25/06/2023
Permanent Mission of Afghanistan to UNOG
53rd Session of the Human Rights Council
Enhanced Interactive Dialogue on Afghanistan
(With SR and WG on discrimination against women and girls)
19 June 2023
Thank you, Mr. President,
We welcome the joint report and appreciate the efforts made by the Special Rapporteur and the Working Group. For Taliban’s leadership, it appears their war against the women of Afghanistan and to the extension against the women rights normative frameworks is coming to a victorious conclusion in less than two years since the military takeover of the country.
At local level, with heavy-handed tactics the Taliban violently supressed Afghanistan’s women protester.
At the global level, the latest edict banning women from working in the UN and NGO’s and a recent directive to stop any NGOs from offering education to out-of-school children, has sat a new record. UN-SRSG for Afghanistan acknowledged the fact I quote “in the history of the United Nations, no other regime has ever tried to ban women from working for the Organization just because they are women. This decision represents an assault against women, the fundamental principles of the UN, and international law.”
Mr. President,
However, this is not only about Afghanistan, not a local challenge.
The Taliban are openly challenging the very fundamentals of the international normative system which was built over the past 75 years through dedicated work of the UN member states, including the state of Afghanistan as one of the earliest members, and the civil society organizations around the word.
A series of other incredibly shocking reports on the situation of human rights, fundamental liberties indicates that the Taliban are pushing a country already on brink further into a deep abyss.
Mr. President
I want to repeat, this challenge is not only about Afghanistan, neither about Islam,
Afghan women attained the right to education and suffrage in the early 20th century. 1919 and 1927. While years of conflict, impede the progress of women’s rights, majority of incumbent governments remained committed to protection of the basic rights.
In the last two decades women achieved greater access to education, employment, and participation in social, political and economic affairs of the state and society. Over 3 million girls were going to school and universities. Women, were serving as ministers, judges, members of the parliament, senior civil servants and governors.
Mr. President
Afghanistan’s exhausted civil society continue to improvise and resist. On a rare positive note, the struggle for protection of fundamental rights under immense pressure has moulded the Afghan women groups into a strong, resilient and historically unique women solidarity movement. Although women’s activist and human rights defenders were accused of connection with the West and promoting western values, their struggle remains a manifestation of desire for protecting their basic rights and dignity as equal human beings.
On the international level, despite competing demands, the efforts for protection of human rights, prevention of further atrocities and establishment of an accountability mechanism is ongoing.
The action however falls way short of addressing the challenges and expectations.
Given depth and breadth of the practical and normative challenge the Taliban rule imposes, majority of the discussions are narrow and often cosmetic.
As the world prepares to celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) a landmark achievement in the human history, a violent extremist group which taken-over strategically located mid-sized, UN member state—the group entirely discards the fundamental principles of the UN Charter, the UDHR and almost all other major international treaties and conventions.
Mr. President
The challenges are indeed unprecedented; discussions and solutions need to move beyond routine and rhetoric. Going forward we recommend.
1- The mandate of Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan could be strengthened encompassing an investigative mechanism, to monitor and regularly report, investigate and collect evidence of, human rights violations and abuses
2- The situation of human rights in Afghanistan should be highlighted at summit level at the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the UDHR
3- Efforts toward real and sustainable solution that is establishment of an inclusive and representative government in Afghanistan should be redoubled.
Mr. President, I thank you.
