Afghanistan: Some Taliban open to women's rights talks - top UN official
Lyse Doucet - Chief international correspondent, Kabul
Sat, January 21, 2023
Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed
A top UN official believes progress is being made towards reversing bans on women taking part in public life in Afghanistan.
Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed has been in Kabul for a four-day visit to urge the Taliban to reconsider.
Last month, the country's Islamist rulers banned all women from working for non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
The move caused several aid agencies to suspend operations.
Speaking to the BBC at the end of her trip, Ms Mohammed said most senior Taliban officials she met had been ready to engage over the rights of girls and women.
However, she described the talks as tough and cautioned that it would be a very long journey before the leadership took the fundamental steps required for international recognition of their rule.
"I think there are many voices we heard, which are progressive in the way that we would like to go," Ms Mohammed said. "But there are others that really are not."
"I think the pressure we put in the support we give to those that are thinking more progressively is a good thing. So this visit, I think, gives them more voice and pressure to help the argument internally."
Ms Mohammed also criticised the international community, including other Islamic states, for not doing enough to engage on the issue.
Since seizing back control of the country last year, the Taliban has steadily restricted women's rights - despite promising its rule would be softer than the regime seen in the 1990s.
As well as the ban on female university students - now being enforced by armed guards - secondary schools for girls remain closed in most provinces.
Women have also been prevented from entering parks and gyms, among other public places.
It justified the move to ban Afghan women from working for NGOs by claiming female staff had broken dress codes by not wearing hijabs.
Ms Mohammed's comments come as Afghanistan suffers its harshest winter in many years.
The Taliban leadership blames sanctions and the refusal of the international community to recognise their rule for the country's deepening crisis.
Ms Mohammed said her message to Afghanistan's rulers was that they must first demonstrate their commitment to internationally recognised norms and that humanitarian aid cannot be provided if Afghan women are not allowed to help.
"They're discriminating against women there. for want of a better word, they become invisible, they're waiting them out, and that can't happen," she said.
But she said the Taliban's stance was that the UN and aid organisations were "politicising humanitarian aid".
"They believe that... the law applies to anyone anywhere and their sovereign rights should be respected," she said.
The Taliban health ministry has clarified that women can work in the health sector, where female doctors and nurses are essential, but Ms Mohammed said this was not enough.
"There are many other services that we didn't get to do with access to food and other livelihood items that that will allow us to see millions of women and their families survive a harsh winter, be part of growth and prosperity, peace," she said.
This visit by the most senior woman at the UN also sends a message that women can and should play roles at all levels of society.
Lyse Doucet - Chief international correspondent, Kabul
Sat, January 21, 2023
Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed
A top UN official believes progress is being made towards reversing bans on women taking part in public life in Afghanistan.
Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed has been in Kabul for a four-day visit to urge the Taliban to reconsider.
Last month, the country's Islamist rulers banned all women from working for non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
The move caused several aid agencies to suspend operations.
Speaking to the BBC at the end of her trip, Ms Mohammed said most senior Taliban officials she met had been ready to engage over the rights of girls and women.
However, she described the talks as tough and cautioned that it would be a very long journey before the leadership took the fundamental steps required for international recognition of their rule.
"I think there are many voices we heard, which are progressive in the way that we would like to go," Ms Mohammed said. "But there are others that really are not."
"I think the pressure we put in the support we give to those that are thinking more progressively is a good thing. So this visit, I think, gives them more voice and pressure to help the argument internally."
Ms Mohammed also criticised the international community, including other Islamic states, for not doing enough to engage on the issue.
Since seizing back control of the country last year, the Taliban has steadily restricted women's rights - despite promising its rule would be softer than the regime seen in the 1990s.
As well as the ban on female university students - now being enforced by armed guards - secondary schools for girls remain closed in most provinces.
Women have also been prevented from entering parks and gyms, among other public places.
It justified the move to ban Afghan women from working for NGOs by claiming female staff had broken dress codes by not wearing hijabs.
Ms Mohammed's comments come as Afghanistan suffers its harshest winter in many years.
