Future of women and girls in Afghanistan ‘bleak’, warn UN experts

UN experts on Friday called on the international community yet again to restore the declining human rights situation in Afghanistan and warned that the future of the country is bleak for its women and girls. The UN experts urged the international community to significantly increase efforts to pressure the Taliban to uphold basic human rights principles as the position of women and virtual exclusion of these groups from society has become a pressing issue, Khaama Press reported.

“Arbitrary detention, summary executions, internal displacement, unlawful restrictions, extra-judicial killings, disappearances, torture, heightened risks of exploitation faced by women and girls” are among the human egregious human rights violations of the Taliban, according to the statement of the UN experts. With regards to freedom of the press, access to information has been restricted, which has stifled press freedom, said the UN experts.

The UN experts’ statement comes only days before the first anniversary of the Taliban’s installation to power on August 15, 2021, as insurgents-turned-politicians, Khaama Press reported. The statement also called on the Taliban to immediately open schools for girls and restore education for girls and women, and fulfil its obligations under the international human rights and humanitarian laws.

Moreover, the Taliban also rolled back women’s rights advances and media freedom revoking the efforts on gender equality and freedom of speech in the country. Over 45 per cent of journalists have quit since the terror outfit assumed power. Before the Taliban came to power, women and girls had progressively had their rights to fully participate in education, the workplace and other aspects of public and daily life. It has been a year since the Taliban deprived Afghan women of education, work and public life.

The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has drawn heavy criticism across the world for a decree banning girls from schools above grade six. It has been over 300 days since girls’ schools have been closed. Since seizing control of Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban has been the country’s de facto authorities. Despite initial public commitments to uphold the rights of women and girls, the Taliban introduced policies of systematic discrimination that violate their rights.

Women and girls across Afghanistan reacted to this crackdown with a wave of protests. (ANI)

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