Women in Afghanistan have continued to advocate for their rights and have called on the international community to not only stand in solidarity but to take decisive action to prevent the erosion of their rights and presence in public space.
On Monday, the New York missions of Qatar, Indonesia, Ireland and Switzerland, with the Women’s Forum on Afghanistan, convened at a high-level meeting to discuss the current situation for women’s rights.
Since August 2021, the Taliban authorities have systematically reversed the rights of women and girls, all but shrinking and obliterating their ability to participate in Afghan society. Despite repeated calls from the international community to protect women’s rights, the Taliban have only doubled down. Their latest edicts of morality laws further restrict the activities of women and girls, barring them from speaking or singing out in public.
Asila Wardak, from the Women’s Forum on Afghanistan, told the meeting women were being systematically erased from public life.
“The future of Afghanistan cannot be built on the exclusion of half the population,” she said. “Women must be part of the solution, not sidelined.”
The event included messages from notable members of the international community extending solidarity to the women of Afghanistan.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the UN would continue its work to engage women and women-led groups in Afghanistan and ensure their spaces for operation, calling for them to “play a full role, both inside its borders and on the global stage.”
“Without educated women, without women in employment, including in leadership roles, and without recognizing the rights and freedoms of one-half of its population, Afghanistan will never take its rightful place on the global stage,” said Guterres.
UN Undersecretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, reiterated Guterres’ show of support to protect and amplify the voices of Afghan women.
In her statement, she summarized the Doha process, which was intended to increase international engagement with Afghanistan and the Taliban, wherein the Taliban were expected to make governance more inclusive and protect women’s rights, resulting in the international community easing restrictions in Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, the news of the morality laws has threatened that process, especially as the Taliban have refused to meet with Afghan civil society in previous meetings.
DiCarlo added that the Taliban “must begin to abide by their international obligations, especially regarding women.”
In the panel, American actor Meryl Streep remarked that Afghanistan granted women the right to vote in 1919, many years before countries like the United States and Switzerland had done the same. Much has changed since then, she observed.
“Today in Kabul, a female cat has more freedoms than a woman. A cat may go sit on her front stoop and feel the sun on her face. She may chase a squirrel into the park. A squirrel has more rights than a girl in Afghanistan today because the public parks have been closed to women and girls,” Streep said.
“The way that this culture, this society, has been upended is a cautionary tale for the rest of the world,” she warned. Streep further noted that the Taliban’s numerous edicts on women had “effectively incarcerated half the population.”
The documentary follows the four women parliamentarians that participated in the peace talks in 2020 between the international community and the Taliban shortly after the United States withdrew their troops.
The feature highlighted the stakes that were on the line for the women leaders of Afghanistan. It included scenes of the parliamentarians listening to young women during consultations leading up to the peace talks in Doha, Qatar, where the young women pleaded for the Taliban not to take action that would restrict their rights and dignity. Prior to the peace talks, one of the women in the documentary said, “Peace is not a luxury. It is a necessity.”
What the documentary highlighted was that even with the (limited) presence of women leaders and advocates during negotiations, it evidently did not sway the Taliban to act in accordance with the demands from the international community.
The former deputy speaker of Afghanistan’s parliament, Fawzia Koofi, observed that the Taliban and the international community were largely in charge of the peace negotiations after the US pulled out of the country, leaving little room for the Afghan people or their elected government.
Habiba Sarabi, Afghanistan’s former minister for women’s affairs, remarked that the Taliban would only continue to push their agenda for what they perceived as a ‘pure Islamic regime’. She warned that this was already affecting younger generations who were at risk of being brainwashed by Taliban-controlled religious schools.
Sarabi implored the international community to hold up the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), along with applying UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), which calls for the protection of women’s’ and girls’ rights for peace and security.
Koofi also urged that more pressure needed to be placed on the Taliban, as this would be “the only leverage that the international community has.”
She called for the institutions and charters for international law and order to hold onto their solidarity with the people of Afghanistan and assure them that the “culture of impunity would end.”
Naureen Hossain is an IPS correspondent based in New York
