Dear Excellencies,
Three years ago, the extremist and misogynistic Taliban group took control of Afghanistan as a result of dubious internal and external interactions. After gaining complete control of the country, the Taliban has continuously deprived Afghanistan’s women of their fundamental rights.
Women have lost their rights to work, education, freedom of speech, political participation, social participation, peaceful assembly, and travel without a male family member through dozens of decrees, ultimately establishing a gender-based apartheid regime in Afghanistan. Currently, more than half of the population — Afghanistan’s women — is deprived of basic human rights because of their gender.
Over the past three years, hundreds of women have been arrested, detained, tortured, and even killed for raising their voices or protesting the Taliban’s restrictions and violations of their rights. More than 450,000 women, who were employees of the government, NGOs, and private sectors, have lost their jobs. Most were the primary breadwinners for their families. The closure of women’s beauty salons alone has left over 60,000 women unemployed.
In the past three years, 1.5 million girls have been denied education beyond the sixth grade, and 115,000 female students have been barred from accessing universities. The denial of women’s fundamental rights has not only exacerbated poverty but has also led to severe social dysfunctions, including increased domestic violence, rising suicide rates among women and girls, the prevalence of forced and early marriages, unprecedented mental health problems, and lack of access to healthcare and justice due to Taliban restrictions.
Additionally, Taliban rule is characterized by ethnic, linguistic, and religious discrimination. The Taliban has arrested and tortured citizens based on their ethnicity, language, and locality, resulting in over 8.2 million individuals becoming refugees outside Afghanistan due to fear of torture, detention, security threats, and poverty.
Over these three years, the international community and the United Nations have irresponsibly observed the situation unfold and, in some cases, have only issued statements, leaving the people of Afghanistan, especially women, to suffer under the Taliban’s regime of gender apartheid.
Therefore, we urge the international community to consider the following recommendations:
We call on all member states to support the process of codifying “gender apartheid” as a crime against humanity in international law.
All UN member states and the international community should not make any decisions about Afghanistan without the participation of women. Women should be at the center of all talks!
We call on the international community to provide humanitarian visas to Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) who are unable to relocate but face immediate threats in Afghanistan. Additionally, UN agencies and human rights organizations should coordinate with neighboring and regional countries to facilitate visa extensions and protect WHRDs in those countries.
International organizations and donors must provide online education opportunities for Afghanistan’s girls to mitigate the negative impact of the ban on women’s education. The international community can also support women to continue their studies abroad by providing them with fellowships and scholarships.
All United Nations agencies and international organizations in Afghanistan should emphasize reversing all the edicts issued since August 2021 that have deprived women of their rights.