JEDDAH: Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban were guilty of a “shocking level of oppression” of women and girls and human rights in the country were in a state of collapse, the UN rights chief said on Tuesday.
The Islamist Taliban regained power in August 2021 after a two-decade insurgency against the Western-backed government and have restricted the rights and freedoms of women and girls through bans on education and work.
“Human rights in Afghanistan are in a state of collapse, acutely affecting the lives of millions of women, men, girls and boys,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk told the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
“The shocking level of oppression of Afghan women and girls is immeasurably cruel,” he said.
Turk’s speech coincided with the publication of a UN report covering the period March 2022-August 2023 thatnotes a “systematic regression of the rule of law and human rights in Afghanistan, particularly with regard to the rights of women and girls.”
It documents offenses including 324 cases of violence against women and girls including murders — or so-called “honor killings” — beatings, and child marriages.
The report did not give a comparison with the pre-Taliban period under Western-backed President Ashraf Ghani, but such abuses have not been uncommon in Afghanistan's recent history.
It also said it had frequently documented instances of women being harassed or beaten at checkpoints by Taliban authorities for not wearing the hijab correctly, or sent home from the market for lacking a male guardian.
The 47-member Human Rights Council agreed in 2021 to appoint a UN independent expert to examine rights violations in Afghanistan, and the EU hopes to renew the mandate at the session in Geneva that continues until Oct. 13.
