Women and girls are bearing the brunt of an ongoing "dangerous erosion" of human rights in Afghanistan, the United Nations reported Tuesday, attributing the crisis to a deliberate failure by the country's radical Taliban. Since regaining control of Afghanistan in August 2021, Taliban leaders have systematically deprived women and girls of their basic rights, including the right to education, work, and freedoms of movement and expression, as well as the right to live free from violence.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) urges the Taliban de facto authorities to embrace global human rights obligations as key to the protection and prosperity of current and future generations of women, men, girls and boys across the country.
The appeal comes as millions of Afghans continue to struggle in one of the world's largest, most neglected and complex humanitarian crises. The United Nations estimates that 22.9 million people - including 12.3 million children - will need humanitarian assistance and protection in 2025.
“With authority comes responsibility,” said Roza Otunbayeva, the head of UNAMA, referring to the return of the formerly insurgent Taliban to power in August 2021.
“The claim of the de facto authorities to be legitimate representatives of the Afghan people within the United Nations must be accompanied by genuine efforts to uphold and advance our shared norms and values,” she said.
The UNAMA statement, issued in connection with today's International Human Rights Day, noted that the Taliban's human rights record was particularly marked by its "systematic discrimination" against Afghan women and girls.
Otunbayeva said that despite improvements in security and a reduction in armed violence, there has been an ongoing, dangerous erosion of human rights protections, "with women and girls bearing the brunt."
The Taliban government, which is not yet officially recognized by any country, has excluded Afghan women from almost all aspects of daily and public life. Girls are banned from education beyond the sixth grade, and most workplaces are prohibited from hiring women, except in a few sectors such as health, police, and immigration. Women cannot travel by road or air unless accompanied by a male guardian.
The restrictions stem from dozens of decrees issued over the past three years by the Taliban's reclusive supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, based on his strict interpretation of Islamic law, known as Sharia.
Tuesday's statement reminded the Taliban that Afghanistan had endorsed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948.
“If Afghans, in particular women and girls, continue to be denied their rights, this constitutes a clear and intentional failure to protect and be responsible for the well-being of all who live in Afghanistan,” said Fiona Frazer, the country representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The Taliban, who call themselves the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, seized the Afghan capital Kabul on August 15, 2021, after successively capturing several provincial capitals and territories in early August that year, as US-led international forces withdrew from the country after nearly 20 years of involvement in the Afghan war.
Taliban leaders have ignored repeated UN-led international calls for them to reverse their sweeping restrictions on women, saying their rule is in line with Sharia law. The UN has repeatedly rejected requests by Afghanistan's de facto authorities to represent the country because of their restrictions on women.
Earlier this month, the Afghan Ministry of Public Health abruptly ordered medical institutions across the country to stop enrolling female students, citing a new edict issued by Akhundzada. The move effectively shut down one of the last available avenues for girls to pursue higher education.
The edict has sparked a global backlash and calls for its immediate reversal, amid warnings that it would leave millions of women without nurses and midwives in a country where the Taliban have banned male doctors from treating female patients.
On Monday, a group of UN human rights experts expressed alarm at the Taliban's latest move to tighten an already draconian ban on education for women and girls in Afghanistan.
“If implemented, the reported new ban will be yet another inexplicable, totally unjustifiable blow to the health, dignity, and futures of Afghan women and girls. It will constitute yet another direct assault on the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan,” the experts said.
“It will undoubtedly lead to unnecessary suffering, illness, and possibly deaths of Afghan women and children, now and in future generations, which could amount to femicide.”
The experts warned that maternal and child health in Afghanistan is already in crisis, with high rates of maternal and infant mortality. If implemented, the ban would exacerbate this crisis, with profound and long-lasting consequences.
The UN has previously warned that the latest ban would exacerbate the deepening humanitarian crisis and health challenges facing poverty-stricken Afghanistan, which is reeling from years of war and natural disasters. The world body says laws and regulations implemented by the de facto authorities are complicating - but not yet completely preventing - the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Restrictions by the de facto authorities - including the December 2022 and April 2023 directives banning Afghan women from working for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and UN agencies - continue to hamper aid operations throughout the country and limit women's and girls' access to humanitarian assistance.
According to the UN, restrictive policies on women's rights, freedom of movement and participation in humanitarian activities continue to pose major challenges, including increased exposure to gender-based violence (GBV).
More than three years after the fall of Kabul, Afghanistan remains in the grip of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. The cumulative effects of violent conflict and internal displacement have dramatically increased humanitarian needs throughout Afghanistan.
Prone to natural disasters such as drought, floods and earthquakes, Afghanistan regularly suffers from extreme weather events and environmental disasters. Seasonal and climate-related shocks further exacerbate humanitarian needs across Afghanistan, compounding already precarious living conditions.
At least 27 percent of Afghans continue to suffer from hunger. According to the IPC's latest food security analysis, more than 12.4 million people in Afghanistan faced acute hunger between May 2024 and October 2024, including nearly 2.37 million people at emergency levels of food insecurity.
This includes approximately 6.5 million children who will experience crisis or emergency levels of hunger this year. In 2024, an estimated 2.9 million children under the age of five are projected to be acutely malnourished.
Some information for this report provided by VOA.
Further information
Full text: UNAMA urges de facto authorities to embrace global human rights obligations, UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, press release, published December 10, 2024
https://unama.unmissions.org/unama-urges-de-facto-authorities-embrace-global-human-rights-obligations
Full text: Afghanistan: UN experts reject ‘totally unjustifiable’ ban on medical training for women, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, press release, published December 9, 2024
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/12/afghanistan-un-experts-reject-totally-unjustifiable-ban-medical-training