For the United Nations Chief, Antonio Guterres, these decisions cause “important declines regarding the potential of the Afghan population”.
MO12345LEMONDE with AFP
“The latest Taliban restrictions on the employment and education of women and girls are unjustifiable human rights violations and must be canceled”, Writing on Twitter Tuesday, December 27, Antonio Gutteres, the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), about Kabul’s decision to suspend women’s access to university and forbid them to work in NGOs.
m. Guterres stressed that “acts aimed at excluding and silencing women and girls still cause immense suffering and significant declines about the potential of the Afghan population”.
Before Mr. Guterres, his High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk had enjoined the Taliban to lift these “unimaginable restrictions” and warned against “terrible consequences” for “all the Afghan people”. “No country can develop – or even survive – socially and economically if half of its population is excluded,” insisted Mr. Türk. And the fifteen members of the Security Council at the United Nations Headquarters in New York declared themselves “deeply alarmed” by this decision by the Taliban authorities
of NGOs have already suspended their activities
The Taliban, who took power in Kabul in August 2021 and whose authority is not recognized by most of the international community, have just prohibited a few days apart from women and girls to continue university studies and work in national or international NGOs. Many NGOs depend on their employees and will not be able to operate without them. On Monday, half a dozen NGOs suspended their activities on the spot, the Taliban having threatened to revoke the authorizations of organizations which would not respect the decree.
“The prohibition will compromise considerably, or even destroy, the capacity of these NGOs to provide the essential services on which so many vulnerable Afghans depend”, predicts the human rights head to the UN. More than half of the population – approximately 24 million people – depending on the manner or another on humanitarian aid.
For its part, the Security Council has called for the reopening of schools and university from women and judged that the ban on working in NGOs will have “a significant and immediate impact on humanitarian operations in the country, including for those of the UN “.
Despite their promises to be more flexible, the Taliban returned to an ultra-rigorist interpretation of Islam which had marked their first passage to power (1996-2001). Since their return to power, liberticide measures have multiplied in particular against women who have been gradually excluded from public life and excluded from colleges and high schools.