – under review FIFA statement on gender verification 12 Gymnastics No international policy International Gymnastics Federation 13 Golf No international policy but Professional Golf Associations (PGA and LPGA) allow males in female game International Golf Federation Policie s 14 Handball No international policy. But competition rules state that there should be no unfair advantage International Handball Federation statement 15 Hockey (Field) Case-by-case basis. International Hockey Federation Gender Equality Policy 16 Judo No international policy International Judo Federation   17 Modern Pentathlon No international policy International union modern pentathlon eligibility rules 18 Rowing Allows males who reduce T to <2.5nmol for 24 months World Rowing Transgender statement 19 Rugby 7s No males who have transitioned after male puberty or age of 12 years World Rugby Transgender Guidelines 20 Sailing (all disciplines including windsurfing) No males who have transitioned after male puberty or age of 12 years World Sailing guidelines 21 Shooting Allows males to compete in female category. States that shooting is not ‘gender-affected’ International Sport Shootin g Federation guidelines 22 Skateboard Allows males who reduce T <5nmol/l for 12 months World Skate Eligibility Policy 23 Sport Climbing Follows IOC guidelines Sport Climbing Federation policy 24 Surfing Allows males who reduce T <5nmol for 12 months International Surf Federation Transgender Guidelines 25 Swimming (all disciplines including artistic swimming, diving, water polo) No males who’ve gone through puberty. All international athletes to verify their sex via their national federation. World Aquatics Transgender Policy 26 Table Tennis No international policy International Table Tennis Federation Policy 27 Taekwondo Allows male who reduce T <10nmol/l for 12 months World Taekwondo Transgender Policy 28 Tennis Allows males who reduce T <5nmol/l for 12 months International Tennis Federation Transgender Policy 29 Triathlon Allows males who reduce T <2.5nmol for 24 months World Triathlon Transgender Policy 30 Volleyball ONE male player allowed per female team International Volleyball Guidelines 31 Weightlifting No males after puberty International Weightlifting Federation 32 Wrestling (includes Greco-Roman) Allows males who reduce T <10nmol for 12 months World Wrestling Transgender Guidelines           [1] Disorders of Sexual Development sometimes referred to as Differences of Sexual Development

By Jane Sullivan Paris 2024 has been billed as the ‘Gender Equal’ Olympics. The organisers say: ‘ Paris 2024   will be the first Olympics in history to achieve numerical gender parity on the field of play, with the same number of female and male athletes participating in the largest sporting event in the world.’ This year, out of the 10,500 athletes participating in the Games, 5,250 will be men and 5,250 women. Hold the champagne. I’m not celebrating just yet. The claim to be a ‘Gender Equal’ Olympics doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny. In fact, Paris 2024 will be the Unequal Olympics (as have all the Olympic Games that have gone before it). Let’s start with the word woman. How does the IOC define a woman? Remember the ridiculous spectacle at Tokyo 2020 when a 43-year-old male weightlifter, Laurel Hubbard, represented New Zealand in the female weightlifting competition? Adult human female, he ain’t. We all saw with our own eyes a middle-aged bloke making a mockery of women’s weightlifting – aided and abetted by the New Zealand selectors, the IOC and the world’s media. Hubbard’s selection removed the chance of Olympic glory from a young woman. She is Roviel Detenamo, from Nauru. I don’t know what she’s doing nowadays but she’s not on the team sheet for Paris. We know the IOC allows sporting federations to send males in female categories so the claim that 50% of the athletes are women can be taken with a shovel of salt. We don’t know, yet, if males identifying as female have been selected this year but previous Games have set a precedent. Hubbard wasn’t the only male ‘trans’ athlete at Tokyo 2020. Males were also selected to represent their countries in women’s archery (Canada) and BMX Freestyle (USA). There may have been more but there is no requirement for sex-testing at the Olympics so male athletes fulfilling their sport’s criteria for entry into female categories could make selection and as they’d be listed as female, we’d be none the wiser. Interestingly, since Tokyo, cycling and weightlifting have tightened up their policies and no longer permit males in female categories. Archery is sticking by its anti-female policies. Selection criteria: an open door for males The IOC has washed its hands of protecting women’s sport. It says the individual sporting federations should make their own rules based on the evidence for their sports. Pass the buck time! The IOC produced a ‘ Framework ’ on ‘gender and diversity’ which stated that there should be no presumption of advantage  when it comes to allowing males to compete in female sports. No presumption of advantage? Not even the 100+ years of sporting records that show that males do have a sporting advantage in almost every metric you care to look at? In a document that’s got more fudge than a Devon sweet shop the IOC Framework  passes the buck to the International Sporting Federations. The document cancels out a previous ‘framework’ that called for testosterone suppression and opens the door to any male who wants to self-identify into the Olympic Games. It’s the equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears, shouting la-la-la-la and hoping the problem will go away. It won’t. International sports federations have drawn up their own policies and the result is a confusing mess. Of the 32 International Sports Federations sending athletes to the Olympics Games only SIX protect the female category  to those born female (or who have not gone through male puberty – they choose their words carefully). They are: athletics (but there’s a loophole for certain men with Disorders of Sexual Development – see below); cycling (all disciplines); rugby; sailing (including windsurfing); swimming (all disciplines including diving and water polo); weightlifting. There are two  ‘mixed’ sports. Equestrian is not ‘gender-affected’ and is a mixed sex competition. Shooting has male and female categories but states that it is not a ‘gender-affected’ sport therefore has no policy. You could argue (and I do) that if you have sex-segregated categories then you should exclude males from the female category whether there is a sporting advantage or not. The other TWENTY-FOUR  sports either have no international policy and allow national governing bodies to set their own rules, have policies that allow males to compete in female categories or follow IOC guidelines. Unbelievably, this includes two contact sports – taekwondo and wrestling – which allow males in the female category.   The list of Olympic sports policies is on our Sports Page   Athletes with Disorders of Sexual Development The Rio 2016 Games catapulted the issue of males with Disorders of Sexual Development (1) to international prominence – except we weren’t allowed to talk about it. The Gold, Silver and Bronze medals in the women’s 800m race at Rio were won by male athletes with DSDs, with Caster Semenya taking the Gold. They were feted as female athletes but the IOC, World Athletics and the sports media all knew that these were males. If you watched the coverage, you may remember the tearful interview with British runner Lynsey Sharp who set a personal best to come sixth, cheated out of a Bronze medal Lynsey was pilloried in the press afterwards for her comments but she was speaking the truth. It has since emerged that Peter Eriksson, who coached Melissa Bishop, the Canadian woman who came fourth and who should have won Gold, was threatened with a life-time coaching ban  after he called the results into question. Why were these men allowed to compete at Rio? And why are males with DSDs still allowed to compete in women’s events? A handful of male athletes have been ‘cleared’ to compete in women’s events at Paris, time will tell if they show up at the Games. Failures to understand Disorders of Sexual Development combined with a lack of sex testing (in the 1990s the IOC removed the requirement for females to have a cheek swab test to check their sex) have conspired to allow males into women’s events. Without getting into the finer details of biology it is worth outlining why these males should be excluded from the female category. They have XY chromosomes but have a genetic disorder that causes a defect in the development of their sexual organs before birth; they are male. That is the reason they should be excluded from female categories. The most common DSD seen in male athletes is 5-alpha reductase deficiency (5-ARD). 