The Taliban leadership blames sanctions and the refusal of the international community to recognise their rule for the country's deepening crisis.
Ms Mohammed said her message to Afghanistan's rulers was that they must first demonstrate their commitment to internationally recognised norms and that humanitarian aid cannot be provided if Afghan women are not allowed to help.
"They're discriminating against women there. for want of a better word, they become invisible, they're waiting them out, and that can't happen," she said.
But she said the Taliban's stance was that the UN and aid organisations were "politicising humanitarian aid".
"They believe that... the law applies to anyone anywhere and their sovereign rights should be respected," she said.
The Taliban health ministry has clarified that women can work in the health sector, where female doctors and nurses are essential, but Ms Mohammed said this was not enough.
"There are many other services that we didn't get to do with access to food and other livelihood items that that will allow us to see millions of women and their families survive a harsh winter, be part of growth and prosperity, peace," she said.
This visit by the most senior woman at the UN also sends a message that women can and should play roles at all levels of society.
A Save the Children nutrition counsellor, right, explains to Nelab, 22, how to feed her 11-month-old daughter, Parsto, with therapeutic food, which is used to treat severe acute malnutrition, in Sar-e-Pul province of Afghanistan, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022.
(Save the Children via AP, File)
Fri, January 20, 2023
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A delegation led by the highest-ranking woman at the United Nations urged the Taliban during a four-day visit to Afghanistan that ended Friday to reverse their crackdown on women and girls. Some Taliban officials were more open to restoring women’s rights but others were clearly opposed, a U.N. spokesman said.
The U.N. team met with the Taliban in the capital of Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar. It did not release the names of any of the Taliban officials. The meetings focused on the restrictive measures the Taliban have imposed on women and girls since they took power in August 2021, during the final weeks of the U.S. and NATO forces' pullout after 20 years of war.
The team, headed by U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, found that some Taliban officials “have been cooperative and they’ve received some signs of progress,” said U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq. “The key thing is to reconcile the (Taliban) officials that they’ve met who’ve been more helpful with those who have not.”
Haq stressed that “there are many different points of authority” among the Taliban and that the U.N. team will try to get them to “work together to advance the goals that we want, which include most crucially, bringing women and girls back to the full enjoyment of their rights.”
Mohammed, a former Nigerian Cabinet minister and a Muslim, was joined on the trip by Sima Bahous, executive director of UN Women, which promotes gender equality and women’s rights, and Assistant Secretary General for political affairs Khaled Khiari.
As the Taliban did during their previous rule of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, they gradually re-imposed their harsh interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia. Girls have been barred from school beyond the sixth grade and women are banned from most jobs, public spaces and gyms.
In late December, the Taliban barred aid groups from employing women, paralyzing deliveries that help keep millions of Afghans alive, and threatening humanitarian services countrywide. In addition, thousands of women who work for aid organizations across the war-battered country are facing the loss of income they desperately need to feed their own families.
Limited work by women has been allowed in some sectors, including the health field.
“What we’ve seen in terms of basic rights for women and girls is a huge step backwards,” Haq said. “We are trying to do more and we’ll continue on that front.”
In a statement, Mohammed said her message to the Taliban was very clear — "these restrictions present Afghan women and girls with a future that confines them in their own homes, violating their rights and depriving the communities of their services.”
She stressed that delivery of humanitarian aid is based on the principle requiring unhindered and safe access for all aid workers, including women.
“Our collective ambition is for a prosperous Afghanistan that is at peace with itself and its neighbors, and on a path to sustainable development. But right now, Afghanistan is isolating itself, in the midst of a terrible humanitarian crisis and one of the most vulnerable nations on earth to climate change,” she said.
During the trip that also included a visit to western Herat, Mohammed's team also met humanitarian workers, civil society representatives and women in the three cities.
“Afghan women left us no doubt of their courage and refusal to be erased from public life,” Bahous, of UN Women, said in a statement. “They will continue to advocate and fight for their rights, and we are duty bound to support them in doing so.”
“What is happening in Afghanistan is a grave women’s right crisis and a wakeup call for the international community,” she said, stressing that the Taliban restrictions and edicts show “how quickly decades of progress on women´s rights can be reversed in a matter of days.”
