Are Women's Rights In Afghanistan Negotiable?
Date
11/10/2024 2:17:42 PM
(MENAFN- Swissinfo)
The Taliban Regime is not recognised internationally. This makes it difficult for UN bodies to deal with this de facto government. Non-governmental organisations criticise the UN for making concessions to the Taliban at the expense of women.
This content was published on
November 9, 2024 - 10:00
8 minutes
Annegret Mathari
In an email ahead of our scheduled interview, Nazifa Jalali said she was postponing our talk.“I have to deal with a case of stoning,” said the Afghan human rights activist. It was about a 17-year-old girl, she told us a few days later. The girl had been raped by her brother, who was also a Taliban commander. The Taliban in that province in the centre of Afghanistan had decided to stone the girl and not the brother.
The task now was to mobilise local figures, including tribal elders, to negotiate with the Taliban so that the girl could be taken elsewhere for her protection.
Jalali is a member of the Human Rights Defender HRD-Plus network and documents human rights violations in Afghanistan. She currently lives in Norway. She also took part in the autumn session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Jalali criticises that the international community has only written reports in the three years since the Taliban took power, rather than acted proactively to hold the Taliban to account. In doing so, it has weakened women in Afghanistan, she says.
A Taliban spokesman addresses a press conference in Kabul on June 29, 2024. Afghanistan's Taliban authorities met international envoys on June 30, in Qatar for talks presented by the United Nations as a key step in an engagement process, but condemned by rights groups for sidelining Afghan women.
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In those three years, the Taliban have issued over 80 decrees and directives restricting the rights of women and girls. For example, girls are not allowed to attend secondary school and women are practically not allowed to work; they cannot stay in parks or, more recently, speak in public.
The Taliban are not recognised internationally, above all because they deny girls and women their basic and educational rights. This makes political contact between the UN and the de facto government more difficult.
No women at the negotiating table
At the end of June, representatives of the Taliban government took part for the first time in a meeting organised by the UN in Doha with diplomats from 25 countries and international organisations. They were hoping for international recognition.
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