5-alpha reductase is an enzyme that converts testosterone into a more potent form called di-hydro-testosterone or DHT. During foetal development in the womb, the male foetus needs DHT to masculinise the sex organs – that’s form a penis and testicles. At birth, these babies often have a micro-penis and usually testes that are inside the body. A baby boy who has 5-ARD may look ‘female’ (although midwives often report that the baby doesn’t look ‘right’) and in the absence of a chromosome sex test the boys may be recorded female at birth. These babies are not female, they have normal male levels of testosterone and their development from birth onwards follows a normal male trajectory. That’s because boys do not need DHT to develop into men – they need, and have, testosterone. When they hit puberty they develop, as boys should, into men, with increased height and muscle mass compared to girls, deepening voice, penis and testes growth (in most, but not all, the testes descend outside the body cavity). Since the Rio 800m debacle, World Athletics has tightened up the requirements for entry into the female category but has not eliminated males  with DSDs. There will be male athletes taking Olympic team places and possibly medals from women. Without sex-testing of female athletes we won’t be sure but when we see them race we’ll have our suspicions… Secrets and lies Other sports, such as basketball, were rumoured to have fielded males in female teams at Tokyo and Rio but the sex of athletes is shrouded in secrecy. Athletes, coaches and journalists are discouraged from asking any questions. And in a breath-taking overreach, this year the IOC has released a ‘ Portrayal Guide’  for journalists, advising them to avoid terms such as ‘born male’ and ‘biological male’. One more example of how the IOC claims to be the ‘Gender Equal’ Olympics don’t stack up. When you can’t call a spade a spade then the truth will never come out. Time for change The International Olympic Committee could have put a stop to this. Weak leadership from IOC President Thomas Bach and IOC medical director, Dr Richard Budgett (on record as stating ‘ Everyone agrees transgender women are women ’ ) has eroded women’s sport. It’s time for a change. The IOC must stand up for women. No males in female categories. Bring back chromosomal sex tests (a simple cheek swab or finger prick test will do) so that we know the women we are watching are actually women and deserve their place on the female team. Dr Budgett is retiring in December 2024 after 12 years at the IOC. His replacement is Canadian Olympic rower, Dr Jane Thornton . Thomas Bach comes to the end of his presidency in 2025; his successor has not yet been announced. With new leadership in place, will the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 finally be the Games where women rights to Fair, Safe, Equal competition are finally upheld? I’m not holding my breath. (1) Sometimes referred to as Differences of Sexual Development

By Cathy Larkman Ah Cardiff! Capital city of Wales and home to the Millennium rugby stadium, the Cardiff Devils ice hockey team and the Sport Wales national centre, as well as the second-best football team in the country too. It can seem that the whole country is sport obsessed at times and not just during the Six Nations.    It seemed only fitting therefore that when several WRN Wales members descended on the capital for a snap street survey that one of our questions should be sport related. Brandishing an impressively high-tech piece of cardboard, along with sheets of sticky dots, we asked the question;   “ Is it okay for men to compete in women’s sports ”? It won’t surprise anyone that the answer was a big fat “NO”, and that men and women alike were outraged at the very suggestion that a man should compete in a female sports category. They couldn’t wait to get their hands on our sticky dots (stop it) and the NO side of our cardboard survey filled up quicker than the rugby club toilets at half time.   What was surprising was the amount of knowledge that this was happening ALREADY under the guise of “self-identification”. “ That gigantic weightlifter”  was mentioned several times, as was “ that great big unit of a swimming bloke” . So, thank you Laurel Hubbard and Lia Thomas for services to peaking the nation. You made our job that day so much easier with your very visual manliness and the very obvious unfairness. We love you (not). Have a gold medal for peaking.   But there’s always that one chap isn’t there? And why oh why, does he always have a beard? Step forward beardy bro, who declined a sticky dot but was very much up for lecturing the WRNer holding the sports board at that time. Overhearing his words “as a cis het man”, booming across the street, I was intrigued to hear more of his words of wisdom.    What a treat! Beardy bro lectured us both about the importance of inclusion, about his “trans friends” and basically told us what great big meanies we were not budging up and surrendering our sports. “As a cis het man” got mentioned time and again. I was quite cis hetted out at this point and decided to test him. I asked him what would happen if he self-identified as a woman and participated in a woman’s rugby team. What would that look like if he was to tackle me ? Cue sharp intake of breath and panicked scramble of thoughts. He conceded that it could be unfair, but surely it would be OK for smaller players to participate?   He shifted uneasily and I sweetly asked if it was similarly OK if I chose to self-identify into a disabled sports category, or even into a child’s sports team.  Ah that’s completely different, says beardy bro. How so? says mischievous WRNer. Surely, it’s just self-identification and you appear to be a great big fan of it. Explain why it’s different.   It was at this point that self-proclaimed “cis het” beardy bro decided he had a sudden and very pressing appointment that meant he couldn’t possibly engage further and off he dashed, away from the scene of the sticky dots. What a shame! We were having such a nice chat, and he hadn’t been in any sort of rush until the awkward questions had started. If he’d stuck around, he could have given us his opinion on our other questions too.   We were also asking the public about men in women’s prisons, changing rooms, and hospital wards. He might have liked those better. Thankfully, reality and common sense returned with AJ. This lovely man not only stopped and interacted with all of our questions, he told us about his concerns for his daughter and his worries about her being required to share single-sex spaces with men. AJ really cared about the implications for her privacy and her safety. He represents all the dads, husbands, brothers and sons out there who see the issues very clearly for the women and girls that they care about, and the ones they don’t know. He was also happy to briefly talk about this on camera .   Yay AJ! What a shame he couldn’t have spoken to beardy cis het bro.   It was an incredibly good day, with overwhelming support, as has been seen by other WRN groups running similar street surveys across the country. But women face a huge challenge. We absolutely must fight for our single-sex spaces and services, but so many politicians choose not to hear us or to deflect our real concerns as a ‘culture war’. They are presiding over the destruction of our rights.   So, we need MORE AJs to realise the danger to their daughters and to speak out - and we need our politicians to start listening to them, and to us. Our collective voices must become a roar that can’t be ignored.   Now I’m off to order more sticky dots.

