Otunbayeva, however, said the ban on salons "goes against past commitments from the de facto authorities that they will support female entrepreneurship". We should study and be ready for the next one.. Following a systematic crackdown on the rights of Afghan women and girls by the Taliban from attending school to working at the UN the stage may be set for multiple preventable deaths that could amount to femicide unless restrictions are reversed rapidly, independent UN human rights experts announced on Friday, following an eight-day visit to the country. Letter to the Secretary-General on women's rights in Afghanistan But Habiba endured. And the data has been consistent over 2022 on what Afghan women want from the international community: regular U.N. consultations with Afghan women, a reinforcement of the U.N.s ability to fulfill its mandate in human rights (contrary to claims that these are secondary considerations), and that the U.N. Security Council must demand unequivocally that the Taliban repeal all restrictions on womens rights. Power, Crossroads A world where I feel safe., Arezoo, 21, mother to a toddler hospitalized with severe malnutrition, Kobra, 24, nurse in a malnutrition ward of a public hospital, Poverty has taken over our lives and is sweeping our livelihood away., I worry about the future of my children, especially the daughter that I am carrying.. When those protests were met with bullets and arrests, the women switched gears. Let girls and women in Afghanistan learn! | UNESCO The return of the Taliban is most difficult for the younger women, she says, whose dreams of becoming politicians, athletes, surgeons or C.E.O.s once seemed achievable. Following a systematic crackdown on the rights of Afghan women and girls by the Taliban - from attending school to working at the UN - "the stage may be set for multiple preventable deaths that. What lessons does Russias nuclear signaling hold for a prospective Chinese war to force unification with Taiwan? The beauty salon industry has been one of the remaining sources of income for women, providing some women with jobs and their female customers with services. The edict closing beauty salons was widely condemned. Interview Roza Isakovna Otunbayeva, UN Special Representative and head of the UNs Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, strongly condemned recent Taliban decrees that have further eroded the rights of Afghan women. I dont know how Im going to survive., Basira, 22, former University student who studied English literature, I still try to have motivation to continue my studies, but how can I do that if I look into the future?, Aziza, 35, lost her husband a Taliban fighter during the war, Now we can go out, but there is no job for us, no school for our children., Keshwar, 50s, lost her son during the Talibans first regime, There will be no peace in Afghanistan in my lifetime. If they are ever questioned about what happens in the building, the schoolgirls have been coached to answer that they are attending Quranic classes, which are still permitted for girls. Screen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks. We know this thanks to the thousands of women across 17 Afghan provinces who either responded to monthly surveys or participated in focus groups run by the local pollsters of Bishnaw. An ongoing battle SUMMARY Since the Taliban regime overtook the country in mid-August 2021, Afghanistan's record on women's rights has been manifestly one of, if not the worst, worldwide. When she was a child growing up in central Afghanistan, she endured the bloody days of the Soviet invasion and then the years of fighting and civil war that followed. The Talibans restrictions on women's rights are compounding thehumanitarian disasterin Afghanistan that was prompted by the sharp cut-off of most foreign aid after the Taliban takeover in August 2021. Currently, females are prohibited from being in school above sixth grade, including universities, can only be provided care by women doctors, and are barred from working at the UN and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Some teenage girls began attending schools in secret, echoing the stories from their mothers childhoods that once felt like grim folklore. They said that I should tell the truth. Their impending closure, however, delivers a harsh economic blow to families that rely on them for income. Girls are barred from secondary schools. In an appeal coinciding with International Womens Day, the experts urged Taliban leaders to lift the many restrictions imposed on women since they seized power. Human Rights Watch is a 501(C)(3)nonprofit registered in the US under EIN: 13-2875808. Mariam, who is a professionally trained hair and makeup stylist, said she learned when she was a refugee. Zubaida, 20, teaches high school girls in secret, Regimes come and go all the time in Afghanistan. A Timeline of Women's Rights in Afghanistan - U.S. News & World Report Click here to subscribe for full access. More on Human rights Monitoring and