Three years ago, Afghan women lost most of their civil rights overnight, when the Taliban marched into Kabul and quickly seized the country against little resistance. As Vice President Kamala Harris accepts the presidential nomination this week at the Democratic National Convention, the Taliban’s wholesale disregard for women’s rights is a stark contrast to the possibility of the first woman President in American history. But Harris, who has taken a strong stance on women’s rights, could break with previous U.S. policy failures and reset the U.S.-Afghan relationship in a way that genuinely prioritizes Afghan women.
Today, Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls are prohibited from going to school. Women and girls are banned from many public spaces, are required to cover their faces in public, and are restricted from employment. These increasingly prohibitive fatwas—legal rulings under the Taliban’s perverse interpretation of Sharia law—severely restrict women’s movement and participation in society in what many are calling “gender apartheid.”
Read More: Why TIME Dedicated an Issue to Afghan Women Around the World
The horrific impact of gender apartheid in Afghanistan is unsurprising. Afghans are poorer, jobs have been decimated, civil society and media have collapsed, and the country now has one of the lowest Human Development Index rankings. The social, cultural, and political gains that were made for women during the U.S. war in Afghanistan have all but disappeared. The country remains the unhappiest in the world.
Yet Afghan women continue to resist. Despite serious risks to their safety, women are protesting in the streets under the slogan “Bread, Work, Freedom,” organizing underground schools just as they did in the 1990s, and allying with women’s rights champions like Malala Yousafzai and Angelina Jolie to raise global awareness.
With the prospect of a President Harris, Afghan women are wondering: can they expect an ally in the White House?
President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan was catastrophic for Afghan families now painfully separated and, especially, for the women now repressed under Taliban rule. What’s more, a push to normalize U.S.-Taliban diplomatic relations is gaining momentum. The Taliban is now the U.S.’ primary counterterrorism partner in Afghanistan. Even U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres met with Taliban leaders in Doha in June, granting them more legitimacy and undermining women’s rights advocates who were excluded entirely from the gathering.
Instead, a President Harris could globalize her outspoken support for women’s rights to include Afghan women. She could embrace the effort to codify gender apartheid in the U.N.’s Crime Against Humanity treaty, allying herself with women in places like Afghanistan and Iran to elevate their cause while building trust with the U.S. government and an international system that has disregarded their issues.
The U.S. has already disbursed around $3 billion to Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover. But Harris could step up that humanitarian funding, particularly to aid locally-led organizations working in Afghanistan to support women—recognizing that living under a gender apartheid system presents unique challenges. And she could recommit to offering asylum to Afghan women endangered by the Taliban. There are about 70,000 Afghan evacuees in the U.S and their future is still uncertain. A President Harris could secure their future by ensuring that the Afghan Adjustment Act passes through Congress.
More fundamentally, Harris could be the first President since Jimmy Carter who chooses to not view Afghanistan solely through a geopolitical lens—whether anti-Communism during the Soviet invasion or counterterrorism following 9/11. She could renegotiate the diplomatic relationship with the Taliban, making it conditional upon respect for women’s rights, including a guarantee of access to healthcare and education.
Some may argue that women’s rights are secondary to the need for partnership with the Taliban to counter the threat of a rising Islamic State-Khorasan in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. Indeed, Trump’s record suggests that a transactional approach would guide his Afghanistan policy. But 40 years of failed U.S. policies in Afghanistan are the result of this faulty thinking.
Ultimately, Afghanistan is more stable and its people more successful when women are not repressed—when they can be educated and work.
A President Harris offers the chance of a reset.
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