Today I am talking from a country where it’s a crime to be a woman. Hardly a day goes by without more bad news and restrictions on women. The suffering that the women of Afghanistan have endured, women have not suffered in any other land throughout history. Today I am presenting a report from a country in which women don’t have access to their essential rights of education, work or free movement. But if women ask about those rights, the answer will be beating, arresting or killing. Today I am raising my voice for women and girls from a country in which the Minister of Higher Education said, at the graduation ceremony of the students of a religious center, that those who write/talk against, and/or resist the Taliban deserve to be murdered. This includes both online and offline criticism of their regime. They actively search every single home, even searching the phone, laptop and all private things to see and find who is working against them. If yes, then they will arrest, beat or kill them. No one has the right to complain. But the Taliban don’t know that today’s women are not like women were during 1996–2001. Today’s women strongly believe that “an educated mother builds a strong nation”. And they are stronger than their restrictions. These women are not afraid. Afghan women get stronger day by day, as they raise their voice against the Taliban to demand their own essential rights of education, work and free movement. Today I am here to tell you that there are no HUMAN rights and there are no WOMEN’S rights in Afghanistan under the Taliban’s control. From inside Afghanistan, my plea is that you don’t forget us. My story is the story of thousands of other women who live under Taliban control . Afghan women are heroes. We are dying every day, but we are never giving up. Since the Taliban regime overtook the country in mid-August 2021, Afghanistan's record on women's rights has been manifestly one of (if not the) worst, worldwide. Despite promises to “uphold women's rights in line with Sharia law”, from the very first weeks of its rule, the Taliban started suppressing the rights of their citizens, with women the main target of restrictions. As well as prohibiting women and girls from traveling without a male relative, the Taliban have also denied them post-primary education, banned them from numerous public places and restricted their employment to healthcare and primary education. In December 2022, women were also banned from working for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in most sectors. Then, in early April 2023, the Taliban extended the ban to include Afghan women working for the United Nations Mission in the country. This crackdown on women's rights has attracted considerable international condemnation, including from Muslim states. In response to the regressive policies, many international donors have reduced or threatened to halt their humanitarian assistance, upon which the country is strongly reliant. It is feared that women could, unintentionally, be those most impacted by this reduction or suspension of humanitarian aid. The Taliban nevertheless appears inflexible, leaving international actors with a dilemma as to how to proceed. Afghanistan is not the only country where women’s rights are being rolled back. But what is happening should ring alarm bells for all of us; it shows how decades of progress on sex equality and women's rights can be literally wiped out in months. As you read or watch the news about women's rights in Afghanistan, unfortunately, it is an accurate, if not less dire, picture of our reality. Today, Afghanistan is at a critical juncture. It is the only country in the world where women don't have access to basic rights such as education , work, or free movement. There are countless unsolved problems facing Afghan women, but because of restrictions, women can't share their stories with each other. And on the other side, there is no ear, no organization, and no group to hear the problems women face. Afghan women are entirely isolated. The Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021 has once again brought women's rights into the spotlight. It is increasingly clear that the current Taliban regime intends to make a doctrinaire and restricted vision of women's position in society central to its blueprint for the country's future. To make sense of this moment, it helps to discuss the Taliban’s history. I’ll start with the year I was born. I was a newborn baby during the Taliban’s early ru ling years, and I wasn’t aware of how women were treated then. But last year, my grandmother, mother, and sisters heaved with grief as they reopened old boxes of burqas they had packed away 20 years ago. They told me unbelievable stories about the horrible ways women were treated. My grandmother shared how the Taliban entered Afghanistan back then, at a time when fewer men and women were educated. The Taliban leveraged the name of Islam and the conditions of traditional society to manipulate uneducated people. They were particularly cruel to women. “People can’t just forget or forgive all the killings,” my grandmother said. “Almost every family in Afghanistan now knows of somebody or has a family member who was killed by the Taliban.” The golden years: 2001–2021 Despite my country’s many issues, 2001–2021 was a golden time for Afghan women. The Taliban was ousted, and women started to learn about their rights and gained autonomy in their lives. I was one of those girls whose life was changed for the better. Despite our relatives' objections, my parents enrolled me in school, and I was the first girl in our extended family to attend. Our relatives said that I shouldn’t go to school past the age of 12. But my parents didn't listen to them. “We had a hard time, but we don’t want a hard time for our children,” they said. “We want a bright future for you – especially our daughters.” I continued to the university, where I graduated in [removed for personal safety] This is not to say women's lives were easy in Afghanistan. Traditional society, wars and Taliban law continued in some regions – and many girls were shut out of education. Still, life was better than it is now. A return to Taliban rule: 2021 to the present When the Taliban returned to power on August 15, 2021, I was in my early twenties. Every day since then, I’ve woken up with a heavy chest. I see the four walls around me and nothing more. Day by day, the Taliban has announced new restrictions on women. Before the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, I was working [removed for personal safety] in a private office. But after the arrival of the Islamic government, everything fell apart. The office I had worked in closed four days after the Taliban took over. Many of my coworkers were arrested by the Taliban, and we received messages that they were searching for other office members via their phone signal. We immediately had to break our SIM cards and burn documents to hide our identities. Right now, today I can see the city and the bazaar from the window, but nothing is the same as before; no women are milling about, and the city has taken on an eerie silence. The city is covered in black. If women wear colored clothing, the Islamic government will beat them. With my own eyes, I saw a Taliban member beat a girl with a gun because her body was not covered from her head to her toes. I hoped to have a promising future, but it now feels dark. I want to go back to the past and breathe easy. I cannot wear the clothes I want; I cannot freely go where I want. This life for Afghan girls is one of prisoners who do not know when they will be released. Today’s women are not like the women of 1996 and 2001. Today’s women know about their rights and have the power of education to raise their voices worldwide to take action. Today’s women want to be heard. They want you to know that under the Taliban, women do not have freedom of movement; women cannot participate in public life or politics; women are not able to be active in civil society; indeed, women are totally removed from society. We used to have access to a nationwide network of shelters and services for those facing sex-based violence, including legal representation, medical care, and psychosocial support. And it served thousands of women and girls each year. As the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, this system collapsed. I hear the situation is more horrible in some areas and provinces, where women don’t have access to the internet, mobile phones, or any education. There are reports the Taliban has taken cruel actions such as kidnapping, targeted killings, killing by stoning, and forced marriages. Still, we are fighting for our rights. I have heard horror stories from other women activists who have been arrested by the Taliban. For example, one said the Taliban badly beat them and their male relatives. “We were like a fish out of water for several days,” another woman recounted. The only food they received was old bread. “I gave it to my kids to keep them alive. My kids were thirsty: there was no water. There was a bin where the women of the Taliban washed their dishes. I used this water for my kids to drink. They were crying because it was so dirty.” She continued, “The Taliban searched our Facebook, searched our calls, all our laptop documents. They played our messages and asked about them. ‘Where are your other friends?’ they said, ‘You must help us find them.’ We were released by making a promise: ‘After this day, we won’t do anything against the Taliban.’” My role as an activist I am one of the women activists living in Afghanistan under the direct threat of the Taliban. The Taliban actively search for all who work or talk against them. I am in danger, but I can’t stop. The Taliban are lying, and they just want to fight for power. I am in hiding, fighting for my life and the lives of other women. I know the Taliban are searching for me, and it’s easy for the Taliban to kill those groups who work or talk against them. Because of me, my siblings and parents are also under direct threat. We are not safe. I work to hide my identity and my parents’ identity. Currently, I am hiding from the Taliban, but one day they will kill me or my family members. Afghan women urgently need health services, humanitarian assistance, and justice. I will continue this struggle with my pen and ink, raising my voice for Afghan women. It is now 626 days since the Taliban banned teenage girls from school. Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where women and girls are denied their basic human rights. Brave Afghan women are still protesting in the streets of Kabul – despite the Taliban crackdown on demonstrations. They continue to demand their basic human rights. Banning women and girls from education by the Taliban is a crime against humanity. Like thousands of others, I did not give up working and raising my voice for Afghan women, even in a very horrible situation. I will continue this struggle with my pen and ink. In such a hopeless situation, in which schools are closed to female students, we still continue our work and have done since August 2021. Volunteer groups of young and educated members of our society, under the name ‘Yal Bano’s group’, help female students from inside our homes. From school grades 7–12 we teach them different subjects via online training programs as secret online schooling. And still today, 500 students are learning or have graduated from our online program. Also, as women can’t go work outside home, there is a very bad impact upon their families’ economic situations. We still try to help and provide food and meet other urgent needs for those families which live in a very hard economic situation. And still we have 1,000 families in our records who urgently need food and humanitarian assistance. What we do for girls and women is friendly humanitarian work. We don’t want to become famous and we don’t want to make profits. We just want to help each other and together make a positive change. Our work is totally private, hidden and friendly inside our homes. We are connecting via the internet. So it’s a very safe way for us all to continue our program. What we want – a call to action Ultimately, we all know very well the problems Afghan women face, so there is no need for more explanation. There is a great need for action. From inside Afghanistan, my plea is that you don’t forget us. Please stand with Afghan women. Afghan women need action. Please don’t recognize the Taliban. Please let Afghan women learn. Please help us in such a horrible situation. Please help Afghan families with food and humanitarian assistance. With your help and support you will save a family from hunger, you will save a daughter from child forced marriage, you will save a father from selling a body part to provide food for his family. As women and girls in Afghanistan, based on Taliban rule, we should be home at all times and don’t even have the right of breathing: the only responsibility of mine is babymaker and babysitter. Things I can no longer do I can’t go outside alone without a male relative from my home. I can’t go to school over the age of 12. I can’t go to university or the gym or park. I can’t be an engineer or pilot or singer or athlete. I can’t go work, except as doctors or nurses in some hospitals. I can’t go to male doctors for treatment. I can’t deal with male shopkeepers. I should wear a long burqa which covers me from head to toe. I can’t talk or shake hands with non-mahram (close family or spouse) males. I can’t laugh loudly. (No stranger should hear a woman's voice). I can’t ride in a taxi without a mahram. I can’t present or speak in radio, television or public gatherings. But if I did I would have to cover my face during any TV program. I can’t play sports or enter a sports center or club. I can’t ride bicycles or motorcycles, even with a mahram. I am banned from listening to music – this applies not only to women, but men as well. There is a ban on male tailors taking women's measurements or sewing women's clothes. In addition: They must not perfume themselves. They must not wear adorning clothes. They must not wear thin clothes. They must not wear narrow and tight clothes. They must cover their entire bodies. Their clothes must not resemble men's clothes. Muslim women's clothes must not resemble non-Muslim women's clothes. Their foot ornaments must not produce sound. They must not wear sound-producing garments. They must not walk in the middle of streets. They must not go out of their houses without their husband's permission. They must not talk to strange men. If it is necessary to talk, they must talk in a low voice and without laughter. They must not look at strangers. They must not mix with strangers. Read our translated version

Women had struggled long and hard for the right to divorce, but since the Taliban returned to power last year, the situation worsened. In Afghanistan divorce is always the woman's fault. In Afghan society marriages are supposed to last for life. The divorce rate is low. But when a marriage does fail, it is always the woman’s fault. Statements such as “She should have compromised” or “She should have listened to her husband” are common. And it is never the other way around. While a divorced man can easily find another wife and move on, a divorced woman’s chances of finding another husband are paper-slim. Divorce is seen as a disgrace, and a divorcée is often seen as a bad influence because she failed to protect her marriage — even if she ended it because of extreme abuse. It is not just the odds of remarriage that favour the men: Custody of the children is usually given to the father. In the rare cases that custody is given to the mother, she lives in constant fear that her children will be taken away from her any time — and if she decides to remarry, she will have to give her children back to her ex-husband’s family, and Afghan men will not raise another man’s progeny. One Afghan woman, Forzani, stayed with her drug-addict husband despite the fact that she was forced to work outside the home to support her family, and he would beat her if she didn’t give him her earnings for drugs. Asked why she didn’t get divorced, she said there was little reason to, as it seemed like she lived with a corpse for most of the time. Moreover, she said, “What if my husband takes my children away from me? I can’t live without my children.” Even if a divorcée is lucky enough to keep her children, the challenges of raising children alone faced by single women anywhere are heightened in Afghanistan. The children of divorcées are often bullied in schools, and the daughters of divorced mothers cannot easily find a husband because many families think that if her mother couldn’t protect her marriage, her daughter probably can’t, either. Even if she has no children, it is nonetheless difficult for a divorced woman to get remarried, simply because most Afghan men dislike marrying a woman who has been married before, no matter how young, beautiful, or how good a person she is. Afghan mothers don’t like their sons marrying divorcées, either. Usually the only new husband a young divorcée can find is an older, divorced, or widowed man, and these matches are often encouraged by the girl’s family because it is one of her few options. This bad cultural practice is another reason why many Afghan women quietly accept abuse. Divorced women in Afghanistan confront numerous other challenges beyond finding a life partner — financial difficulties, insecurity, and social stigma. It is unsafe for Afghan women to live without a male relative. Because the majority of women in Afghanistan are not educated and cannot work outside their homes to provide for themselves, divorce becomes out of the question. Their only option besides staying with their husband is to go back to their parents’ house, whether they are welcomed there or not. Oftentimes, their families are poor and an extra person is an economic burden. If the divorcée brings her children with her, paying for their food, clothes, and medication can be very difficult for poor families. It’s another reason Afghan women stay in their husbands’ houses, no matter how bad the conditions there. In addition, Afghans view divorced women with disapproval. Divorce not only destroys a woman’s reputation, it also brings shame to her family and her entire tribe. That’s why women are encouraged by her family members to quietly and dutifully accept their fate. Women who compromise when they are in abusive relationships are often praised by other female relatives. Because they don’t speak up or demand their rights, they are viewed as loyal and strong women. Also, divorced women are thought to bring bad luck, and are looked down upon by not only people in their community, but also by their own family. For example, during the pre-wedding henna ceremony, when the groom’s family puts henna on the bride’s hands, divorced women are strongly discouraged from touching the bride’s hand lest her “bad luck” transfer to the girl. The stigma keeps divorced women from participating in the cultural ceremonies surrounding their relatives’ marriages. Married women are also encouraged to stay away from talaqi, or divorced women, because it is believed that she might be a bad influence, even if the failure of the marriage wasn’t her fault. The belief that she could misguide married women into divorcing their own husbands is so strong that sometimes even her own friends and relatives sever their ties with her. To many Afghan women, the stigma of divorce seems worse than living unhappily in an abusive relationship. Since Afghan women do not get the emotional support they need after a divorce, they lose their self-esteem and seclude themselves from the community that reminds them every day how unlucky and unfortunate they are. Often divorced women go through severe depression, with little psychological or medical support. In short, no matter how much a woman is abused in her husband’s house, if she asks for divorce or if he divorces her, she is the guilty party. While a divorced man can soon remarry and move on with his life, a divorced woman in Afghanistan has to confront mountainous challenges.