Reporting. The activist, Tamana Zaryabi Paryani, was among about 25 women who took part in an anti-Taliban protest on Sunday against the compulsory Islamic headscarf, or hijab, for women. Security Council Emphasizes That Punitive Restrictions on Women's The comments section is closed. Curated tweets by heatherbarr1 Your. Almost all of the interviewees were assured that the Taliban will execute the decree and close womens beauty salons just as they have barred females from education and shrunk their access to public places. A woman walks past beauty salons with window decorations which have been defaced in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Sept. 12, 2021. Credit: AP . INTRODUCTION The approach of the Constitutional Commission in re-establishing the legal rights of Afghan women will constitute not only future legal precedent in Afghanistan, but will set forth the current values and ideals of Afghan society. KABUL, July 21 (Reuters) - For the last eight years, Marzia Reyazee has supported her family with the earnings from her female-only beauty salon in Afghanistan, a business she spent more than $18,000 setting up. World Report 2023: Afghanistan | Human Rights Watch The Special Representative expressed her hope that the Taliban will pay heed to the international communitys unified position and reverse those decrees, as well as others that are further eroding the rights of women. Where is the money for rising house prices coming from? From Canada to Vietnam: Scenes from nations examined in U.S. News' Best Countries 2022 report. Regardless of which strategy is best, advocates for Afghan women are largely united on one point: After 20 years of involvement in the country, during which womens rights were championed and expanded, the international community and the United States in particular has a moral obligation to ensure those freedoms dont disappear. Click here to subscribe for full access. Southeast Us, Write However, decisions over the last year including bans recently imposed on women accessing higher education and working for NGOs have been widely viewed as unacceptable. That the international community is so quick to leap on increased security and lower corruption as benefits of the current regime is worrying given the reality on the ground. Elliott Memmi is a French-American writer and editor who has contributed to U.N. and EU publications on sustainable development and human rights. about their opposition to human rights conditions on engagement. The young women are not coping well they lost their hopes. I have the fear 24 hours a day, the fear will not leave me alone even at night. Just $5 a month. He has a Masters degree from Science Po Paris in international public management, diplomacy, and North American foreign policy. An employee of the Western-backed governments Directory of Womens Affairs in Herat, a cultural and economic hub in northwestern Afghanistan, she watched after the Taliban seized power, as women activists, politicians and artists drained out of the city, and evacuations to Western countries proliferated. I am the only supporter of my three daughters and a jobless husband and this beauty salon is the only source of income for my family, one salon owner said, highlighting the impact of the new decree. Other ways to share Share this via Telegram The eastward extension to Surabaya may make economic sense, but Jakarta should first learn from the troubles faced during the construction of the Jakarta-Bandung line. She also suggests freezing all of the Talibans assets outside of Afghanistan, closing their political office in Doha, Qatar, which was founded so the international community could engage with the Taliban on peace talks, and cracking down on Taliban supporters living outside of Afghanistan. Against that backdrop, Ms. Otunbayeva warned the Council that time is short, and demands on donors are multiplying.. When the U.S. negotiated the terms of its troop withdrawal with the Taliban, it made no requirement that the group ensure the rights of women, notes Kate Bateman, a senior expert on Afghanistan at the nonpartisan United States Institute of Peace, or USIP. Defense, China Until recently, the U.N. had been quite vocal about how important it was to work with the Taliban to prevent famine, death, and displacement. It was born when the Taliban first seized power a generation ago and wreaked havoc on her village in Bamiyan Province, a center of Afghanistans Hazara ethnic minority. Despite promises to 'uphold women's rights in line with Sharia law', from the very first weeks of its rule, the Taliban started suppressing the rights of their . Join our movement today. While some kind of engagement may be better than nothing, the U.N.s past engagement with the Taliban encouraged the belief that womens human rights could be traded for security and access to food and shelter. I was thinking if we all leave Afghanistan, who will build this country? Ms. Sabri, 30, said. Regimes come and go all the time in Afghanistan, said Zubaida Azizi, 