Hillel Neuer addressed the Human Rights Council to call out the U.N.’s inaction to protect Afghan Women from the Taliban’s oppression.
Full Remarks: Thank you, Madam Chair. In Afghanistan, we are faced with repressive and escalating attacks against the basic rights of women and girls by the Taliban since their illegal seizure of power in August 2021. Afghanistan faces a deepening crisis described by international human rights experts as gender apartheid.
We urgently appeal to this council and to the United Nations. When will you take action to safeguard the human rights of Afghan women and girls? When will you protect women’s rights activists who face persecution for the crime of peacefully campaigning for their basic freedom?
Now, last year, Afghan women and girls saw their rights increasingly curtailed greater enforcement of restrictions on education including a ban on girls attending high school and university to intensifying exclusion of women from political and public life. Women are banned from a growing list of forms of paid employment. From registering organizations and undergoing vocational training, women are denied the right to make a living and are further confined to the private sphere.
Last year, new restrictions imposed by the Taliban included the closure of beauty salons, blocking women from overseas travel for study, mandating female health workers in some areas to have a male chaperone while traveling or at work, and prohibiting women from entering a national park.
Now, they arrested women’s rights activists Neda Parwani, Zholia Parsi. They forcibly disappeared Manizha Seddiqi. They arrested Matiullah Wesa, founder of an NGO advocating for girls’ rights. They arbitrarily detained Ahmad Fahim Azimi, a dedicated girls education activist. Last month, the Taliban declared a ban on women’s voices and women’s faces.
What is this council doing to help Afghan women?
What is the United Nations doing?
Why in this session is there no agenda item on the crimes of the Taliban?
Why in the past three years has there been no special session for the victims of the Taliban?
I thank you.