What’s Happening in the Taliban’s Women’s Prisons? A recently released female prisoner from the Taliban’s prison in Samangan province shares her account of sexual assault by a commander and members of the group. Female prisoners in Taliban-controlled prisons in the provinces of Jowzjan, Faryab, and Samangan are enduring a deplorable situation. They face humiliation, insults, physical torture, and sexual assault. According to the Report, since the collapse of the Republic regime, the Taliban have detained and imprisoned 90 women in the three Northern provinces. Out of these, 36 women are in Faryab province, 34 women are in Samangan province, and another 20 women are in Jowzjan province. These women have been subjected to inappropriate treatment by the Taliban in prisons over the past year. According to the findings of Reports, in the women’s prisons of these three provinces, 10 women are engaged in physical checkups, cleaning, and guarding during the day. However, there are no female guards present during the night. As a result, Taliban militants, who have been documented by Hasht-e Subh Daily, take on the security responsibility of these prisons at night and are involved in sexually assaulting female prisoners. According to the findings of Reports, out of the 90 female prisoners in Jowzjan, Faryab, and Samangan provinces, 16 of them have become pregnant due to repeated sexual assault and have undergone abortions in local clinics. Health sources in Faryab and Samangan provinces have confirmed that the Taliban ordered the termination of these women’s pregnancies during the third and fifth months. Testimonies from prisoners who experienced mistreatment by the Taliban reveal that female prisoners in the Northern provinces were coerced under Taliban pressure to fulfill the sexual desires of certain local Taliban officials against their will. One released prisoner affirms that at least four female prisoners in Samangan province fell seriously ill as a result of repeated sexual assaults by Taliban members and were ultimately executed by the Taliban. According to information obtained from sources within Taliban women’s prisons in the Northern provinces, the majority of these women are imprisoned for various reasons such as moral corruption, theft, fraud, and elopement. Reliable sources confirm that out of the 90 female prisoners in Faryab, Jowzjan, and Samangan provinces, 33 of them have not received any visits from their families since their incarceration. These sources indicate that their families might be unaware of their current situation. Healthcare workers in the gynaecology departments of Faryab, Samangan, and Jowzjan hospitals have informed Hasht-e Subh Daily that in the past year, 48 women who experienced severe bleeding due to physical torture and sexual assault were brought to these hospitals for treatment by Taliban members. According to these sources, the doctors were never permitted by the Taliban members to conduct thorough examinations in these instances. Hasht-e Subh Daily has maintained the confidentiality of the sources’ identities, and to protect the interviewees from potential security threats, their names are not disclosed in this report. The Situation of Female Prisoners in Faryab Province The Hasht-e Subh Daily’s findings reveal that there are currently 36 women imprisoned in Faryab province. The Taliban has detained these women on different charges, and they are serving their sentences in prison. While some of these women were transferred to prison on September 10, 2021, many of them have had their criminal cases left unprocessed over the past year. Notably, none of these women’s cases have been referred to any court for investigation. According to an anonymous security source from the Faryab Provincial Security Command, most of these women have been detained on suspicion of moral corruption, theft, fraud, and the accusation of girls fleeing from home. The source explains that the absence of criminal cases has led to the indefinite detention of these women. Out of the 36 women prisoners in this prison, 21 of them have not had their cases processed. Some of these women have been detained and transferred to this prison six months, eight months, and even a year ago. These 21 women are those whose relatives have not visited them since their initial arrest. Under the previous government’s prison procedures, the defendants’ cases were sent to the judiciary within three months. Despite nearly two years of Taliban rule in the country, they have not implemented any specific laws or procedures for pursuing the cases of suspects. A source within the management of Faryab province’s prison confirms that special guards from the Provincial Security Command, the Intelligence Chief, the Commander of the Army Unit, and several other Taliban officials take some of these female prisoners out of the prison at night. After experiencing sexual abuse, they are returned to the prison. However, the source does not specify the location where these women are taken at night. A monitor from a human rights organization, operating anonymously due to security threats, supervises cases of violence against women and human rights violations in Faryab province. The source has confirmed to the Hasht-e Subh Daily that in the past eight months, Taliban officials have committed eight individual sexual assault cases and six group sexual assault cases against female prisoners in this province. According to the source, an international organization has documented these cases. The source explains that both high-ranking and lower-level Taliban forces enter the women’s prison blocks at night and sexually abuse the female prisoners. However, a female doctor from the gynecology department of the public hospital in Maymana city, who wishes to remain anonymous, informed the Hasht-e Subh Daily that the Taliban have covertly transferred multiple women to the hospital during the night. These women have experienced bleeding as a result of sexual assault, and the doctor observed visible signs of torture and sexual abuse on them. The doctor explained that these patients were placed in isolated rooms within the hospital for treatment, separated from other patients. According to the source, four to five armed Taliban militants would guard these patients, restricting interaction with nurses and doctors. The doctor stated that the Taliban transferred thirteen female prisoners to the gynaecology department of the hospital after sexually assaulting them and these women underwent abortions. Most of these women had their pregnancies terminated within the first three months and were then taken back to prison. The situation of women prisoners in Samangan Province Sources within the Samangan General Prison Administration has informed the Hasht-e Subh Daily that in the last year, Taliban forces have detained 34 women on suspicion of criminal acts and transferred them to this prison. Among them, 12 prisoners have not received visits or had their cases pursued by their relatives. These 12 women have been in a vulnerable situation in prison for the past seven months without any progress in their cases. According to the organizational chart of the Samangan Security Command, there are 10 female police officers assigned to oversee the women’s prison in the province. However, sources reveal that only three of them are actively involved in physical checkups and administrative tasks, and their role in prison administration is limited. It is worth noting that these female staff members do not have night duties due to the absence of a legal guardian, resulting in male Taliban forces taking charge of the prison during nighttime. Sources from Samangan Provincial Hospital report that Taliban militants have brought seven women prisoners who experienced severe physical torture and sexual abuse to the hospital for treatment in the past six months. Furthermore, according to a female doctor, three pregnant women have been transferred to the hospital by the Taliban during this period to undergo abortions. What does a Released Prisoner say? A recently released female prisoner from the Taliban’s prison in Samangan province shares her account of sexual assault by a commander and members of the group. Farishta (pseudonym) was arrested by Taliban forces at a security checkpoint in the village of Rubatak, situated between Samangan and Baghlan provinces, on August 24, 2021, while traveling from Aybak City to Kabul. She was charged with moral corruption, although she intended to escape the country by flying from Kabul’s airports. Despite her attempts to