ZURICH: The United Nations human rights chief urged the Taliban authorities on Friday to respect the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan, which she said were facing the biggest erosion in decades.
Women face hunger, domestic violence, unemployment, curbs on movement and dress, and lack of access to education in a country where secondary schooling for 1.2 million girls has stopped, Michelle Bachelet told a UN Human Rights Council debate in Geneva.
“While some of these concerns pre-date the Taliban take-over in August 2021, reforms at that time were moving in the right direction, there were improvements and hope,” she said.
“However, since the Taliban took power, women and girls are experiencing the most significant and rapid roll-back in enjoyment of their rights across the board in decades. Their future will be even darker, unless something changes, quickly.”
The Taliban seized power for a second time in Afghanistan last August as international forces who had backed a pro-Western government pulled out. Their taking of the capital Kabul marked the end of a 20-year war stemming from a US invasion that toppled a previous Taliban government.
Bachelet said authorities she met during a visit to Kabul in March said they would honor their human rights obligations as far as they were consistent with Islamic sharia law. She decried the progressive exclusion of women and girls from the public sphere.
She urged the Taliban to set a firm date to reopen schools for girls and remove restrictions on women’s movement and attire.
Governors in some regions were applying policies in ways that provide options for women and girls, she said, offering a window to expand women’s role in society and economic life.
Richard Bennett, special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, criticized forced and child marriage and curbs on attire, movement and employment.
“Despite public assurances from the Taliban that they would respect women’s and girls’ rights, they are reinstituting step by step the discrimination against women and girls’ characteristic of their previous term and which is unparalleled globally in its misogyny and oppression,” he told the debate.
When Bennett visited Afghanistan in May, the Taliban deputy spokesman denied human rights concerns.
UN rights chief urges Taliban to respect women’s rights
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UN rights chief urges Taliban to respect women’s rights
- Women face hunger, domestic violence, unemployment, curbs on movement and dress, and lack of access to education
- “Their future will be even darker, unless something changes, quickly," said the UN human rights chief
Tanzania president remorseful over Internet shutdown on election day
- President Samia Suluhu Hassan on Thursday expressed “sympathy” to diplomats and foreign nationals living in the country
- Violence broke out on election day and went on for days as the Internet was shut down
DODOMA, Tanzania: Tanzania’s president has, for the first time since the disputed October election, commented on a six-day Internet shutdown as the country went through its worst postelection violence.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan on Thursday expressed “sympathy” to diplomats and foreign nationals living in the country, saying the government would strive to ensure there is never a repeat of the same.
Hassan won the October election with more than 97 percent of the vote after candidates from the two main opposition parties were barred from running and the country’s main opposition leader remained in prison facing treason charges.
Violence broke out on election day and went on for days as the Internet was shut down amid a heavy police crackdown that left hundreds of people dead, according to rights groups.
Hassan blamed the violence on foreigners and pardoned hundreds of young people who had been arrested, saying they were acting under peer pressure.
Speaking to ambassadors, high commissioners and representatives of international organizations on Thursday in the capital, Dodoma, she sought to reassure envoys of their safety, saying the government would remain vigilant to prevent a repeat of the disruption.
“To our partners in the diplomatic community and foreigners residing here in Tanzania, I express my sincere sympathy for the uncertainty, service restrictions and Internet shutdowns you experienced,” she said.
Hassan defended her administration, saying the measures were taken to preserve constitutional order and protect citizens.
“I assure you that we will remain vigilant to ensure your safety and prevent any recurrence of such experiences,” the president told diplomats on Thursday.
Tanzania has, since the October elections, established a commission of inquiry to look into the violence that left hundreds dead and property worth millions of shillings destroyed in a country that has enjoyed relative calm for decades.
Foreign observers said the election failed to meet democratic standards because key opposition figures were barred.
