Afghanistan | UN calls for end to ‘unimaginable restrictions’ on women

(United Nations) UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday demanded that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan repeal its employment and education bans it has imposed on women, calling them “unjustifiable human rights violations.” “.

Before Mr. Guterres, his High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk had urged the Taliban to lift these “unimaginable restrictions” and warned of “terrible consequences” for “all the Afghan people”. And the 15 members of the Security Council at the United Nations headquarters in New York had declared themselves “deeply alarmed” by this decision by Kabul to suspend women’s access to universities and to prohibit them from working in NGOs.

“The latest restrictions by the Taliban on the employment and education of women and girls are unjustifiable human rights violations and must be reversed,” the UN Secretary General wrote on Twitter.

Mr. Guterres stressed that “acts aimed at excluding and silencing women and girls still cause immense suffering and setbacks in the potential of the Afghan population”.

“No country can develop – or even survive – socially and economically if half of its population is excluded,” Mr. Türk had previously insisted in a press release from Geneva.

The Taliban, who took power in Kabul in August 2021 and whose authority is not recognized by most of the international community, have just banned women and girls a few days apart from pursuing university studies and work in national or international NGOs.

Many NGOs depend on their female employees and will not be able to function without them.

On Monday, half a dozen NGOs suspended their activities there, the Taliban having threatened to revoke the authorizations of organizations that do not respect the decree.

“The ban will significantly undermine, if not destroy, the ability of these NGOs to provide essential services on which so many vulnerable Afghans depend,” predicts the UN human rights chief. More than half of the population — some 24 million people — depend in one way or another on humanitarian aid.

For its part, the Security Council called for the reopening of schools and universities to women and ruled that the ban on them working in NGOs will have “a significant and immediate impact on humanitarian operations in the country, including including those of the UN.

Despite their promises to be more flexible, the Taliban have returned to an ultra-rigorous interpretation of Islam that marked their first passage to power (1996-2001).

Since their return to power, liberticidal measures have multiplied, in particular against women who have been gradually excluded from public life and excluded from colleges and high schools.