GENEVA: The Taliban have waged a systematic assault on the freedom of Afghanistan’s people, including girls and women experiencing immeasurably cruel oppression, the United Nations (UN) human rights chief said on Tuesday.
Volker Turk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that human rights have been in a state of collapse in Afghanistan for more than two years after the Taliban seized power and stripped back institutional protections at all levels. He urged UN member countries to help fill the void.
Turk said during a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that the shocking level of oppression of Afghan girls and women is immeasurably cruel. Afghanistan has set a devastating precedent as the only nation in the world where women and girls are denied access to secondary and higher education.
The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan on 15 August 2021, as US and NATO forces withdrew from the country after more than two decades of war. They initially pledged a more moderate approach than during they during their previous regime from 1996 to 2001 but gradually reimposed their harsh interpretation of Sharia or Islamic law.
Along with excluding girls from education beyond 6th grade, most forms of employment and many public spaces, the Taliban have harassed or beaten females at checkpoints for failing to wear a hijab, or headscarf, according to a report Turk presented to the Human Rights Council. They have ordered females to return home from markets for shopping without a male guardian.
Taliban Bans Women’s Employment
With female judges and lawyers banned from working or practicing law, girls and women have less ability to get legal representation and access to justice, the report said.
The Taliban edicts have prompted international anger. But officials, including the supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, have told other nations to stop interfering in the internal affairs of Afghanistan.