Before arriving in Kabul, members of the delegation visited Muslim countries in the Middle East as well as Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey. They met leaders of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Islamic Development Bank and groups of Afghan women in Ankara, Turkey, and Islamabad, as well as a group of ambassadors and special envoys to Afghanistan based in Doha, the capital of Qatar.
“The need for a revitalized and realistic political pathway was consistently highlighted and all remained firm on the fundamental principles, including women’s and girls’ rights to education, work and public life in Afghanistan,” the U.N. said.
Haq apologized for a photo on social media of seven men from the U.N. delegation’s security team posing in front of a Taliban flag, calling it “a mistake” and “a significant lapse of judgment.”
No country has recognized the Taliban, and Afghanistan’s seat at the United Nations is still held by the previous government headed by Ashraf Ghani. The U.N. refers to the Taliban as the country’s “de facto authorities.”
The Women of Afghanistan Won't Be Silenced Anymore
Homeira Qaderi, Translated By Zaman Stanizai
TIME
Thu, January 19, 2023
AFGHANISTAN-WOMEN-AID
Afghan people stand with food aid being distributed by a non-governmental organization at a gymnasium in Kabul on Jan. 17, 2023. At least three leading international aid agencies have partially resumed life-saving work in Afghanistan, after assurances from the Taliban authorities that Afghan women can continue to work in the health sector.
Thu, January 19, 2023
AFGHANISTAN-WOMEN-AID
Afghan people stand with food aid being distributed by a non-governmental organization at a gymnasium in Kabul on Jan. 17, 2023. At least three leading international aid agencies have partially resumed life-saving work in Afghanistan, after assurances from the Taliban authorities that Afghan women can continue to work in the health sector.
Credit - Wakil Kohsar—AFP/Getty Images
It’s been a year and a half since the United States left Afghanistan, and the Taliban continues to make decrees in an effort to silence and eliminate women from society. Two months into their administration in Nov. 2021, the Taliban sent all women employees of the government home. A month later, they ordered the closure of university campuses for women, and yet another ban calls for the segregation of healthcare preventing women to be seen by male doctors. Afghan women begin each day with confusion, dismay, and fear of what’s to come. In the latest salvo of Jan. 9, 2023, the Taliban threatened the closure of all stores and markets where women work in northern Mazar-e-Sharif and the closure of all beauty salons in Baghlan. The Taliban have denied these claims, but they are giving women a 10-day grace period after which they will be provided “appropriate” locations to work. In Taliban language, that’s a ban in the making.
Worried about my friends back home, I called Maryam (not her real name) whom I remember as a youngster during the first reign of the Taliban in 1996. After the Taliban fell, Maryam returned to school and had to start first grade at the age of nine. She studied economics at Herat University and later married a police officer who worked at the Ministry of Interior. Her husband was killed in a Taliban ambush in 2018. During these years, Maryam was the breadwinner for her children. She was working in a government office until November 2021 when, like most women Afghan civil servants, she was prevented from working in the government office. These latest decrees pose yet another challenge for Maryam to put food on the table for her three children, so Maryam decided to open a sewing shop with two other friends. Although Maryam has decided to move the sewing shop to her home, she is certain that she will have trouble finding customers. On the phone, she sighs deeply and says, “I must get out of Afghanistan before it is forbidden for us women to even breathe.”
Read More: One year after the fall of Kabul, Afghan women are attempting to build new lives abroad
The 20-year U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan has left many women widows, many of whom are now their family’s only breadwinners—women who have to put food on the table no matter what the suffering and hardships.
After banning women from employment in the civil service and academia, large numbers of women have joined the ranks of street beggars. The Taliban made only one concession: that women who beg are not required to have a mahram, a male companion, when leaving their homes.
From the Taliban’s perspective, the presence of a large number of women in the streets doesn’t challenge their honor, but a woman working in an office is seen as a sign of her independence and empowerment, threatening the religious, social, and cultural identity that the Taliban upholds.
I, however, remember Afghanistan of two years ago very differently.
