Author: Kavya Keshavamurthy

The Afghan People Want Education for Their Girls. The Taliban Says No.

Posted on by Kavya Keshavamurthy

As children all over the world begin a new school year this September, there is a notable population that is missing from classrooms: girls above grade 6 in Afghanistan. Since the Taliban’s return to power over four years ago, their campaign to erase women from public life has deprived almost 2.2 million girls of education. Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls are forbidden from accessing secondary or higher education, and safety concerns, funding cuts, and a worsening socioeconomic crisis has meant that nearly 30% of Afghan girls never even start primary school.

It is important to note that the Taliban’s policy is not reflective of public sentiment – a new UN Women report found that 92% of Afghans, including men and women in both rural and urban areas, strongly support education for girls. This is a reminder that the Taliban is exercising authoritarian control, and the gender apartheid that women and girls in Afghanistan suffer under is a result of the regime’s tyranny, not a cultural and or religious consensus as the Taliban often claims. 

The consequences of this education denial has already affected Afghan society and the impact will remain for generations to come if not corrected. The Taliban has strategically dismantled 20 years of progress in women’s rights and education, contributing to rising economic instability in the country. Unemployment has been at record highs and the systemic erasure of women from public life and in the economy has only deepened the crisis. Without an education, girls are even more vulnerable to violence, child marriage, exploitative labor, and poverty, contributing to “shorter, less healthy lives” as maternal mortality rises and women are pushed out of the formal workforce. 

Literacy is a powerful tool that empowers and enfranchises women, and the increasing illiteracy among Afghans, especially girls, will exacerbate poverty and inequality for decades to come. The Taliban’s education policies hurt both girls and boys. With quality learning replaced by narrow religious teaching and female teachers banned from teaching boys, Afghanistan’s future is being stripped away. Beyond the human toll, the education restrictions are also devastating Afghanistan’s economy, causing a $500 million loss in just 12 months after the Taliban’s takeover. 

Education access for all girls is the 4th UN Sustainable Development Goal, hoping to achieve “inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong opportunities for all” by 2030. Afghanistan’s status is a major setback on an issue that has seen significant global progress otherwise. Investing in girls’ education has far-reaching positive impacts, from helping address climate change to building stronger, more equitable democracies, and Afghanistan’s regression is a threat to regional and international stability and security. A country reduced to religious education alone, without science, medicine, technology, and all the modern education cannot produce the doctors, engineers, and innovators it needs. The consequences are not only devastating for the Afghan people but also for the wider world too.

Women’s education is not only a matter of equal rights – it is a critical element of social and economic progress and is necessary for a stable, resilient society. The Taliban prohibiting education, against the will of the people, is not just harmful for girls, it’s detrimental for the country’s future. Education is a human right that the Afghan people want for their daughters, a desire that the world has a moral and social responsibility to support.

SCOTUS Greenlights Racial Profiling in Immigration Enforcement

Posted on by Kavya Keshavamurthy

On Monday, September 8th, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo overturned a federal district court ruling that barred immigration officials in Los Angeles from conducting roving patrols that targeted Latino communities without “reasonable suspicion.” The concurring opinion from Justice Kavanaugh states that “apparent ethnicity” can be a “relevant factor” for ICE to conduct immigration stops, along with “speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent,” location, and type of employment. Essentially, SCOTUS legalized the use of racial profiling in immigration raids.

This country has a long history of racial profiling in policing and immigration enforcement that the Supreme Court has played a role in enabling through cases like Whren v. United States, which allowed police to conduct, often racially motivated, pretextual traffic stops. This week’s decision also comes 2 years after the ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard banned race-conscious college admissions that were meant to promote equal educational and employment opportunity for groups that were historically underrepresented due to systemic discrimination, resulting in sharp declines in diversity on campuses, particularly impacting Black, Latino, and Indigenous students.

Institutional racism has been a rampant problem at the southern border for years, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s broad authority to operate regularly violates people’s civil and constitutional rights. The current administration’s dramatic expansion of immigration enforcement in the past 8 months has seen more than a 250% increase in daily arrests, masked agents abducting people off the streets, local law enforcement recruited to assist ICE, overcrowded detention centers with widespread illness and hunger, immigrants with no criminal record deported without due process to an El Salvador prison notorious for human rights violations, the targeting of immigrants in sanctuary cities and sensitive areas that were previously restricted like schools, churches, hospitals, and courthouses, and an executive order to end universal birthright citizenship.  