leave the country, 20-year-old Farishta was captured by Taliban militants. She endured a two-week detention under the Taliban’s security command in Aybak City. Farishta recounts experiencing sexual assault three to seven times at night by Taliban militants during that time. Afterward, she was transferred to the province’s central prison. This young girl has been in the Samangan Central Prison for seven months and shares disturbing accounts of sexual abuse and exploitation of female prisoners by the Taliban. Farishta discloses that after the Taliban assaulted her in the security command’s detention center in the city of Aybak, she had no choice but to comply with their demands out of coercion. She says that newly arrived female prisoners were severely beaten and tortured to fulfill the sexual desires of the Taliban militants. Subsequently, they were left with no choice but to accept their demands. Farishta states that these female prisoners were left with no option but to submit. Continuing her harrowing account, Farishta reveals that during her seven-month imprisonment, Taliban militants shot and killed at least four female prisoners from Baghlan, Balkh, and Jowzjan provinces. These women had been detained by Taliban authorities in Samangan province on charges of moral corruption, and their families were unaware of their fate. Farishta explains that these women were secretly taken to the residences of senior Taliban commanders at night to fulfill their sexual needs. However, their health deteriorated rapidly, and after 15 days as instructed by the prison manager, they were ultimately killed by gunshots. Farishta recalls hearing about their deaths labeled as “Discovery of Unidentified Bodies” within the prison. Eventually, a Taliban commander intervened and facilitated Farishta’s release from prison through a deal. As a condition of her release, she had to surrender a personal land deed valued at over 300,000 Afghanis to a prominent Taliban figure. After enduring seven months of imprisonment, Farishta has been set free and currently resides in a different province, separated from her family. Several visitors to Samangan’s central prison share similar stories. Lailma (pseudonym), a 31-year-old woman and one of the visitors to the women’s prison in Samangan province, shares with Hasht-e Subh Daily that her sister is incarcerated in this prison for aiding a neighbor’s daughter in escaping from home. Lailma’s 26-year-old sister was arrested approximately seven months ago, and Lailma visits her once a month. Lailma further mentions that her sister’s case has not been taken to court in the past seven months. The Taliban has instructed Lailma and her family to locate the neighbor’s daughter, whom they are not familiar with, as she is believed to have escaped with their daughter. Lailma’s sister has attested that the Taliban forcibly move several young girls and women out of the prison during the night, only to return them before sunrise. The situation of female prisoners in Jowzjan Province The central prison in Jowzjan province currently holds 20 women prisoners. The details of their identities and alleged crimes remain undisclosed. Similar to the situation in Faryab and Samangan provinces, these women encounter challenges as their cases are not being presented in court. Only a small number of them have been able to secure their release through agreements or significant payments. Although our efforts to gather additional information from reliable sources have been unsuccessful, a source at the central hospital in Jowzjan province confirms that they have treated at least 15 women from the women’s prison in Jowzjan who had suffered physical torture in the past year. The source further reveals that six of these women were transferred to the hospital’s gynaecological department following incidents of sexual assault. The source also reveals that the Taliban brought these women to the hospital and ensured their protection for four to seven days. However, the source explains that the Taliban prohibited the proper documentation and registration of these patients in the hospital’s daily registration database. The discussion of sexual assault against female prisoners is not new. Reports of physical mistreatment of women prisoners have emerged in various cases over the past twenty years. Female prisoners face a precarious situation Female prisoners in the provinces of Faryab, Samangan, and Jowzjan face a precarious situation due to the Taliban’s disregard for the law. As a result, many of these prisoners’ cases are not being processed, and the resolution of other cases is not being forwarded to the courts. In a public gathering in August of last year, the Taliban announced the cancellation of all previous laws in the country, including the constitution and penal code. However, they consider only certain parts of the constitution from the era of Mohammad Zaher Shah, the former king of Afghanistan, which does not conflict with Islamic principles, to be enforceable. This law was enacted in the year 1301 of the Solar Hijri Calendar (1922/1923). Currently, human rights organizations are not permitted by the Taliban in the northern part of the country to monitor women’s prisons. Prior to the collapse of the republic regime, there were at least six safe houses for women in these three provinces. However, all of these houses have now been shut down. The whereabouts of women released from Taliban prisons are uncertain, as they lack safety even within their own families. However, local Taliban officials in the provinces of Faryab, Samangan, and Jowzjan have not provided any comments regarding the allegations of sexual assault and physical torture of female prisoners. Nonetheless, they have consistently emphasized their commitment to Sharia and Islamic laws in their approach to handling criminals. Furthermore, as reported by the news website “Washington examiner,” the Taliban has been using sexual assault and forced marriage as tactics to intimidate Afghan women following their takeover of Afghanistan. The report features the harrowing story of two teenage girls who recently escaped Taliban captivity. Leslie Merriman, a coordinator of a mobile clinic supported by an American organization, recounted the traumatic experiences of these two young Afghan girls who were repeatedly sexually assaulted by Taliban militants every night. Merriman revealed that the two girls, who went by the pseudonyms Farishta and Anisa to protect their identities, were abducted and beaten by Taliban militants before being subjected to sexual violence. The report states that Taliban militants abducted Fereshta in the province of Parwan twenty days ago. One of the militants had plans to marry her, but when she refused, she was held captive in a house where she endured nightly sexual assaults by multiple Taliban members. However, she was able to escape with the assistance of a woman who provided her with food and water in that house. In February of last year, Taliban militants abducted Aneesa in the province of Kapisa. She experienced multiple instances of sexual assault during the approximately 20 nights she was in captivity with the Taliban militants. Finally, these two girls are receiving medical treatment at a free mobile clinic and currently staying in one of the safe houses. The mobile clinic is financially supported by the organization “Flanders Fields.” According to an American news outlet’s website, which cites the coordinator of the mobile clinic, Fereshta and Anisa are reported to be in the early stages of pregnancy after they escape from the Taliban. The Hasht-e Subh Daily has been unable to independently verify these recent events in the provinces of Parwan and Kapisa. All this news is coming out, while, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released a detailed report on the human rights situation in Afghanistan on September 6 2022. In the report, Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan, expresses concerns about the Taliban’s self-imposed torture and detention, as well as cases of harassment, intimidation, vigilante justice, and the conversion of Taliban commanders’ houses into personal prisons. The report confirms the existence of private prisons in the houses of Taliban commanders and verifies instances of torture and unlawful killings. The UN Special Rapporteur states that since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and the annulment of the country’s constitution, “there is no law in this country, and each Taliban member issues orders based on their interpretation of Islamic law.”

