WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES – Several international rights groups have called on the UN to ensure that women’s rights are a central topic of discussion in its upcoming meeting on Afghanistan.
In a letter pinned to the UN on Monday, June 10, rights groups, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, urged the UN and the international community to use the opportunity to convey to the Taliban that the rights of women and girls are non-negotiable.
“Respect for women’s rights must be a core objective of the international community’s engagement on Afghanistan, and a standing agenda item at all upcoming and future discussions in Doha,” the rights groups emphasized.
“The upcoming meeting in Doha is a critical moment for the UN, Security Council and international community to coordinate around one key message: the rights of Afghan women and girls are not negotiable.”
The rights groups have also criticized the UN and international community’s approach to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, saying it has thus far failed to deter the Taliban from its systematic repression of women’s rights.
“The Taliban are not only continuing to impose new restrictions violating the rights of women and girls, now numbering 97, but steadily intensifying their enforcement of existing decrees.”
The third high-level UN-hosted meeting on Afghanistan, featuring special envoys from countries involved in Afghanistan, is scheduled to take place on June 30 and July 1 in Doha, the capital of Qatar.
Although the UN extended an advance invitation to Taliban authorities to participate in the event, the regime has not yet confirmed its attendance. The unrecognized regime in Afghanistan recently said that it has received the meeting’s details and agenda and is currently discussing them.
However, the rights groups emphasized that the meeting’s credibility should be assessed not by the Taliban’s participation, but by whether the UN and member states can meaningfully unite around a clear, transparent, and non-negotiable set of principles upholding human rights, particularly women’s rights and participation.
It remains uncertain whether the UN will invite any representatives of Afghan women and Afghan civil society to the meeting. However, the rights groups say that the full, equal, meaningful, and safe participation of women from civil society and human rights defenders is crucial to the legitimacy of this and any future meetings on Afghanistan.
“Meeting to discuss Afghanistan without half its population represented undermines both the Doha process and its outcomes, as well as any future engagement strategy by the international community,” part of their letter reads.
The UN’s decision to invite the Taliban to the upcoming meeting has been criticized by Afghan activists, women’s rights defenders, Afghan political figures, and armed groups opposed to the Taliban.
Many women’s rights activists and protesters have even called for a boycott of further negotiations with the Taliban until women’s rights are restored.
In a recent reaction, on June 10th, during a protest in Islamabad, Pakistan, a group of women activists said that any meeting without the participation of representatives of Afghan women is “boycotted and rejected.”
The protesters voiced concern about the outcome of the third Doha meeting on Afghanistan, stressing that the UN and the international community should stand by the people of Afghanistan rather than a “terrorist and criminal group.”
