US calls for an immediate end to Taliban violations of Afghan women’s rights

Washington — Editor's note: this story was translated from the original VOA Pashto article.

The United States says the Taliban’s violations of Afghan women’s rights are “unacceptable” and must stop immediately.

Speaking Tuesday during the annual open debate on women, peace and security at the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Deputy Representative to the United Nations Tammy Bruce said, “Over the past five years, the Taliban have systematically reversed decades of hard-won progress on women’s participation in peace and security... These practices are unacceptable and must cease immediately.”

Bruce went on to say that the Taliban have continued to bar women from education, training and employment.

After returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban rolled back two decades of progress made by Afghan women.

The group imposed repressive restrictions on women, barring them from secondary and university education, working in government agencies and non-government organizations, going to public parks, beauty salons and gyms, and traveling long distances without a close male relative.

Human Rights Watch in August reported that the Taliban’s ‘draconian’ policies made Afghanistan “one of the world’s gravest human rights crises, particularly for women and girls.”

The group has issued more than 100 decrees that curb women’s and girls’ rights and freedoms, including their right to get an education.

Tamana Zaryab Paryani, Afghan human rights activist, told the U.N. Security Council that the international community has failed Afghan women.

“Every day that passes, another generation of women and girls loses opportunities, dreams and futures. This is not only Afghanistan's crisis. Violations do not stop at borders. They spread when they are tolerated. They grew when they are ignored,” she said.

The Taliban have not changed their position on girls’ education and women’s rights despite the international pressure on the group.

Kate Foster, UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the U.N., said that women’s rights should be central to Afghanistan’s future.

“Peace cannot be sustainable while half the population is shut out of shaping it,” she added.

Zainab Razai, an Afghan women’s rights activist, told VOA that the international community should take concrete steps to end the violations of women’s rights in Afghanistan.

She said that the international community should “put more diplomatic pressure on the Taliban and support women in their efforts to secure their rights, reopen schools and universities to women and protect their freedoms.”

“Peace without women’s participation is no real peace,” Razai added.