By Anjali Sharma
UNITED NATIONS – UN Special Representative in Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva on Wednesday briefed the members of the UNSC and voiced concerns for women and the overall state of humanitarian rights in Afghanistan are growing after legal clampdowns by the de facto Taliban.
Ms, Roza Otunbayeva said the de facto Taliban rulers who have imposed their own interpretation of strict Islamic law have “delivered a period of stability not seen in decades” in Afghanistan, yet the population is at risk of a worsened humanitarian and development crisis as international funding declines.
“The de facto authorities are exacerbating this crisis by policies that focus insufficiently on the real needs of its people and undermine its economic potential,” Ms. Otunbayeva said.
She noted that the current humanitarian response plan, which requires $3 billion dollars, is only 30 per cent funded.
“There are no indications that significant additional resources will be provided as we approach the final quarter of the year,” Ms. Otunbayeva said.
She stressed that the lack of funding has contributed to the discontinuation of over 200 mobile and static healthcare services this year, and 171 health facilities are set to close in the next few months.
The food rations in communities experiencing hunger have been cut from 75 to 50 per cent of the required amount and several million vulnerable civilians live in areas where they lack access to safe water, she noted.
“The humanitarian crisis will soon become a development crisis, given Afghanistan’s quickly growing youth population, an economy that is unable to absorb them and international donors who are reluctant to provide development aid due in large part to restrictions on the movement and activities of half the population,” she said.
Ms. Otunbayeva told Council members that Afghanistan is currently ostracised by the international community.
She noted that the Taliban would not need foreign intervention if they only “unlocked the resourcefulness of their entire population”.
Ms. Otunbayeva said that a meeting on Afghanistan in Doha, in July, UN Member States and international organizations met to consider next steps to aid the civilian population in the country.
She told the Council that progress was quickly undermined shortly after the meetings convened as the authorities adopted a “moral oversight law” which placed further restrictions on women.
UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous provided details on this law, noted that it requires women and girls to cover their bodies completely when leaving the home and prohibits them from speaking in public and from looking at men they are not related to.
Ms. Bahous said “Afghanistan’s women do not only fear these oppressive laws, they also fear their capricious application”.
“A life lived in such circumstances is truly incomprehensible.”
She mentioned continued restrictions on women’s education, notied that only Afghan boys remain in school and receive an education based on a curriculum whose details are only known by the Taliban.
Mina, a 21-year-old Afghan girl who no longer resides in the country explained that action needs to be taken now to address restrictions imposed on women by the de facto authorities.
She voiced her concerns that the next generation of Afghan girls would believe they are not worthy of an education.
“We must listen to the girls in Afghanistan and do anything we can to stop this oppression,” she said.
Ms. Bahous and others called on the Council for action to be taken to defend women and other civilians in Afghanistan.
“We can decide now to put our political will and resources behind our solidarity with Afghan women,” she said.
She added “I implore you again not only to stay this course but to commit to it with renewed determination.”
Comments are closed.