In Kabul, my apartment was located in the Karte Chahar district across from the Kabul University campus, in a neighborhood with three high schools and five private and public schools. The indomitable enthusiasm and excitement of the girls during the school holidays gave me hope that it was impossible for Afghanistan to return to the dark days of the past. Before the fall of the previous regime, that reality was defined by the presence of millions of girls and women in the education sector and various other walks of life in urban and rural Afghanistan.
Today’s Afghanistan has been defined by the post-Aug. 15, 2021 reality when Kabul, once again, fell to the Taliban. All around me, the Taliban commanded the streets as if they had risen from their graves. They passed by me as though I didn’t even exist. The Kabul University campus was now a ghost town, and no one but the Taliban could be seen on the streets. Black paint was smeared on posters of women’s images on a barbershop window I passed and advertisement posters with women’s images had been torn down.
The city that used to be humming with life and cheerful crowds was no more. Instead, there was the milling of distraught crowds of young and old, men and women, around the Kabul Airport, queuing up for their last hope – a way out.
In the last days of August 2021, I watched the American military planes through my 10th floor apartment window as they took off and landed from the hell-on-earth that was the Kabul Airport. My concern was for the women of Afghanistan: How many women can these military planes rescue? Where will they take them? What will become of the women who are left behind? Will women be suppressed again under the yoke of misogynistic slavery? Are the Taliban “saving” Afghans from sin and corruption by establishing the “Islamic” version of Gilead in Afghanistan that will spawn yet another Handmaid’s Tale? Will Afghan women be subjugated in a 21st-century serfdom of the Taliban? Will Afghan women fight for their rights at the ballot box as an alternative to Taliban rule? Or will these girls and women be crushed the way we were in 1996?
I lived under the Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001, and I have seen their world from under my burqa. Girls’ schools were shuttered, shopkeepers were threatened not to sell to women who didn’t have a mahram, and all women were expelled from public and private offices. The Taliban ordered men to protect and herd their wives, daughters, and sisters “properly,” as if they were livestock.
Tucked away from the Taliban’s eyes early in the spring of 1997, those of us who were once in school gathered for a meeting in the safety and privacy of the women’s public bathhouses to discuss our future. It was there that the first feminist political action by the girls of my hometown, Herat, took place. We planned a public demonstration against the Taliban, calling for the reopening of our schools.
Our 10-girl-strong demonstration started on a Wednesday morning and ended instantly. An angry armed guard stood in front of the governor’s office and swore that if we didn’t leave immediately, he would gun down every one of us. Soon after that incident, the women’s bathhouses were closed. Several of the girls I knew from the bathhouse gatherings committed self-immolation. The rest of them were forced into arranged marriages, often to members of the Taliban.
In the summer of 1997, when five brave young men of Herat also tried to protest the Taliban, they were accused of conspiracy against the Islamic Emirate. They were beheaded and hanged from the meat hooks of butcher shops. The rustic and traditional city of Herat could not protest this Taliban crime. No voice was raised after that. No protest was organized.
The war-weary grown-ups, exhausted by civil war, simply surrendered their fate to the Taliban law. For 10 long years, they had fought against the Russians to honor and liberate the homeland—they had paid their dues.
The plight of women under Taliban rule did not concern the men much. But they were not alone in abandoning us. The world community turned away as well. While many men suffered, it was the women who paid the highest price. As the outside world espoused third-wave feminist slogans, they couldn’t be heard by the faraway and locked-up women of Afghanistan—and their plight couldn’t be heard either.
During the two decades after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, girls went back to school and women filled the rank and file in the public and private sectors of society. Women played a major role in the development of their country. A new generation grew up in Afghanistan that did not expect to see the Taliban as the only reality for Afghanistan.
Read More: What Afghanistan’s Women Stand to Lose
It was quite clear that, this time around, the girls and women of Afghanistan would not be silenced and would stride farther than the previous generations of Afghans. It took some time for women to come out of the shock of the government’s sudden collapse after the U.S. withdrawal, but ultimately they returned to the streets in protest. Girls in Badakhshan, Herat, Kabul, and Mazar-e Sharif took to the streets in small groups risking the wrath and pain of Taliban whips. They raised their voices for freedom and justice in front of school gates, on the street, and on university campuses.
