As the Taliban regime remains unmoved on their restrictive policies towards women, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls on them to lift their ban on girls’ education. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Mr. Guterres said today “This is an unjustifiable violation of human rights that inflicts long-lasting damage on the entire country.”
The UN chief’s comments come ahead of the annual UN General Assembly session in New York, where hundreds of senior-level delegates have gathered to discuss global challenges and cooperation. The Taliban authorities are absent from the meeting for the third consecutive year since their return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
The UN chief’s comments come amid the annual UN General Assembly in New York, where hundreds of senior-level delegates have gathered to discuss global challenges and cooperation. The Taliban authorities are absent from the meeting for the third consecutive year since their return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021. The UN has not accepted the credentials of the Taliban representative, thus barring it from occupying the country’s seat at the UN.
Since their retaking of Afghanistan two years ago, the Taliban have only expanded their repressive policies that persecute vulnerable communities, particularly women. In March 2022, the group banned girls’ education beyond sixth grade. Then in December of the same year, another decree by their supreme leader barred women from working in international and Afghan NGOs. In their latest order, the Taliban have also banned beauty salons, one of the last professional spaces populated by women.
International human rights groups believe the Taliban’s behaviour towards women amounts to crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute. Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch in a new report asked the International Criminal Court to launch a dedicated investigation into human rights violations in Afghanistan, particularly what is termed the ‘crime against humanity of gender persecution’ in the court’s founding document.
Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Afghanistan also said in his latest briefing to the Human Rights Council that the Taliban’s treatment of women constituted “systematic, widespread, institutionalized discrimination, aimed at excluding women from public life, and gender persecution, reaching a new high of gender apartheid.”
At the ongoing 54th regular session of the council, which kickstarted on September 11 in Geneva, where Mr. Bennett and Volker Turk, the UN human rights chief spoke, the situation in Afghanistan, particularly girls’ education was a hot topic.
Volker Turk called the Taliban’s policies towards women ‘immeasurably cruel’, noting that “Afghanistan has set a devastating precedent as the only country in the world where women and girls are denied access to secondary and higher education.”
Parallel to the Human Rights Council session, women rights activists from Afghanistan went on hunger strikes in Germany, Pakistan, Sweden, Norway, and the U.S., calling on the international community to recognize the Taliban’s oppression of women as “gender apartheid” and to hold the group accountable.
Mr. Gueterres’ recent call shows the world’s dwindling leverage to change the Taliban’s behaviour. The ban on education and other human rights violations have minimized the international engagement with the regime and the much-needed humanitarian aid critical to avert the expanding humanitarian and economic crisis in the country.
Yet, the regime in Kabul not only remains unhinged, but seems further bolstered.
