Impossible to recognise Taliban unless it reverses decrees on women's rights: UN

The UN envoy for Afghanistan said, Wednesday, it is ”nearly impossible” for the international community to recognise the Taliban unless the group’s bans on women’s rights are lifted, Anadolu Agency reports.

The UN continues to face a complicated situation in Afghanistan due to restrictions against women working for the organisation, Roza Otunbayeva, told the Security Council.

The Taliban banned Afghan women from working with NGOs last April.

”I am blunt about the obstacles they have created for themselves by the decrees and restrictions they have enacted, in particular against women and girls,” she said. ”We have conveyed to them that, as long as these decrees are in place, it is nearly impossible that their government will be recognised by members of the international community.”

”We have been given no explanations by the de facto authorities for this ban, and no assurances that it will be lifted,” she said.

Otunbayeva said female national staff will not be replaced by males, as some authorities suggested.

READ: UN in talks about possibly handing over Afghan teaching projects to Taliban

She demanded the Taliban rescind the bans to enable the UN to continue its full support to the people of Afghanistan.

”The Taliban regime remains insular and autocratic. The composition of the de facto government is entirely male, and almost totally derived from the Taliban’s Pashtun and rural political base,” she said.

She also said the UN Special Coordinator for Afghanistan, Feridun Sinirlioglu, is currently in Afghanistan.

The Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan on 15 August, 2021, followed by the disruption of international financial assistance, has left the war-torn country in economic, humanitarian and human rights crises.

Taliban rulers have mounted a sustained attack on human rights, despite their commitments to protect human and women’s rights.

Women and girls have been deprived of their rights, including the right to education, and disappeared from public life under the Taliban.

Thousands of women have, since, lost their jobs or were forced to resign from government institutions and the private sector.

READ: Taliban orders NGOs to ban female employees from coming to work