The Unfinished Business of Our Time: Restrictions of Women’s Autonomy in Islamic Countries

Women protesting Azra Gülendam Haytaoğlu femicide at Kadıköy İstanbul, 2021
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Introduction

Women represent half of the world’s population, yet gender inequality is widespread. After the 2024 U.S. election, the influence of Christianity and conservative values in politics caused many American women to fear for their reproductive rights. Religious influence in American politics can emphasize exclusion and inequality to create a “Christian nation.” Yet, in the rest of the world, women are enduring more rampant inequalities within their countries. Although largely Muslim nations have stated broad support for gender equality, governments continue to decrease women’s role in society. In October 2024, the governments of Afghanistan, Turkey, and Pakistan highlighted this inequality. These stories reflect an overarching theme of oppression and governmental failure to address women’s rights. 

Afghanistan 

In October, Vice and Virtue Minister Khalid Hanafi stated that “It is prohibited for a grown woman to recite Quranic verses or perform recitations in front of another grown woman. Even chants of takbir (Allahu Akbar) are not permitted,” on the ministry’s social media platforms. Later, the voice recording was deleted. 

This remark reflects the country’s increasing control over women’s lives in the region. The Taliban is a predominantly Pashtun, Islamic fundamentalist group that returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, following the revolt against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul in 2001. The Taliban increasingly placed restrictions on women’s rights, such as banning women from appearing in public alone and restricting them from traveling more than 72 km without a male chaperone. Women are restricted from working, journalists lack freedom of the press, and the Taliban re-established their MOPVPV, which prohibited behavior deemed un-Islamic. As Afghanistan reduces women’s appearance in society, this voice recording further drove the idea of women's inability to have a voice in their own homes. 

In November, Saiful Islam Khyber, a spokesman for the MOPVPV, said that the reports were “illogical,” as “a woman can talk to another woman, women need to interact with one another in society, women do have their needs.” Using social media to circulate information has caused the ministry to take accountability and provide some transparency to the international audience. However, Hanafi’s language is an absurd extension of harsh laws already established for women. The Taliban ordered Afghan women not to speak loudly inside their homes to prevent outsiders from hearing, and those who disobeyed would be arrested. Limiting women’s potential in the workplace and home creates a culture where women cannot control their own bodies. 

This gender persecution severely limits the human potential of women, where they cannot advocate for themselves. Even if the audio message was not serious, its publication to the MOPVPV social media displays the government’s lack of respect for women to practice their religion in front of others. The toll of restricting women's autonomy means they cannot voice their injustice in their own homes. 

Pakistan

Protests in Pakistan have responded to authorities denial of rape allegations in a college campus. In October 2024, social media reports spread that a female student was raped in the basement of the Punjab College for Women campus. The police arrested a security guard who was identified online but there was no verification of rape. Authorities, including the province’s chief minister, and the victim’s parents, said there was no assault. In response, Pakistani students protested that the authorities tried to cover up the incident, advocating over the unjust harassment and sexual assault against women at colleges.

Sexual violence in Pakistan is common, but protests regarding the injustice are rare. According to Freedom House, men and women enjoy considerable social freedoms in urban areas of Pakistan; however, nearly one-third of women have experienced gender-based violence. The Sustainable Social Development Organization said 7,010 rape cases were reported in Pakistan in 2023, almost 95% of them in Punjab, and that due to social stigma, women are less likely to seek help or support. Women may not advocate for themselves in their own living spaces or educational institutions due to this culture. When the government provided an insufficient statement on the attacks on women in four cities, students protested to voice their frustration. 

In the city of Rawalpindi, students burned furniture and blocked a key road before ransacking a college building. Police responded by swinging batons and firing tear gas to disperse them and issued 250 arrests. Hasna Cheema, from the Aurat Foundation, said neither Pakistani police nor the media were trained to handle the protests as they, “turn things from bad to worse instead of solving them.” As these protests are uncommon, the government did not address the public in a timely manner when the rape allegations were exposed online. In contrast to women's inability to revolt against the government in Afghanistan, protests in Pakistan orchestrated by both men and women display the people’s distrust of a government that clearly failed to answer the public. This distrust is a sign of decreasing legitimacy that could have the potential to be solved by addressing gender inequality and the lack of security for young women.

