Taliban must ‘swiftly reverse’ crackdown on women’s rights: UN
The Security Council unanimously agrees to condemn a ban on Afghan women from working for the UN, the latest move to restrict the lives of women and girls.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has unanimously condemned a Taliban ban on Afghan women working for the United Nations in Afghanistan, calling on Taliban leaders to “quickly reverse” the crackdown on the rights of women and girls to make”.
The resolution – drafted by the United Arab Emirates and Japan – describes the ban as “unprecedented in the history of the United Nations” and says it “undermines human rights and humanitarian principles”. The resolution also states “the indispensable role of women in Afghan society”.
The UAE’s ambassador to the UN, Lana Nusseibeh, said more than 90 countries co-supported the resolution – “from the immediate vicinity of Afghanistan, from the Muslim world and from all corners of the world”.
“This … support makes our fundamental message even more important today – the world will not sit still as women in Afghanistan are erased from society,” she told the UN Security Council.
The UN Security Council vote came days before a scheduled international meeting on Afghanistan, in Doha on May 1-2. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will convene special envoys to Afghanistan from various countries behind closed doors to work on a unified approach to the Taliban.
“We do not support the Taliban’s repression of women and girls,” Robert Wood, the United States’ vice ambassador to the UN, told the UN Security Council. “These decisions are indefensible. They are not found anywhere else in the world.”
“The Taliban’s edicts are causing irreparable damage in Afghanistan.”
Earlier this month, the Taliban began enforcing a ban on Afghan women from working for the UN after stopping most women from working for humanitarian aid agencies in December. Since the overthrow of the Western-backed government in 2021, the group has also tightened controls on women’s access to public life, including banning women from college and closing high schools for girls.
The Taliban says it respects women’s rights in accordance with their strict interpretation of Islamic law and that decisions about women aid workers were an “internal matter”.
The Security Council resolution also recognizes the need to address the substantive challenges facing the Afghan economy, including by using Afghan Central Bank assets for the benefit of the Afghan people.
Washington froze billions of the bank’s reserves in the US and later transferred half of the money to a trust fund in Switzerland overseen by US, Swiss and Afghan trustees.
“What we have seen so far is that only assets have been transferred from one account to another, but not a penny has been returned to the Afghan people,” China’s deputy UN ambassador Geng Shuang told reporters. UN Security Council.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, also called for the assets of the Afghan Central Bank to be returned.