DATELINE: Not Your Honour. Not Your Law. I Am Human.

When power trembles, it tightens its grip — and too often, that grip closes around a woman’s throat.

Peerzada Masarat Shah

The recent penal changes introduced under the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan have once again pushed women into the headlines — but not into freedom. The world debates policies. Panels discuss religion. Governments issue statements. Meanwhile, somewhere, a girl lowers her eyes, silences her dreams, and adjusts to a smaller life.

Let us stop pretending this is only about one regime or one country.

Nearly 123 million women and girls in parts of the world have endured physical or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime. That is not a statistic. That is pain repeated millions of times. That is fear taught from mother to daughter. That is silence inherited like property.

One in five young women globally was married before she turned eighteen. Childhood stolen. Education cut short. Futures negotiated without consent. And if progress stalls, millions more girls will be pushed into marriage before they even understand what choice means.

Even in classrooms — the supposed temples of learning — girls are not safe from humiliation. One in three students aged 11–15 has faced bullying. Girls are mocked for their bodies, their faces, their voices. They are trained early to shrink themselves, to apologise for existing.

And then comes the argument of religion.

Many loudly claim to defend faith, yet how many truly sit with the teachings of the Qur’an in humility and sincerity? The Qur’an speaks of justice. Of dignity. Of accountability before God. It does not authorize cruelty. It does not glorify oppression. It does not command the erasure of women from public life.

Let us be honest: political power often hides behind religion. Culture often disguises control as morality. And society frequently protects its comfort more than its conscience.

But oppression of women is not confined to conservative regimes. In the United States, women still fight wage gaps, domestic violence, and systemic discrimination. In wealthy nations and struggling ones alike, a woman’s body remains a battleground — for politics, for tradition, for fragile egos.

The truth is uncomfortable: the world has not yet learned to see women as human first.

A woman is not your honour.
She is not your political symbol.
She is not your cultural boundary.
She is not your moral advertisement.
She is human.

When laws reduce her movement, when society reduces her voice, when religion is weaponized to reduce her worth — it is not God being defended. It is control being preserved.

Remember history. There were eras when women were buried alive, denied inheritance, treated as property across civilizations. Reforms came not because societies were kind, but because conscience finally rebelled.

Today, we stand at another moral crossroads.
If a system — any system — requires women to be silenced in order to survive, then that system is already weak.

The question is not whether women deserve rights. The question is whether humanity deserves to call itself civilized while half of it lives in fear.
Stop debating whether women are “allowed.”

Start asking why they are not simply free.

Because freedom is not rebellion against God.
Freedom is the dignity God entrusted to every human soul.

And until the world understands that, women will continue to carry the cost of male insecurity dressed up as law, tradition, or faith.

History is watching. And it will not be kind to those who chose power over humanity.

(STRAIGHT TALK COMMUNICATIONS EXCLUSIVE)