The Taliban banned women from working in the United Nations after previously preventing them from working in humanitarian organizations
The United Nations Security Council has unanimously condemned the Taliban, which controls Afghanistan, for preventing Afghan women from working for the United Nations.
The Security Council resolution, drafted by the United Arab Emirates and Japan on Thursday, calls the ban “unprecedented in the history of the United Nations” and stresses the “indispensable role of women in Afghan society.” “It undermines human rights and humanitarian principles.”
The Taliban’s latest decision follows its decision to ban women from humanitarian organizations in general in December last year.
Since the Taliban seized power and overthrew the Western-backed government in 2021, women have been subjected to several measures, including being prevented from attending universities, and girls’ secondary schools have been closed.
The Taliban say they respect women’s rights, but only in accordance with their strict interpretation of Islamic law. Taliban officials said decisions regarding female aid workers were an “internal issue”.
The UAE Ambassador to the United Nations, Lana Nusseibeh, confirmed that more than 90 countries supported the resolution, whether from Afghanistan’s immediate neighbors or from the Islamic world and from all over the world.
“This … support makes our core message today even more important,” she said in her address to the council. “The world will not stand by while women in Afghanistan are erased from society.”
The Security Council vote on Thursday came days before the international meeting scheduled to take place in Doha on May 1-2 on Afghanistan.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is scheduled to meet behind closed doors with special envoys on Afghanistan from various countries to work on a unified approach to dealing with the Taliban.
“We will not stand for the Taliban’s oppression of women and girls,” US Deputy Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told the council. “These decisions are indefensible. They cannot be seen anywhere else in the world.”
Wood stressed that “the fatwas of the Taliban are causing irreparable damage to Afghanistan.”
The Security Council resolution also recognizes the need to address the significant challenges facing the Afghan economy, including the use of assets owned by the Afghan Central Bank for the benefit of the Afghan people.
The United States froze billions of the bank’s reserves held in the United States, and later transferred half of the money to a trust fund in Switzerland overseen by American, Swiss and Afghan trustees.
“Only what we have seen today is that assets have been transferred from one account to another, but not a single penny has been returned to the Afghan people,” China’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Geng Shuang, told the Security Council.
Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, also called for the return of the assets of the Afghan Central Bank.
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2023-04-28 00:55:07
