US State Department: Taliban policies towards women affront to human rights

Principal Deputy Spokesperson for the US Department of State, Vedant Patel, said that “the Taliban’s policies towards women and girls are an affront to human rights” and the group’s relations with the international community will suffer as long as these policies continued.

“The Taliban’s policies towards women and girls are an affront to human rights, and as long as the Taliban repress women and girls, the Taliban’s relations with the international community are going to suffer,” he said at a press briefing on Thursday, 19 January. “We’ve been quite clear, the Secretary’s been quite clear, to earn legitimacy and credibility, actions are going to need to speak loudly and they will need to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms to all Afghans, not just occasionally.”