On the anniversary of the takeover of Afghanistan by the militant Islamist Taliban, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Thursday condemned the group’s crimes against women in Afghanistan as the “worst systematic human rights violations in the world.”
“Three years ago, people in Afghanistan, especially women and girls, were torn from their lives,” Baerbock said in a statement released by the State Department.
Since then, the Taliban have been destroying the hope for a better life for millions of Afghan women and girls every day, she said, three years after the militants seized power.
“Half of the country is no longer allowed to do normal life: work, go to the hospital or a restaurant alone, sing, show up on the street, go to school as a teenager, be a woman,” she said.
The lives of women and girls in Afghanistan are like being under “house arrest.” Under the current circumstances, it is not possible for Afghanistan to return to the international community, Baerbock said.
On August 15, 2021, the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan after Western troops withdrew from the country. Since then, they have drastically curtailed the rights of women and girls, including banning women from all universities.
According to the United Nations, Afghanistan is the only country in the world that denies women and girls over the age of 12 access to education.