The Taliban in Afghanistan have systematically restricted the human rights of women and girls and suffocated all aspects of their lives, UN experts said, adding that such treatment could amount to ‘"gender* apartheid’." In a joint report to the UN Human Rights Council , Richard Bennett, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, and Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, Chair of the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls, said the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan was the worst globally. “Women and girls in Afghanistan are experiencing severe discrimination that may amount to gender persecution – a crime against humanity – and be characterised as gender apartheid, as the de facto authorities appear to be governing by systemic discrimination with the intention to subject women and girls to total domination,” Bennett said. “While the backlash against women’s and girls’ rights has unfolded in different countries and regions in recent years, nowhere else in the world has there been an attack as widespread, systematic and all-encompassing on the rights of women and girls as in Afghanistan,” Estrada-Tanck said. Edicts issued by the Taliban since they took control of the country in August 2021 have imposed widespread restrictions on the rights of women and girls, including their freedom of movement, attire and behaviour, access to education, work, health and justice, the experts said. Restrictions have also dramatically affected the participation of women and girls in political, public, economic and socio-cultural life, and led to a significant increase in spousal and intrafamily violence against women and girls. “We are alive, but not living”. The report, which highlights the resilience and strength of Afghan women in the face of extremely repressive conditions, includes brief descriptions of daily life by women, who told the experts how “day by day, the walls close in.” Following a ban on education for girls, female university students described their situation as: “I am a prisoner of my gender,” and “We have no future.” Experts also heard testimonies from women seeking a divorce, but who were admonished by a judge with remarks such as: “Your hand is not broken, your leg is not broken, why do you want a divorce?”. Women who reported domestic violence to the police were told they “should not complain”, or that they probably “deserved being beaten,” according to the report. The experts travelled to Afghanistan from 27 April to 4 May and visited Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif. They met with Afghan women and men in a variety of sectors, including civil society, entrepreneurs, religious leaders, teachers, journalists, UN agencies, the diplomatic community, international NGOs and de facto officials. “Gender persecution” In the report, the experts say they were deeply concerned that “gender persecution” is occurring in Afghanistan under the rule of the de facto authorities. “Gender persecution” constitutes a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute, the report notes. The report also highlights that a ban on female education makes Afghanistan “the only country in the world” where girls and young women are forbidden from attending secondary school and higher education institutions. “The blatant violations to the fundamental right to have access to quality education will have lifelong consequences regarding not only employment opportunities but also access to basic services such as health care,” it states. The report also points out how women in Afghanistan today are prohibited from working outside the home in most sectors, from leaving their home without a male relative, or Maharam, from accessing public baths, parks, and gyms, and moving freely around the country. This suffocating environment is having an impact on the mental health of women and girls, with widespread reports of depression and suicide especially among adolescent girls prevented from pursuing education, the report notes. No legal protection Restrictions on women and girls were also limiting their access to routine and emergency health care, with dire consequences for their health and sexual and reproductive rights, while adding more pressure on a health system already strained by poverty and years of war. “As girls and women can be provided care only by female doctors unless the restrictions are reversed rapidly, there is a real risk of multiple preventable deaths, which could amount to femicide,” the report states. The UN experts said they were deeply concerned by an absence of legal protections for women and girls, the systematic enforcement of discrimination and the normalization of sex-based violence, including sex-related killings, forced and child marriage, sale of children and body organs, child labour, trafficking and unsafe migration. The lack of a clear and predictable legal system in Afghanistan contributes to the perpetuation of violence against women and an absence of accountability for perpetrators, the report notes. Women have no access to women legal professionals. Some women lawyers continue to provide legal services from their homes but are prohibited from entering courtrooms in most locations. “Far from ‘protecting’ women and girls as they claim, they perpetuate the most extreme forms of gender-based discrimination and generalized censorship through restrictive edicts targeting women and girls, the abolition of legal protections and accountability mechanisms for gender-based violence, and the ongoing denial of rights,” the report says. The report calls on the de facto authorities to respect and restore women’s and girls’ human rights and urged the international community to remain engaged in the situation in Afghanistan and take concrete steps to support accountability for serious human rights violations. * Editor’s note: The word “gender” is retained in quoted passages in this report and where international law and reports using “gender” are referenced. In every case, Women’s Rights Network take the word gender to mean sex. Elsewhere, the word “gender” has been replaced by “sex” for clarity.

