Rights group call for urgent debate on women's rights crisis in Afghanistan
Jun 01, 2022
Kabul [Afghanistan], June 1 : The world's worst women's rights crisis demands an urgent and proportionate response from the UN Human Rights Council, urged a coalition of 25 leading NGOs from all world regions on Wednesday.
Taliban has imposed draconian restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly and movement for women and girls.
As a result of this, women and girls in Afghanistan are facing a human rights crisis, deprived of the fundamental rights to non-discrimination, education, work, public participation and health.
In an open letter to Permanent Representatives of Member and Observer States to the UN Human Rights Council, the NGOs called for and support an urgent debate at the 50th session of the UN Human Rights Council regarding the women's rights crisis in Afghanistan.
"We further urge you to support a resolution responding to this crisis," read a letter which included signatures from Afghan Women's Educational Center, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
Since August 2021, when the Taliban took control of the country, there has been an enormous deterioration in the recognition and protection of the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan, including with respect to the rights to non-discrimination, education, work, public participation, health, and sexual and reproductive health.
The Taliban has also imposed sweeping restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly and movement for women and girls. Afghanistan is now the only country in the world to expressly prohibit girls' education.
In the last few weeks, the situation has worsened dramatically, with a Taliban directive that women and girls must fully cover themselves in public, including their faces, and leave home only in cases of necessity.
International investigations, witness testimony and video evidence indicate that women human rights defenders and others protesting against the restrictions and violations have been subject to home invasions, threats, abductions, enforced disappearances, and assaults with electric devices and chemical sprays.
According to rights groups, this is the most serious women's rights crisis in the world today, and the most serious women's rights crisis since the Taliban took over Afghanistan the last time in 1996.