The many miseries and gender apartheid that have befallen women in Afghanistan like Maryam are not the responsibility of the Afghan women alone. It is a crime against humanity and must concern every human being on this planet. 20 million women have been taken hostage by the Taliban—20 million women locked away, herded, denied basic rights, abused, and have literally vanished from daily life. If they’re not already buried underground, they are virtually buried alive.
Maryam’s firm, strong, and telling voice is a testimony that she does not and will not spare any effort for herself or her children. She is determined to continue to fight along with many other women, but they cannot defeat the Taliban alone.
The liberation of the women of Afghanistan is the responsibility of all the countries that believe in human rights and that have protected their interests on Afghan soil for the past 22 years.
It’s been a year and a half since the United States left Afghanistan, and the Taliban continues to make decrees in an effort to silence and eliminate women from society. Two months into their administration in Nov. 2021, the Taliban sent all women employees of the government home. A month later, they ordered the closure of university campuses for women, and yet another ban calls for the segregation of healthcare preventing women to be seen by male doctors. Afghan women begin each day with confusion, dismay, and fear of what’s to come. In the latest salvo of Jan. 9, 2023, the Taliban threatened the closure of all stores and markets where women work in northern Mazar-e-Sharif and the closure of all beauty salons in Baghlan. The Taliban have denied these claims, but they are giving women a 10-day grace period after which they will be provided “appropriate” locations to work. In Taliban language, that’s a ban in the making.
Worried about my friends back home, I called Maryam (not her real name) whom I remember as a youngster during the first reign of the Taliban in 1996. After the Taliban fell, Maryam returned to school and had to start first grade at the age of nine. She studied economics at Herat University and later married a police officer who worked at the Ministry of Interior. Her husband was killed in a Taliban ambush in 2018. During these years, Maryam was the breadwinner for her children. She was working in a government office until November 2021 when, like most women Afghan civil servants, she was prevented from working in the government office. These latest decrees pose yet another challenge for Maryam to put food on the table for her three children, so Maryam decided to open a sewing shop with two other friends. Although Maryam has decided to move the sewing shop to her home, she is certain that she will have trouble finding customers. On the phone, she sighs deeply and says, “I must get out of Afghanistan before it is forbidden for us women to even breathe.”
Read More: One year after the fall of Kabul, Afghan women are attempting to build new lives abroad
The 20-year U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan has left many women widows, many of whom are now their family’s only breadwinners—women who have to put food on the table no matter what the suffering and hardships.
After banning women from employment in the civil service and academia, large numbers of women have joined the ranks of street beggars. The Taliban made only one concession: that women who beg are not required to have a mahram, a male companion, when leaving their homes.
From the Taliban’s perspective, the presence of a large number of women in the streets doesn’t challenge their honor, but a woman working in an office is seen as a sign of her independence and empowerment, threatening the religious, social, and cultural identity that the Taliban upholds.
I, however, remember Afghanistan of two years ago very differently.
In Kabul, my apartment was located in the Karte Chahar district across from the Kabul University campus, in a neighborhood with three high schools and five private and public schools. The indomitable enthusiasm and excitement of the girls during the school holidays gave me hope that it was impossible for Afghanistan to return to the dark days of the past. Before the fall of the previous regime, that reality was defined by the presence of millions of girls and women in the education sector and various other walks of life in urban and rural Afghanistan.
Today’s Afghanistan has been defined by the post-Aug. 15, 2021 reality when Kabul, once again, fell to the Taliban. All around me, the Taliban commanded the streets as if they had risen from their graves. They passed by me as though I didn’t even exist. The Kabul University campus was now a ghost town, and no one but the Taliban could be seen on the streets. Black paint was smeared on posters of women’s images on a barbershop window I passed and advertisement posters with women’s images had been torn down.
The city that used to be humming with life and cheerful crowds was no more. Instead, there was the milling of distraught crowds of young and old, men and women, around the Kabul Airport, queuing up for their last hope – a way out.