This blog post was created by a woman, lawyer and activist who experienced life in Afghanistan under the Taliban’s regime. The situation of women and girls in Afghanistan I was a woman like millions of others living in Afghanistan, who benefited from an education and a career until two years ago. The Taliban took power in my country in 2021 and they have issued more than 50 decrees, through which they have systemically discriminated against women and erased them completely from public life. The girls in my country are not allowed to go to school over grade 3, depending where they live. Women are not allowed to pursue any kind of education, even university or other training. Women are not allowed to work outside of the home. Women are not allowed to leave home alone. Women have to dress according to what they (the Taliban) want. Women are not allowed to go to the gym, public places, public baths restaurants, now even the beauty salons are closed. Everything was banned to us. I used to start my day watching the walls around me and end my day in that same room, watching those same walls. Once, I had to leave my house, to go to the shop and buy something essential. On the way there, a man hit me with his car. He hurt my leg – I had to go to the hospital. I contacted the traffic police, to ask for help, all they had to say was, “Well, why did you leave the house?” How I tried to find a solution I saw that many countries like Finland, Sweden, Denmark and others had announced that they would grant asylum for Afghan women and girls because of the Taliban’s restrictions and bans which were and still are violating women’s rights in Afghanistan. At that time I was happy and grateful for the gesture, and indeed I still am, but still I started thinking that this is not the solution. Half of the population of Afghanistan are women, how can all these millions of women all possibly leave the country? It is not possible. It is not the solution. I tried to find another solution, and thought about how I could find a position or an organisation that might have the power to do something. Someone who could at least investigate what is happening in Afghanistan and what is happening to us. Because, for someone like me, who grew up in freedom and democracy and had the opportunity to study, the situation was unbearable. I graduated from school and university and had the opportunity to work and that was all taken from me, which was an incredibly difficult time. I tried to find the highest position that might be able to do something, and I found the International Criminal Court (ICC). They investigate crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocides. And I thought – this is what is happening to women and girls in Afghanistan – this is a crime against humanity. It is a crime against me and millions of other women and girls in the country, because we all are human beings and we must at least have our basic human rights, just like every other human being in this world. Women are banned from everything. And so I believe that the ICC must investigate the crimes that are happening. After doing extensive research I found that it is extremely difficult to submit a complaint to the ICC due to the amount of paperwork and evidence. I thought it was not going to be possible to do it that way. So I changed my approach and I wrote up my complaint in an article for the media. This, also, was not easy. I reached out to many media publications and asked them to publish my complaint. Eventually, the Jurist accepted and published my article . It was not enough. The reaction to my article When my article was published in the Jurist and I published it on my social media, I was so happy – it was one of my first ever articles to be published. But then the criticism started pouring in. People were telling me that the ICC was not the correct organisation to help people in Afghanistan or investigate any crimes there. Or that the crimes against women and girls that are happening cannot be proven! And many, many other comments. It felt like an attack. I was very sad. I even felt some regret – why did I even write this article and call upon the ICC to help? But later I saw that Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists released a joint report in which they were also calling upon the ICC to investigate the crimes that are happening against women and girls in Afghanistan. So I felt like I had been vindicated. When I tell my story, most people understand the gravity of the situation in which the women and girls in my country still find themselves. But, similarly to when I publicised my article, there can be hostile reaction from a minority. For example, I have recently heard from a woman in Pakistan who stated that what I was describing was not the case only in Afghanistan and they have the same situation in Pakistan. What I would say to comments like that is: • Are there any women working in your government? • Are all women in your country banned from working? You will find that in most countries, including Pakistan, there are women in government, and women are allowed to work. While women’s rights have a long way to go around the world, the situation of women in Afghanistan is unique. No other women around the world are experiencing such a situation on a national scale. It is time something is done about it.

Today I am presenting a report from a country in which women have had no access to their essential rights of education, work, or free movement for more than 1,000 days. There are still no HUMAN rights or WOMEN’S rights in Afghanistan under the Taliban’s control. Yal Bano: my role as an activist I am an Afghan women’s rights activist. When I was in Afghanistan, I graduated from an engineering faculty and had a job after graduation. After the Taliban took over, life changed for me, and I thought I had lost all my hopes and achievements during those years. Yes, during the first months I cried a lot. I was trapped in a very hard depression, and everything looked hopeless to me. But then I thought about what my responsibilities might be in this situation. And I said to myself: “As a high percentage of Afghans, especially women, are not educated, you, as part of society, can stand up with them. You should not cry anymore, just forget how sad you are. Just start to help and be with other women in this hard time”. When I had the idea, I shared it with trusted friends of mine, both men and women and they said they would be very happy and proud to join me. At first there were six of us: four women and two men. There is one man in particular whose support for women has been wonderful from the start. We really appreciate him; his name is Mirwais Nabizada, and his help and support has been great. Yes, we all know the situation is dangerous but to be silent is not the solution. We know the Taliban actively search for all who work or talk against them. But all the times I felt the threat and endured scary situations, I said to myself, “Yes, I am in danger, but I can’t stop. The Taliban are liars who want to fight for power.” I lived in hiding, fighting for my life and the lives of other women in Afghanistan.” We worked in Afghanistan to help Afghan women with their studies as a secret school. We raised our voices for Afghan women. I heard stories of women and we cried to show we are with women, and we shared the message of hope and to be strong with each other. And we helped families in need with food and urgent necessities. When I was in Afghanistan, the Taliban were searching for me, and I received warnings, but even after these warnings I wasn’t silent. But it is easy for the Taliban to kill those who work or talk against them. Because of me, my siblings and parents were also under direct threat. We were not safe. I worked to hide my identity and my parents’ identity. I was hiding from the Taliban, but I always felt that one day they would kill me or my family members.  When the situation became even harder and more restricted, my only option was to flee. I will never forget the terror I felt when I fled at 2 am from Afghanistan. But when I got to a new country… Life in a new country is not easy! Everything is new, and I was faced with a big culture shock. During the first months I cried a lot and had no contact with my family. Nothing was normal and things were harder for me. First, the station of Afghan women I had left behind, still under Taliban control. Second, my flight from Afghanistan which had taken me away from my family. And third, a new life with a new culture. Figuring out how to start back up again from zero, to get back to something like a normal life. But after a while I just told myself, “Crying is not the solution! Start acting like a strong woman, just forget what is going on for you, you are just one, but 1,000 women are looking to you to have a big smile and keep going to help and work for Afghan women”. In my new life in the new country, I started to study, updated my CV, and attended English classes. I also started to learn driving and to learn about life in my new country. After some months, I was successful in my exams and got a job in engineering. It is very hard for a refugee to get a job in their own field of study, but hard work pays off. On weekdays, at 6 am I take a bus to work until 6 pm. Then I take a bus to English class and finally I come home at 9:30 pm and have something to eat. I feel very tired, but I act very strong Due to the time difference between Afghanistan and the country I am in, two nights of the week I am awake all night because I teach classes to help students in Afghanistan. I feel very tired, but I never tell or show to my students that I need sleep. I enjoy it so much when I hear from them and when they speak in class that I get energised and I feel proud. If I didn’t keep helping my students, I would blame myself for their plight, and say to myself, “You fled and you left Afghan women lonely in Afghanistan”. I was in Afghanistan, so I completely understand that they really need someone to be with them. So that is why I see them as more important than getting rest. Fortunately, our group is getting bigger with trusted women and men to help. Currently, we have 150 students in our learning programme, with others on the waiting list. We don’t receive financial help from anywhere. Our work is completely voluntary. If any brave women want to help students directly with their studies, we really appreciate it. Our programme’s name is Beautiful Afghanistan. We mainly help Afghan students with their studies, but we also help women’s families if they are in urgent need. And we raise our voice to the world so everyone can hear what is going on for Afghan women. If you have any questions, want to join to help students with their studies, or want to support a family in need, feel free to get in touch. You can email us at: beautifulafghanistan32@gmail.com   or yalbano786@gmail.com