UNITED NATIONS, Sept 24 (IPS) – Women in Afghanistan continue to stand up for their rights and are calling on the international community not only to show solidarity but also to take decisive action to prevent their rights and presence in public spaces from being eroded.
On Monday, the missions in New York of Qatar, Indonesia, Ireland and Switzerland, together with the Women’s Forum on Afghanistan, met for a high-level meeting to discuss the current situation of women’s rights.
Since August 2021, Taliban authorities have systematically rolled back the rights of women and girls, nearly erasing and erasing their ability to participate in Afghan society. Despite repeated calls from the international community to protect women’s rights, the Taliban have only doubled down. Their latest edicts of moral laws further restrict the activities of women and girls, by banning them from speaking or singing in public.
Asila Wardak of the Women’s Forum on Afghanistan told the meeting that women are systematically removed from public life.
“Afghanistan’s future cannot be built on the exclusion of half the population,” she said. “Women must be part of the solution, not be pushed aside.”
During the event, there were messages from prominent members of the international community expressing their solidarity with the women of Afghanistan.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the UN would continue its work to engage women and women-led groups in Afghanistan and ensure they have sufficient space to operate. He called on them to “play their full role, both within the borders and on the global stage.”
“Without educated women, without women in the workforce, including in leadership positions, and without recognition of the rights and freedoms of half the population, Afghanistan will never take the place it deserves on the world stage,” Guterres said.
Rosemary DiCarlo, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, reiterated Guterres’ support for protecting and amplifying the voices of Afghan women.
In her statement, she summarized the Doha process, which was intended to increase international engagement with Afghanistan and the Taliban. The Taliban were expected to make governance more inclusive and protect women’s rights, which would lead to the international community easing restrictions in Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, the reports about the morality laws threaten that process, especially since the Taliban have refused to meet with Afghan civil society in previous meetings.
DiCarlo added that the Taliban “must start living up to their international obligations, especially when it comes to women.”
On the panel, American actor Meryl Streep noted that Afghanistan gave women the right to vote in 1919, many years before countries like the United States and Switzerland did. Much has changed since then, she noted.
“Today, a cat in Kabul has more freedoms than a woman. A cat can sit on her stoop and feel the sun on her face. She can chase a squirrel into the park. A squirrel has more rights today than a girl in Afghanistan, because the public parks are closed to women and girls,” Streep said.
“The way this culture, this society, has been turned upside down is a cautionary tale for the rest of the world,” she warned. Streep went on to note that the Taliban’s numerous edicts on women “had effectively imprisoned half the population.”
The documentary follows the four female parliamentarians who took part in the 2020 peace talks between the international community and the Taliban, shortly after the United States withdrew its troops.
The feature highlighted the stakes for Afghanistan’s female leaders. It included scenes of parliamentarians listening to young women during consultations ahead of peace talks in Doha, Qatar, where the young women pleaded with the Taliban not to take actions that would curtail their rights and dignity. Speaking ahead of the peace talks, one of the women in the documentary said, “Peace is not a luxury. It’s a necessity.”
What the documentary made clear was that even the (limited) presence of female leaders and advocates during the negotiations apparently did not convince the Taliban to act in accordance with the demands of the international community.
Former Deputy Speaker of the Afghan Parliament Fawzia Koofi noted that the Taliban and the international community largely controlled the peace negotiations after the US withdrew from the country, leaving little room for the Afghan people or their elected government.
Habiba Sarabi, Afghanistan’s former Minister of Women’s Affairs, noted that the Taliban would only continue to push their agenda for what they saw as a “purely Islamic regime.” She warned that this was already affecting younger generations who were at risk of being brainwashed by Taliban-controlled religious schools.
Sarabi called on the international community to support the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and to implement UN Security Council resolution 1325 (2000), which calls for the protection of the rights of women and girls for peace and security.
Koofi also stressed that more pressure should be put on the Taliban, as this is “the only pressure the international community has.”
She called on the institutions and charters of international law to continue to stand in solidarity with the Afghan people and assure them that the “culture of impunity would end”.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