20, a teacher. The ongoing appalling human rights violations have masked other underlying manifestations of gender-based discrimination that preceded the Talibans rule and are now deeply engrained in society and even normalized, they added. Now we can live freely without fear or danger.. Asia, Central They recommended that the international community develop further normative standards and tools to address the broader phenomenon of gender apartheid as an institutionalized system of discrimination, segregation, humiliation, and exclusion of women and girls. Women's Rights Under the Taliban in Afghanistan: The China Factor. Women are prohibited from traveling any significant distance without a male relative, and from going to public spaces like gyms and parks. A year and a half later, she says she now believes the Talibans new rule is not as brutal as its first. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. An Afghan woman walks past a beauty salon in Kabul, Afghanistan, July 6, 2023 . She recounted stories of those bloody days to her surviving children, telling them the Taliban were never to trusted, always to be feared. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. She hated the Western-backed government. With Ban on Beauty Salons, Taliban Continue to Shrink Women's Rights in If she could leave the country now, she said, she would. As the Taliban Curbs Women's Rights, Advocates Demand Action Far from seeing their rights as bargaining chips for aid, Afghan women live in a reality where the mounting restrictions also affect their ability to survive. The ban will also create a "significant" decrease in women's employment, the International Labour Organization (ILO) told Reuters. Asia, Pacific TANGI VALLEY, Afghanistan For most of the past 40 years, Habiba could feel death knocking at her door. Based on global opinion, these 25 nations are the world's best. Roshni Kapur. The country is still home to the worlds largest humanitarian crisis, with two-thirds of the population, or 28 million people, estimated to need aid in 2023. Best Countries is a rankings, news and analysis project created to capture how countries are perceived on a global scale. Munera Al Dosari and Adam Abou-Gad are our engagement producers. On this #IWD2023, I join @SE_AfghanWGH and stand in solidarity with Afghan women. KABUL - Latest UN update on the Human rights Situation in Afghanistan covering May and June 2023. Nearly half of the population, 20 million people, are currently experiencing crisis levels of food insecurity, and six million are one step away from famine-like conditions. The Taliban have said that women will be allowed to work, but within the framework of Shariah. If history is any guide, the Taliban's interpretation will be strict. Enjoying this article? The supreme leader of the Talibans de facto government, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, has imposed new restrictions on womens activities by banning womens beauty salons across Afghanistan. Similar orders have led to the closure of high schools and universities to women and stopped many Afghan female aid staff from work, moves foreign officials say are hampering any steps towards the formal recognition of the Taliban administration. The experts expect to present to the Human Rights Council in June a joint report thoroughly analysing the situation of women and girls rights in Afghanistan, followed by an interactive dialogue with Afghan women. Afghan women have seen their rights disappear since the Taliban regained control of their country in August 2021. An error occurred while subscribing your email address. Women are prohibited from. Still, she says, she cannot shake the dread. My dream was to have my own beauty salon and have girls share their vocation. On the morning of Feb. 7, 2017, two electricians were working on a warning siren near the spillway of Oroville Dam, 60 miles north of Sacramento, when they heard an explosion. For two years, the de facto authorities have dismantled the legal and institutional framework and have been ruling through the most extreme forms of misogyny, destroying the relative progress towards gender equality achieved in the past two decades, they said. Entering, they cross a courtyard shaded by a canopy of vines, descend down a flight of stairs, and walk through a narrow underground passageway to their classroom. The UN chief has pledged that the Organization will never be silent when women and girls rights are under attack, as they are today in Afghanistan, and declared that the Taliban ban on Afghan women doing lifesaving humanitarian work is putting millions of lives in jeopardy there. Afghanistan's women: Life under Taliban restrictions She also suggests the international community support efforts like Starlink, to spread the internet throughout the country so that women and girls could pursue online education. But in Afghanistan, girls and women have been deprived of this fundamental right: They are no longer allowed to attend secondary school and higher education.