As with all other crises, this harsh anti-immigrant campaign, aggravated by the Supreme Court decision, disproportionately harms women in immigrant communities, especially BIPOC, poor, and disabled women. Immigrant women, who make up 20% of early educators and 26% of direct care workers, are often pillars of their communities, yet are forced to live in fear while navigating a hostile immigration system that undermines their dignity, security, and livelihoods. Now that ICE can enter hospitals, immigrants are avoiding necessary medical care due to fears of being deported, including pregnant women and new mothers who may be dealing with acute issues, which doctors predict will lead to a rise in maternal mortality. Immigrant children’s health is also being impacted in multiple dimensions, even those who have American citizenship, due to being from mixed-status families.

This aggressive immigration crackdown has also been accompanied by an increase in gender-based and sexual violence. The most frequently reported issues in ICE detention are sexual assault against both adults and children, suicide attempts, and serious pregnancy complications, as women are denied access to reproductive healthcare, and a repealing of protections makes them more vulnerable to abusers who easily avoid accountability. Immigration officers in this new era are also masked, creating a new crisis of women being assaulted by individuals impersonating ICE agents.

All of these issues were pervasive even before the September 8th Supreme Court ruling, which will no doubt exacerbate them in a racially-targeted fashion. This decision also has implications beyond immigration, as it is a slippery slope from authorizing federal immigration enforcement to consider race and ethnicity in their stops in Los Angeles to race-based policing being normalized across the country. While the policy claims to be prioritizing public safety, the actual enforcement and effects appear to place cruelty and spectacle above security and effective immigration reform. It also opens the doors for further racialized harassment of immigrants in public spaces and the viewing of immigrant and Latino identities as inherently criminal, a view that many White Americans already hold. 

It is in times like these that coming together to protect our communities becomes especially important. Immigration justice is a feminist issue, and feminist movements must engage in intersectional advocacy and organizing to challenge these attacks on immigrants’ rights and liberties. This year has seen a record number of protests in defense of immigrants erupt across all 50 states and Washington D.C., mobilized by networks of local grassroots organizations. City and state governments are also resisting by passing laws limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and supporting immigrant legal services. And while the Supreme Court’s order is devastating, it is not the end of the case, which is still pending appeal at the Ninth Circuit court. Sustained, collective action, at all levels of government and across the country, are necessary in this fight.

Medication Abortion Under Siege: New Texas Law Empowers Private Citizens to Challenge Access

Posted on by Kavya Keshavamurthy

On Wednesday, September 3rd, Texas lawmakers approved a bill that would allow private citizens to sue abortion pill manufacturers, doctors, and suppliers. House Bill 7 is likely to be signed into law by anti-abortion Governor Greg Abbot, making Texas the first state in the nation to go after the most common and accessible abortion method.  

Texas already has one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country, prohibiting the procedure even in cases of rape or incest – a ban which has been accompanied by a 56% increase in maternal mortality and delays in care which have contributed to more dangerous miscarriages. The new law would make it incredibly difficult and risky for people in Texas to access abortion, as it empowers Texas residents to sue those who provide abortion pills to anyone in the state for up to $100,000. Although only those directly ‘injured’ by the abortion, such as the biological father, pregnant woman, and close relatives, are eligible for the whole amount, nearly anyone can sue and receive $10,000, with the rest going to charity.

Over a year after the Supreme Court ruling on Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA upheld access to abortion pills through telemedicine and pharmacies, this bill becoming law would be a major victory for anti-abortion advocates who have been attempting to crack down on medication abortion. Abortion pills have been used in the vast majority of abortions across the country, which has enabled the increase in abortion rates post-Dobbs. Medication abortion involves taking two pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, in succession, and has been approved by the FDA to end pregnancies through 10 weeks gestation. Unlike what misinformation campaigns against abortion pills have claimed, this method has proven to be safe and highly effective, with a meta-analysis of 87 clinical trials showing serious complications in less than 0.3% of patients and ongoing pregnancy in just 1.1% of patients. 

In a country where the administration feels comfortable openly minimizing domestic violence as a crime, and where homicide is the leading cause of death for pregnant women, laws like this, which encourage the public to participate in a form of vigilantism against someone for their private medical decisions, poses an enormous safety risk for women during a time when they are especially vulnerable. The bill text includes a statute establishing that “any person who impregnated a woman through conduct constituting sexual assault” is not eligible to sue. However, almost 98% of perpetrators of sexual violence are never held legally accountable, leading to questions about what basis will be used to determine whether or not a potential abuser can use this law to their advantage. And while the bill also has provisions that bar publicizing the identity or details about the women involved, the basic meaning of the law encourages violations of privacy. Not to mention, the concept of regular citizens enforcing civil laws through a bounty hunting scheme has a deeply racist history in this country. As we see an increase in white supremacist incidents and worsening race relations, it is not a reach to say that such a law could also be misused with racist intentions.