However, the government has closed educational institutions and banned public gatherings. This response is likely for the government to control the population, but it fails to answer the public’s concern. Regardless, these protests reflect a group of people trying to hold authorities accountable for the common occurrence of sexual violence, breaking the social stigma. This news highlights the ongoing fight for women’s rights and justice to be served when faced with dangers such as gender-based violence. 

Turkey

In Turkey, an ongoing case of femicide was highlighted in October by three gruesome murders of women. Two came from Semih Çelik, a 19-year-old butcher, who killed and beheaded a woman named İkbal Uzuner, before committing suicide. The murderer threw Uzuner’s head from Istanbul’s historic city walls while her mother was present. Çelik also killed another young woman, Ayşenur Halil, by slitting her throat the same day. These murders are a jarring reality to a bigger picture of female-targeted murders. If an individual is comfortable murdering an authority figure who upholds the law,  there may be a pattern in which women are not protected or secure in their environment. 

 We Will Stop Femicide Platform, a Turkish advocacy group, reported that 3,185 women were killed by men between 2008 and 2019. Moreover, at least 1,499 women were murdered from 2020 to September 2024. Turkey has failed to create a safe environment for women in the past two decades. These murders fall under the term femicide, which is the killing of women and girls simply because of their gender.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the President of Turkey, said “A series of recent events, from the martyrdom of a policewoman to the brutal murder of our young women, have provoked a justified reaction within our nation.” However, in 2021, Turkey withdrew from the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, arguing that the convention promoted homosexuality and threatened traditional family values. Yet, the Human Rights Foundation criticized Erdoğan’s government for failing to "adequately prevent femicide and violence against women, children, and gender minorities."

As Pakistanis took the initiative to advocate for the injustice within their community, the Turkish did the same. Turkey's Young Feminists Federation enacted a demonstration after the series of murders, where 300 women gathered in Istanbul to protest violence against women. These protests symbolize women’s frustration with Turkey’s increasingly unsafe environment. The government’s growing control of social media platforms can be another issue for advocacy. Women are not represented in the government, but their freedom of speech is restricted so the government retains control of their perception of a woman’s role. The step toward restricting women’s voices is a common pattern shown in Afghanistan where women are not allowed to speak too loudly in front of one another. 

Reflection

The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, has stated that achieving gender equality and empowering women is the unfinished business of our time and the greatest human rights challenge. These countries show that the role of women in society is threatened by the laws restricting their rights and the external threats when society protests. Despite being Muslim-majority nations, the backdrop of religious influence on politics does not excuse the actions of government authorities. Fatima al-Fihri was a female Muslim scholar who established the world’s oldest university. A Muslim woman can build a legacy to further opportunities for everyone, but there is a systemic issue in governments that suppress women's voices and deny them equal educational opportunities. This issue of gender inequality, in which governments are shifting toward heavy conservative values, causes citizens to protest for their rights.

Social media is an active tool for exposing information regarding women’s rights worldwide. Social media, especially for large organizations, can act as a “digital village” where individuals can “see” the lives of others within their organization and feel closer to them. The international response of the voice recording from the Minister of the MOPVPV to the reports of the alleged rape case in Pakistan shows that the online world is used to connect people to humanitarian issues across the globe. 

Despite the international community having this knowledge at their fingertips, the local communities that demonstrate social resistance serve as the main catalyst. However, they also bear the primary consequences of governments limiting freedom of speech and assembly. Turkey has tightened control of social media to maintain their image while Pakistan has banned free assembly in order to suppress people’s voices. In Afghanistan, monitoring women decreases the chances of a revolt, which strengthens institutional gender oppression. Governments must address gender inequality and take action to strengthen their legitimacy as nations. To create policies that advocate for women’s safety, there must be representation in the government body and respect for women’s role in society. The government cannot protect or provide for women if it fails to address them for what they are – humans.