The 15 member states of the UN Security Council in New York expressed their “deep concern” over decisions by the de facto government in Kabul to end women’s access to universities and ban them from working in NGOs.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday demanded that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan cancel the bans it imposed on women and girls on working and studying, calling them “unjustified human rights violations”.
Before Mr Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk also underlined the need for the Taliban to lift these “unthinkable restrictions” and warned against their “horrendous consequences” for “the entire Afghan people”.
The 15 member states of the UN Security Council in New York also expressed their “deep concern” over the decisions of the de facto government in Kabul to end women’s access to universities and ban them from working in NGOs.
Restrictions imposed by the Taliban on the education and work of girls and women “are unjustified violations of human rights and must be revoked,” Guterres said on Twitter.
The Secretary-General added that “actions to exclude and silence women and girls continue to cause enormous suffering and great setbacks for (…) the Afghan people.”
“No country can develop—even survive—socially and economically when half its population is excluded,” Mr. Turk said earlier in a press release released by his Geneva office.
The Taliban, who regained power in Kabul in August 2021 but whose de facto government is not recognized by any country in the world, within days banned women and girls from continuing their studies at universities and working in non-governmental organizations. governmental organizations, domestic and international.
Many NGOs are completely dependent on their female workers, they are unable to function without them.
On Monday, some six organizations announced they were suspending their activities in the Southeast Asian country, as the Taliban threatened to cancel their permits if they did not comply with the ban.
“The ban will significantly impair, if not completely destroy, the ability of these NGOs to provide essential services on which so many vulnerable Afghans depend,” warned the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. More than half of Afghanistan’s population—about 24 million people—depends in one way or another on humanitarian aid.
Martin Griffiths, the UN’s top humanitarian official, summed up addressing the SA that 97% of Afghans live in poverty, two-thirds of the population need help to simply survive, 20 million people in the country are hungry and 1.1 million adolescent girls cannot go to school.
The Security Council demanded that the doors of schools and universities be reopened to girls and women, while warning that banning women from working in NGOs would have a “huge and immediate impact on humanitarian operations in the country, including those of the UN”. .
Despite promises of more moderation this time around, the Taliban have now returned to enforcing the extreme interpretation of Islamic law that marked their first stint in power (1996-2001).
After they regained power, measures to restrict freedoms multiplied, especially at the expense of women, who were progressively excluded from public life and education.
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