UNITED NATIONS: The UN envoy in Afghanistan warned on Wednesday that a Taliban administration crackdown on women’s rights is likely to lead to a drop in aid and development funding in the country, where women fear being cut from public life as much as violent death.
The United Nations has made its single-largest country aid appeal ever, asking for $4.6 billion in 2023 to deliver help in Afghanistan, where two-thirds of the population — some 28 million people — need it to survive, said Roza Otunbayeva.
But she told the UN Security Council that providing that assistance had been put at risk by Taliban administration bans on women attending high school and university, visiting parks and working for aid groups. Women are also not allowed to leave the home without a male relative and must cover their faces.
“Funding for Afghanistan is likely to drop if women were not allowed to work,” Otunbayeva said. “If the amount of assistance is reduced, then the amount of US dollar cash shipments required to support that assistance will also decline.”
She said discussions about providing more development-style help for things like small infrastructure projects or policies to combat effects of climate change had halted over the bans.
The United States was the largest donor to the 2022 UN aid plan in Afghanistan, giving more than $1 billion. When asked about possible cuts, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Washington was looking at implications of the bans on aid deliveries and consulting closely with the United Nations.
Price said the United States wanted to make sure “the Taliban is under no illusions that they can have it both ways — that they can fail to fulfill the commitments that they’ve made to the people of Afghanistan ... and not face consequences from the international community.”
The Taliban administration, which seized power in August 2021 as US-led forces withdrew from Afghanistan after 20 years of war, says it respects women’s rights in accordance with its strict interpretation of Islamic law.
“They systematically deprive women and girls of their fundamental human rights,” United Arab Emirates UN Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh said. “These decisions have nothing to do with Islam or Afghan culture and risk further entrenching the country’s international isolation.”
Otunbayeva said that while some Afghan women initially said they welcomed the Taliban coming to power because it ended the war, they quickly began to lose hope.
“They say their elimination from public life is no better than fearing violent death,” Otunbayeva told the Security Council meeting on Afghanistan, which coincided with International Women’s Day.
“Afghanistan under the Taliban remains the most repressive country in the world regarding women’s rights,” she said. “It is difficult to understand how any government worthy of the name can govern against the needs of half of its population.”
UN warns of aid cuts over Taliban crackdown on women’s rights
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UN warns of aid cuts over Taliban crackdown on women’s rights
- Roza Otunbayeva, UN envoy in Afghanistan, says funding for the Taliban-ruled nation is likely to drop if women were not allowed to work
- “Afghanistan under the Taliban remains the most repressive country in the world regarding women’s rights,” she told the UN Security Council
Venezuela’s acting president calls for oil industry reforms to attract more foreign investment
- In her speech, Rodríguez said money earned from foreign oil sales would go into two funds: one dedicated to social services for workers and the public health care system, and another to economic development and infrastructure projects
CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodriguez used her first state of the union address on Thursday to promote oil industry reforms that would attract foreign investment, an objective aggressively pushed by the Trump administration since it toppled the country’s longtime leader less than two weeks ago.
Rodríguez, who has been under pressure from the US to fall in line with its vision for the oil-rich nation, said sales of Venezuelan oil would go to bolster crisis-stricken health services, economic development and other infrastructure projects.
While she sharply criticized the Trump administration and said there was a “stain on our relations,” the former vice president also outlined a distinct vision for the future between the two historic adversaries, straying from her predecessors, who have long railed against American intervention in Venezuela.
“Let us not be afraid of diplomacy” with the US, said Rodriguez, who must now navigate competing pressures from the Trump administration and a government loyal to former President Nicolás Maduro.
The speech, which was broadcast on a delay in Venezuela, came one day after Rodríguez said her government would continue releasing prisoners detained under Maduro in what she described as “a new political moment” since his ouster.
Trump on Thursday met at the White House with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, whose political party is widely considered to have won 2024 elections rejected by Maduro. But in endorsing Rodríguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president since 2018, Trump has sidelined Machado.
In her speech, Rodríguez said money earned from foreign oil sales would go into two funds: one dedicated to social services for workers and the public health care system, and another to economic development and infrastructure projects.
Hospitals and other health care facilities across the country have long suffered. Patients are asked to provide practically all supplies needed for their care, from syringes to surgical screws. Economic turmoil, among other factors, has pushed millions of Venezuelans to migrate from the South American nation in recent years.
In moving forward, the acting president must walk a tightrope, balancing pressures from both Washington and top Venezuelan officials who hold sway over Venezuela’s security forces and strongly oppose the US Her recent public speeches reflect those tensions — vacillating from conciliatory calls for cooperation with the US, to defiant rants echoing the anti-imperialist rhetoric of her toppled predecessor.
American authorities have long railed against a government they describe as a “dictatorship,” while Venezuela’s government has built a powerful populist ethos sharply opposed to US meddling in its affairs.
For the foreseeable future, Rodríguez’s government has been effectively relieved of having to hold elections. That’s because when Venezuela’s high court granted Rodríguez presidential powers on an acting basis, it cited a provision of the constitution that allows the vice president to take over for a renewable period of 90 days.
Trump enlisted Rodríguez to help secure US control over Venezuela’s oil sales despite sanctioning her for human rights violations during his first term. To ensure she does his bidding, Trump threatened Rodríguez earlier this month with a “situation probably worse than Maduro.”
Maduro, who is being held in a Brooklyn jail, has pleaded not guilty to drug-trafficking charges.
Before Rodríguez’s speech on Thursday, a group of government supporters was allowed into the presidential palace, where they chanted for Maduro, who the government insists remains the country’s president. “Maduro, resist, the people are rising,” they shouted.