This law is also threatening shield laws, which have been critical tools that states with abortion access have used to protect their providers and patients as cross-state travel to receive abortion care has increased drastically since Dobbs. While legislators in abortion access states are strengthening their shield laws, attorneys general in states with abortion restrictions are banding together to attack them. The most high-profile case so far has been the Texas Attorney General’s lawsuit against a doctor in New York – and the court official who used New York’s shield laws to protect her – which New York Attorney General Letitita James recently announced she would be intervening in. This is an escalating battle that is playing out both on the legislative front and in the courts, setting the stage for a legal showdown that is likely to be taken up by the Supreme Court.

Texas lawmakers’ approval of HB7 marks an unprecedented expansion of the state’s abortion restrictions into a tool of public enforcement, threatening the privacy, safety, and autonomy of pregnant women who already face a hostile reproductive healthcare environment. There are also serious concerns about the misuse of this law due to the realities of sexual violence prosecution and social polarization in this country right now. The bill’s out-of-state reach is also adding fuel to the fire of an interstate legal conflict that could determine the future of medication abortion access and the rights of those who depend on it across the United States.

Afghanistan’s Deadly Earthquake Hurt Women and Girls the Most

Posted on by Kavya Keshavamurthy

A powerful 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck Afghanistan’s mountainous northeast province of Kunar on August 31st, leaving devastation in its wake. The Taliban has confirmed a death toll of over 2,200 people, although this number is continuing to rise as rescue teams race against time to reach survivors still trapped under rubble. The earthquake has also destroyed over 6,500 homes and displaced thousands, with heavy rain, landslides, damaged roads, and a lack of communication networks making it more difficult for relief teams to access affected areas.

Located on the meeting point of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, Afghanistan frequently experiences earthquakes, with this being one of the deadliest in the region since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. Major global aid cuts, from NGOs withdrawing funding due to the Taliban’s regressive policies against women to the United States dismantling USAID (followed by other western countries slashing foreign aid), have majorly restricted aid efforts which was already facing the compounding challenges of severe drought, economic collapse, a food and famine crisis, and an influx of returning refugees. The sheer devastation caused by this earthquake has led both the Taliban and international aid agencies to appeal to the international community for help, with the few groups and nations that have responded mostly channeling money through NGOs rather than the Taliban government (although not their former biggest donor, the U.S., which instead responded by sending condolences through Twitter).

Across the world, women and children are disproportionately harmed in disaster and crisis settings, facing increased violence, greater food and economic insecurity, and lack of healthcare in the aftermath. The system of gender apartheid that the Taliban has imposed in Afghanistan means that these harms are amplified for women and girls affected by the recent earthquake, which was also observed during the October 2023 earthquake in Afghanistan where women and children made up over 90% of the casualties. 

Women in Afghanistan suffer from an extremely dire lack of medical care– they are not allowed to be treated by male doctors and female healthcare providers are few and far between, especially since the Taliban suspended medical education for women in December 2024. Women are being shunned by male rescue workers, and while there are some female doctors and volunteers nearby who are ready and eager to help, they have been restricted from doing so by the Taliban. 

Afghanistan already has very high rates of infant (43/1000 live births) and maternal mortality (521/100,000 live births), and U.S. funding cuts for reproductive healthcare have stripped Afghan women of critical, lifesaving sexual and reproductive health services. These existing issues are aggravated during natural disasters. An Afghan man in the affected region recounted how his pregnant wife, who suffered a miscarriage due to the lack of healthcare following the earthquake, is “in a government hospital” but still “has not recovered and is in the same condition […] because there are no female doctors and no medicine,” a tragic example of how bleak the status of healthcare for women in Afghanistan is. Accompanying the mounting death toll is the reality that some women and girls have lost most of their family – notably their male relatives – which immediately cuts off their support network and leaves them entirely stranded in a society where women are banned from public life and cannot do anything without a male guardian.

