Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 6th May. UN human rights experts on Friday announced that “the stage may be set for multiple preventable deaths that could amount to femicide” unless restrictions are reversed rapidly, a systematic crackdown on the rights of Afghan women and girls by the Taliban from attending school to working at the UN.
The experts after a8 day visit to Afghanistan stated “We are alarmed about widespread mental health issues and accounts of escalating suicides among women and girls,” they said in a joint statement. “This extreme situation of institutionalized gender-based discrimination in Afghanistan is unparalleled anywhere in the world.”
They warnewd that de facto authorities have issued a cascade of restrictive orders that amounts to “extreme institutionalized gender-based discrimination” and a systematic chipping away of the rights of women and girls.
The ongoing “appalling” human rights violations have masked other underlying manifestations of gender-based discrimination that preceded the Taliban’s rule and are now “deeply engrained in society and even normalized”, the experts added.
UN said that females are prohibited from being in school above sixth grade, including universities, can only be provided care by women doctors, and are barred from working at the UN and NGOs.
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, and the Chair of the working group on discrimination against women and girls, Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, shared their preliminary observations, including meetings with Taliban leaders and grave accounts from the women and girls they met in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif, in Balkh province, between 17 April and 4 May.
They reported “Numerous women shared their feelings of fear and extreme anxiety, describing their situation as a life under house arrest,”.
“We are also particularly concerned by the fact that women who peacefully protest against these oppressive measures encounter threats, harassment, arbitrary detentions and torture,” they said.
Taliban authorities have dismantled the legal and institutional framework and have been “ruling through the most extreme forms of misogyny”, destroying the relative progress towards gender equality achieved in the past two decades, they said.
The experts said in a meeting with de facto authorities they told them that women were working in the health, education, and business sectors, and that they were to ensure that women can work according to Sharia, separated from men.
The experts added that the de facto authorities reiterated their message that they were working on the reopening of schools, without providing a clear timeline, and indicated that the international community should not interfere in the country’s internal affairs.
They noted that the Taliban impose certain interpretations of religion “that appear not to be shared by the vast majority of Afghans”.
The experts said that one of the women they spoke with told them, “we are alive, but not living”.
The consequences of the restrictive measures have led to detention for alleged “moral crimes” under extreme “modesty rules”, they said.
They stressed that new laws have decimated the system of protection and support for those fleeing domestic violence, leaving women and girls with absolutely no recourse.
The experts said impact is alarming
They noted that new Taliban-imposed measures have reportedly contributed to a surge in the rates of child and forced marriage, as well as the proliferation of gender-based violence perpetrated with impunity.
“These acts do not occur in isolation,” they cautioned. “If we are to eliminate discrimination and break cycles of violence, gender justice requires a holistic understanding as to why such violations are committed.”
They warned that the world “cannot turn a blind eye,”.
They recommended that the international community develop further normative standards and tools to address “the broader phenomenon of gender apartheid” as an institutionalized system of discrimination, segregation, humiliation, and exclusion of women and girls.
UN should take a human rights-based approach which requires a deep understanding and analysis of its principles, they said.
The experts recommended ythat technical and financial partners should increase their support to activists and grassroots organizations present in Afghanistan and to the unwavering efforts of a “still vibrant civil society” to avoid the complete breakdown of civic space which could have irreversible consequences.
They urged the de facto authorities to honour commitments towards the protection and promotion of all women’s and girls’ rights and comply with obligations under instruments to which Afghanistan is a State party, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
The experts will present the joint report in June thoroughly analysing the situation of women and girls’ rights in Afghanistan after an interactive dialogue with Afghan women.
