Speaking at the 67th Session of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women in New York, the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, reiterated the need not to give up on supporting women and girls in Afghanistan.
António Guterres said that he had sent his deputy, Amina Mohammed to Kabul to deliver a clear message to the Taliban that “we will never give up fighting” for women and girls’ rights in Afghanistan.
The Taliban, Guterres said, had erased women from public life.
The UN chief stressed that women’s rights were being violated, abused, and threatened around the world, and the UN will fight back against patriarchy. “Progress won over decades is vanishing before our eyes,” Guterres asserted, adding that women’s rights have been affected worst by crises from Afghanistan to Ukraine and the Sahel.
And on the same day, the UN’s Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan, Richard Bennet, presented his second report to the UN Human Rights Council.
He said the human rights situation has worsened since last December and that the Taliban’s violations of human rights, especially women, were “intentional and calculated”.
