WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES – The Executive Director of UN Women, Sima Bahous, says that the international community must be relentless in their actions to open up space for Afghan women to engage in all decisions impacting their country.
Speaking at a panel discussion held on the sideline of the 68th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the UN on Tuesday, March 12, the head of UN Women said that Afghanistan remains the gravest women’s rights crisis.
The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women is the largest international assembly addressing the status of women, convened annually at the UN General Assembly in New York.
The panel discussion, focused on redefining security from the perspective of women and girls living in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, was co-hosted by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United Kingdom (UK), and UN Women.
During the discussion, Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE’s permanent ambassador to the UN, underscored that prosperity, peace, and security will arise from the education of women and girls, as well as their contribution to their societies.
She emphasized that, “we should not make the mistake of attributing the deprivation of women’s rights to religion. These decisions have nothing to do with Islam.”
For over two years since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, women and girls in the country have been subjected to severe repression of their rights and freedoms, which UN experts, legal scholars and activists agree amounts to a system of apartheid to deliberately subjugate them on the basis of gender.
Addressing another session at the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, Naseer Ahamd Faiq, Afghanistan’s charge d’affaires at the UN, said that “Afghanistan stands out as the only country in the world where women and girls are deprived of their rights to education and employment.”
Mr. Faiq said, “In Afghanistan, institutionalized, systematic, and widespread gender discrimination and harassment have resulted in the exclusion of women from public life, establishing a regime of gender apartheid.”
Several women activists present at the meeting also referred to the Taliban’s policies towards Afghan women as “gender apartheid.”
Yalda Royan, an activist from Afghanistan, said in the meeting that the Taliban have issued more than 100 discriminatory decrees against women since regaining control of Afghanistan.
Ms. Royan said that according to the Apartheid Convention, systematic domination over a specific group is considered apartheid, emphasizing that the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls is a systematic domination of men over women, which is considered “gender apartheid.”