In the last days of August 2021, I watched the American military planes through my 10th floor apartment window as they took off and landed from the hell-on-earth that was the Kabul Airport. My concern was for the women of Afghanistan: How many women can these military planes rescue? Where will they take them? What will become of the women who are left behind? Will women be suppressed again under the yoke of misogynistic slavery? Are the Taliban “saving” Afghans from sin and corruption by establishing the “Islamic” version of Gilead in Afghanistan that will spawn yet another Handmaid’s Tale? Will Afghan women be subjugated in a 21st-century serfdom of the Taliban? Will Afghan women fight for their rights at the ballot box as an alternative to Taliban rule? Or will these girls and women be crushed the way we were in 1996?
I lived under the Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001, and I have seen their world from under my burqa. Girls’ schools were shuttered, shopkeepers were threatened not to sell to women who didn’t have a mahram, and all women were expelled from public and private offices. The Taliban ordered men to protect and herd their wives, daughters, and sisters “properly,” as if they were livestock.
Tucked away from the Taliban’s eyes early in the spring of 1997, those of us who were once in school gathered for a meeting in the safety and privacy of the women’s public bathhouses to discuss our future. It was there that the first feminist political action by the girls of my hometown, Herat, took place. We planned a public demonstration against the Taliban, calling for the reopening of our schools.
Our 10-girl-strong demonstration started on a Wednesday morning and ended instantly. An angry armed guard stood in front of the governor’s office and swore that if we didn’t leave immediately, he would gun down every one of us. Soon after that incident, the women’s bathhouses were closed. Several of the girls I knew from the bathhouse gatherings committed self-immolation. The rest of them were forced into arranged marriages, often to members of the Taliban.
In the summer of 1997, when five brave young men of Herat also tried to protest the Taliban, they were accused of conspiracy against the Islamic Emirate. They were beheaded and hanged from the meat hooks of butcher shops. The rustic and traditional city of Herat could not protest this Taliban crime. No voice was raised after that. No protest was organized.
The war-weary grown-ups, exhausted by civil war, simply surrendered their fate to the Taliban law. For 10 long years, they had fought against the Russians to honor and liberate the homeland—they had paid their dues.
The plight of women under Taliban rule did not concern the men much. But they were not alone in abandoning us. The world community turned away as well. While many men suffered, it was the women who paid the highest price. As the outside world espoused third-wave feminist slogans, they couldn’t be heard by the faraway and locked-up women of Afghanistan—and their plight couldn’t be heard either.
During the two decades after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, girls went back to school and women filled the rank and file in the public and private sectors of society. Women played a major role in the development of their country. A new generation grew up in Afghanistan that did not expect to see the Taliban as the only reality for Afghanistan.
Read More: What Afghanistan’s Women Stand to Lose
It was quite clear that, this time around, the girls and women of Afghanistan would not be silenced and would stride farther than the previous generations of Afghans. It took some time for women to come out of the shock of the government’s sudden collapse after the U.S. withdrawal, but ultimately they returned to the streets in protest. Girls in Badakhshan, Herat, Kabul, and Mazar-e Sharif took to the streets in small groups risking the wrath and pain of Taliban whips. They raised their voices for freedom and justice in front of school gates, on the street, and on university campuses.
The many miseries and gender apartheid that have befallen women in Afghanistan like Maryam are not the responsibility of the Afghan women alone. It is a crime against humanity and must concern every human being on this planet. 20 million women have been taken hostage by the Taliban—20 million women locked away, herded, denied basic rights, abused, and have literally vanished from daily life. If they’re not already buried underground, they are virtually buried alive.
Maryam’s firm, strong, and telling voice is a testimony that she does not and will not spare any effort for herself or her children. She is determined to continue to fight along with many other women, but they cannot defeat the Taliban alone.
The liberation of the women of Afghanistan is the responsibility of all the countries that believe in human rights and that have protected their interests on Afghan soil for the past 22 years.
THEY NEED THEIR OWN YPJ/YPG
WOMEN'S SELF DEFENSE UNITS
No comments:
Post a Comment