New Delhi: India observed that there were rising efforts to “remove” women from public life in post-Taliban Afghanistan during an urgent debate on the state of girls and women in the war-ravaged country at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The urgent debate had been convened on Friday in Geneva at the request of France and the European Union, where nation after nation urged the Taliban to take steps to keep its commitments to allow women and children to have the right to education and participate in civil life in the country.
Speaking at the debate, India’s Deputy Permanent Representative, Puneet Agrawal, observed that “there has been an increasing attempt towards removing women from public life in Afghanistan”.
“The basic rights of civilians, children, girls and women including freedom of speech and opinion, access to education and medical care have been drastically hampered due to the ongoing situation,” he noted.
Agarwal added that India joined all “others in calling for ensuring the protection of rights of women and girls, including their right to education, and to ensure that the long-fought gains of the last two decades are not reversed”.
India’s statement came a week after a group of diplomats landed in Afghanistan to open the Indian embassy. This was the first batch of Indian officials based in Kabul since the Indian embassy, including the ambassador, was evacuated after the Taliban marched into the Afghan capital in August 2021.
India reiterated that the ‘technical team’ stationed in Kabul would only coordinate humanitarian assistance. “In order to closely monitor and coordinate the efforts of various stakeholders for the effective delivery of humanitarian assistance and in continuation of our engagement with the Afghan people, an Indian technical team has been deployed in our Embassy there.”
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet said that the women and girls in Afghanistan were experiencing the most significant and rapid roll-back in the enjoyment of their rights across the board in decades.
“As a de facto authority exercising effective control, the Taliban are a primary duty-bearer in view of Afghanistan’s legal obligations under international treaties, including the obligation to eliminate discrimination against women and ensure women’s right to equal participation in civic and public life, including politics and decision-making fora,” she said.
“Women and girls are experiencing the most significant roll-back in rights in decades,” UN Human Rights chief Michelle Bachelet said at a Human Rights Council urgent debate on women & girls in #Afghanistan.
“Their future will be even darker, unless something changes, quickly.” pic.twitter.com/MY264DnAth
— UN Human Rights Council 📍 #HRC50 (@UN_HRC) July 1, 2022
She also urged the Taliban “to engage with predominantly Muslim countries with experience in promoting women and girls’ rights, as guaranteed in international law, in that religious context”.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, stated that the Taliban is “reinstituting step-by-step the discrimination against women and girls’ characteristic of their previous term and which is unparalleled globally in its misogyny and oppression”.
Bennet conveyed that Taliban authorities told him that the acting Chief Justice was examining the matter of girls’ education, “but they gave no indication of when schools would reopen or under what conditions”.
“The resumption of girls’ secondary education is far from the only requirement. There has been a raft of restrictions during the last months, including violent crack-down on protesters, by the Taliban that have wiped out gains made by women and girls over the last 20 years including restrictions on employment, travel and attire,” he said.
“We are fighting for the right to be visible and not to be erased from public life,” @Fawziakoofi77, a former vice-president of the Afghan parliament, implored the Human Rights Council at an urgent debate on the #HumanRights of women & girls in #Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/apSFQiRe3V
— UN Human Rights Council 📍 #HRC50 (@UN_HRC) July 1, 2022
Former vice president of the Afghan parliament, Fawzi Koofi, made a strident appeal that the situation in Afghanistan for women and girls was “unique and fire”.
“In the twenty-first century, Afghanistan was the only country where women were second-class and invisible, having to advocate for their basic rights to not be invisible and not to be erased from public life,” she stated.