Οι «Αφγανές γυναίκες» στον Ελληνικό Τύπο 2021 - 2022: Πολιτικός λόγος και κοινωνική κουλτούρα

Abstract

The return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in August 2021 put an end to the small and slow, but real, steps towards the recognition and guarantee of women's rights that had been achieved over the last 20 years, mainly focusing on the country's urban centers. As was the case in the late 1990s, when the Taliban had managed to control the country for the first time, one of their first and biggest victims is women, who are reduced to invisible second-class citizens. Women are already seeing their rights to access to education, health services, the labor market and participation in public and political life curtailed or even abolished altogether. This paper attempts to outline the image of the Afghan woman today, as it is portrayed in Greek media articles, analyzing the political discourse and the social culture that frames it. To achieve this goal, sociological concepts - tools such as social capital, social identity and gender are used. An attempt is made to link these concepts to the relatively recent historical, political, religious and cultural context of Afghanistan, which influences the shaping of their content. Through this approach, despite the temporal and objective limitations of this research, an original portrayal of the image of the Afghan woman, the basic parameters that shape her social identity and her needs, as well as the way she defines and makes sense of her rights, is achieved. This first assessment is also interesting from the point of view of the Public Administration, given that in Greece, the Afghan refugee population is the most numerous according to the latest data of the competent UN agencies, and the majority of them are women. In addition, the Afghan refugee population has submitted most of the requests for asylum from the Greek state. These first elements can be used as a stimulus for further reflection and study in the context of the ongoing effort to enrich and improve the design of a coherent policy for the integration of refugees and migrants in general and Afghan women in particular into Greek society.