(Note: Owing to the liquidity crisis affecting our Organization, complete coverage of today's Security Council meeting will be made available on 11 March.)
Pointing to growing frustration over the lack of progress in political engagement with Afghanistan's de facto authorities - compounded by cuts to humanitarian-aid funding that are placing additional pressure on the Afghan people - the top UN official there told the Security Council today that the Taliban must clearly demonstrate their commitment to Afghanistan's international reintegration.
"The de facto authorities have, so far, treated [Afghanistan's] international obligations selectively," noted Roza Otunbayeva, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). However, she underscored that these international obligations "affect not only the possibility of progress along the political pathway, but, most crucially, the well-being of Afghanistan's entire population".
Significant Impact of Defunding Aid
That population, she said, continues to face a "severe" humanitarian crisis, and "the defunding of assistance is already having - and will continue to have - a significant impact on the Afghan people". Welcoming the World Bank's recent decision to provide an additional $240 million to support the country's health sector, she also detailed the "joined-up" approach implemented by the UN and its partners in Afghanistan, as well as a growing economy and increased investment. Yet, she said that the de facto authorities' "vision of economic self-sufficiency" cannot be achieved unless obstacles to reintegration are resolved.
"Here, we return to the question of Afghanistan's international obligations," she said. Significant restrictions on women continue, and UNAMA has been closely observing the Taliban's enforcement of its Law on the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue since its promulgation in August 2024. "The law demonstrates the de facto authorities' prioritization of ideology over international obligations," she stressed. And noting continued activity by ISIL-KP and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, she pointed to "legitimate questions about the de facto authorities' ability or commitment to uphold their own guarantees that Afghanistan will not become a threat to other countries".
'Political Engagement Not Working'
Stressing that "the space for engagement is narrowing", she noted international stakeholders' growing frustration that "political engagement is not working and may actually be encouraging hardliners within the de facto authority". Further, global trends risk leaving Afghanistan poorer, more vulnerable and more isolated. This in mind, she stated that the most helpful development would be a "clear signal from the de facto authorities that they are committed to the reintegration of Afghanistan with the international community - with all that implies". She added: "This is a moment for realism."
Today's debate took place as the Commission on the Status of Women opened its annual session at UN Headquarters, just days after the commemoration of International Women's Day on 7 March.
"In 2021, the Taliban tried to sell themselves to the international community as a reformed group, promising to respect human rights, including women's rights - a lie the international community was too quick to believe," said Azadah Raz Mohammad, Co-Founder of the Ham Diley Campaign. However, Afghan women warned that, given the chance, the Taliban would destroy every gain they had fought for since their brutal rule in the 1990s. Now, their fears have become reality: through at least 126 brutally enforced decrees, the Taliban have deprived Afghan women and girls of their most fundamental rights - education, employment, movement, assembly, speech and life free from violence.
Caution against 'Normalizing' Taliban
"The Taliban have erased Afghan women so thoroughly that even hearing their voices or seeing their faces in public is now a crime," she said, adding that "they are suffocating in their homes, banned from even looking out the window". Through gender apartheid, the Taliban is ready to crush anyone who resists them, and punishments include extrajudicial killing, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, sexual violence, corporal punishment, public flogging and execution by stoning. Accountability for these grave violations is essential - "yet impossible domestically", she stressed.
She also voiced concern over "alarming steps" by the UN and Member States to normalize the Taliban, recalling the "Doha 3" meeting in June 2024 at which Afghan women were excluded from formal discussions. On Taliban social media accounts, there is "a regular flow of smiling photos of foreign diplomats and businessmen partnering with this gender-apartheid regime", she added.
Yet, the recent application by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for arrest warrants for two senior Taliban leaders is "a pushback" against this normalization and "a beacon of hope" for the people of Afghanistan, she said. For its part, the Council should impose sanctions on all Taliban leaders who have committed human rights violations against Afghan women and girls, she urged, also stressing that gender apartheid should be codified as a crime against humanity.
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