The impact of this earthquake goes beyond the immediate devastation and loss of life – it exposes how deeply entrenched and harmful the Taliban’s system of gender apartheid is, by denying and creating obstacles to women accessing essential healthcare and safety resources in times of crisis. Much of Afghanistan is seismically active, and as long as this regime is in power, women and girls will continue to suffer disproportionately from natural disasters. Until these institutional barriers, which have confined women to their homes and stripped them of social and legal protections, are dismantled, and human rights are restored, every future catastrophe will reinforce this cycle of vulnerability and Afghan women will remain the silent majority of victims.

This Women’s Equality Day, the Fight Continues

Posted on by Kavya Keshavamurthy

105 years ago, on August 26th, 1920, the 19th Amendment was certified, granting women the right to vote – at least on paper. In reality, this victory just benefitted white women, while women of color continued to face systemic disenfranchisement. Since that historic day, women have made tremendous progress in political, economic, and social spheres in the U.S., and landmark legislation like the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Title IX have been significant in promoting a more intersectional version of gender equality. 

However, this progress hasn’t been linear, and especially in the darkness and hostility of today’s political climate, it’s important to reflect on the achievements of feminist movements while acknowledging how much further we need to go to achieve true gender equality.

This past Tuesday, the White House released a proclamation in commemoration of women’s suffrage, as the 1971 resolution to designate August 26th as Women’s Equality Day requests of the President each year. The sincerity of this statement seems questionable, considering that recent reports have raised concerns about federal officials amplifying harmful messages that undermine women’s rights, including that women don’t deserve the right to vote. 

Over a century after the passage of the 19th Amendment, women in this country still face many of the same challenges and experience struggles similar to women of 4 generations ago. Voting rights are under attack across the country, as state lawmakers draw maps that disenfranchise minority voters and lawmakers on Capitol Hill push forward legislation that would disproportionately hurt women voters, especially married and Black women. 

The Dobbs decision has taken us back to women dying without adequate reproductive healthcare, higher infant mortality rates in states with abortion bans, rising by 5.6% in just the year after Dobbs, and increasing barriers to contraceptive care. These effects are particularly harmful for people who are already systemically excluded from accessing healthcare (including immigrants, disabled, trans, low-income, Black, Latino, and Indigenous people). 

Recent federal policy changes have also weakened longstanding workplace discrimination protections, infrastructure for supporting survivors of domestic and sexual violence that took 40 years to build, and critical women’s health research funding, while simultaneously attacking trans rights across the board under the guise of ‘protecting women.’ Heading into the 250th year of this country’s existence, the stagnancy and decline of women’s rights just in the past 10 years is sobering. 

While we fight on the home front, we must also look at the struggle for gender equality all over the world – as Audre Lorde said, “I am not free while any woman is unfree.” The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals hoped to achieve global gender equality by 2030; based on current trends, global gender equality won’t be achieved until the 22nd century. The Taliban in Afghanistan is systematically erasing women from public life under a regime of gender apartheid. In Iran, women have taken to the streets, chanting “women, life, freedom,” in a demand for equality. Gender-based violence is a prevalent feature of conflict and post-conflict zones, with reports of extreme sexual, reproductive, and gender-based violence inflicted on the Palestinian people by Israel as a major recent example.

At the same time, the dismantling of USAID has stripped millions experiencing humanitarian crises of crucial healthcare, economic, and education resources, contributing to 14 million preventable deaths over the next 5 years. This has left women in crisis settings more vulnerable to violence and unable to access essential health services, which could lead to 34,000 more pregnancy-related deaths in just one year, while also exacerbating gender gaps in wellbeing and economic and political participation. The decision to destroy $9.7 million worth of contraceptives that were already paid for by U.S. taxpayers and ready to distribute to communities in need, will deny over 1.4 million women and girls in Sub-Saharan Africa of lifesaving care. This decision was devastatingly cruel, while wasting taxpayer resources.

A majority of Americans believe that there is still much work to do to achieve gender equality, citing sexual harassment, social expectations, legal inequality, and a lack of representation in powerful spaces as major obstacles to this progress. Yet, the Equal Rights Amendment, originally proposed by first-wave feminist leaders in 1923, which would ensure de jure gender equality in the U.S., has not been recognized as the 28th amendment in the Constitution due to partisan opposition and legal challenges despite it passing the state ratification threshold in 2020.

This Women’s Equality Day, we must honor the past while using those lessons to confront the challenges of the present. The fight for gender equity is not just history, it is also our mandate for the future. We owe it to feminists who came before us and to future generations to continue the movement, through civic engagement, on the streets, in classrooms and workplaces, across borders, and through media, until the promise of Women’s Equality Day is a bold and uncompromising reality.

>