UN: Taliban Aiming To Exclude Women From Public Life

A group of 36 UN human rights experts has said that Taliban leaders in Afghanistan are institutionalizing large-scale, systematic gender-based discrimination. The Taliban is aiming to exclude women from public life.

Read: violence against women and girls

“We are concerned about the continuous and systematic efforts to exclude women from the social, economic, and political spheres across the country,” the experts said in a statement on Monday.

“These concerns are exacerbated in the cases of women from ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities such as the Hazara, Tajik, Hindu, and other communities whose differences or visibility make them even more vulnerable in Afghanistan.”

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The Taliban took over the country in August. Since then, the Taliban has imposed a number of restrictions on women and girls. Many women have been denied the opportunity to return to work. Taxi drivers prohibited from picking up female passengers who are not wearing a certain type of hijab. If a woman leaves the house without a male relative, she is liable to penalties. In other words, the Taliban’s on the road to excluding women and girls from public life completely.

The Taliban Denied Access To Education To Girls

According to the experts, the vast majority of girls’ secondary schools remain closed. Most girls who should be in grades 7-12 denied access to school purely because of their gender. Child trafficking and forced marriages are on the rise.

Disbanding specialised courts and prosecution units responsible for enforcing the 2009 Law on the Elimination of Violence Against Women is another way to destroy mechanisms created to respond to gender-based violence.

The Ministry of Women’s Affairs, the Independent Human Rights Commission, and women’s shelters established to assist and protect vulnerable women and girls closed or physically occupied.

For the past five months, Afghan women and girls are protesting against the measures, demanding their rights to education, work, and independence.

The experts reaffirmed their plea for the international community to provide urgently needed humanitarian aid to the Afghan people. To recognise their right to recovery and development.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

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