March marked the fourth year that Afghan girls were informed that their mind was still not desired and that education for any woman over 12 was still impossible. Their tears and autumutilation acts are ignored. International attention now aims to make paper on the problem.
During the same month, in New York, the 69th session of the United Nations Commission on the Statute of Women (CSW) was unfortunately the theater of women of Afghanistan explaining the situation of their sisters trapped within the country and unable to appear in person, victims of institutionalized violence on gender, without support or protection.
This strongly contrasts with the image presented during the intervention of the American and international community in Afghanistan after 2001, which was partly marketed as a mission to protect the rights and dignity of Afghan women. At that time, the CSWs were filled with stories of success, highlighting the capacities of Afghan women to compete on international stages and win prestigious prizes, one after the other. The international community has used Afghan women to put a positive face with their war efforts in Afghanistan.
We both attended many international meetings focused on Afghan women – one of us as a woman from Afghanistan and the other as an American former diplomat who served twice in the embassy between 2009 and 2018. The contrast between the past tales of empowerment and the current cries to obtain aid is deeply personal.
We have seen the dramatic transformation that investment in human rights has brought to Afghan society. Women could work, study and challenge oppressive customs before the courts. Democracy began to settle after the excitement of the first presidential and parliamentary elections, promoting values such as human rights, gender equality and diversity between governments, schools and workplaces. One of the authors, Nazila, joined a non -governmental organization dedicated to the promotion of human rights and gender equality. To assay this role of young woman gave her the unprecedented opportunity to travel freely across the country and to defend Afghan women. On each trip, she witnessed tangible progress in the participation of women in society.
The era of gender apartheid, social injustice and oppression slowly disappeared, thanks to the determined efforts of Afghans and Americans engaged in this transformation.
But in 2021, we both looked at the grief that this future was stolen from Afghan women overnight. The Taliban’s return has erased decades of progress made by Afghans and Americans, while the new regime has restored a legal framework designed to eliminate the presence of women in public life. Over the past four years, the Taliban has systematically imposed serious restrictions on Afghan women, which withdraws their rights in all aspects – from education and employment to freedom of movement and to participate in daily activities. Whenever the world thought that the situation could not deteriorate more, the Taliban designed new ways to deepen their oppression.
In August 2024, the Taliban introduced a law under the banner to “promote virtue and eliminate the vice”, solidify and add to the litany restrictions on women. Women have to hide completely. Even votes are considered intimate and it is therefore prohibited for women to be heard in public by singing, reciting or reading aloud. Women are prohibited from establishing visual contact with men who are not family members.
Taliban policies are not simply oppressive; They threaten the survival and well-being of countless Afghan women and their communities.
In December 2024, the Taliban prohibited women and girls from frequenting public and private medical institutes. This devastating directive occurs while Afghanistan faces a serious humanitarian crisis. Maternal mortality rates increase as the age of brides falls, which is more high -risk birth, while more than a third of the population does not have access to health care and the levels of malnutrition soar. The exclusion of women from medical education will have catastrophic consequences.
What international avenues exist to support Afghans, who – even in the face of serious repression – defends their own rights? Unfortunately, only a few tools such as the sanctions and the non-recognition of the Taliban regime are still in place, and some seem ready to give them even. In mid-February, the United Nations introduced a proposal “a global approach to Afghanistan”. Unfortunately, the proposal is similar to the failure of the “Doha agreement” signed by the first Trump administration in February 2020. The suggested path consists of a commitment framework which links the “stages” tangible to the goals held by both sides.
There are two key weaknesses: first, the ridiculous inequality of the negotiation of articles.
The Taliban’s obligations, such as membership of the international obligations of Afghanistan, are long -term, complex and enormous companies requiring the inversion of hundreds of decrees, laws and other actions, and are fully reversible, as would be just as complex to comply with the requirements of fighting the field or to inclusive governance. But on the side of the international community, abandoning the UN siege in Afghanistan, disgusting its assets or repealing the United Nations sanctions are rapid and irreversible actions which threaten the last remaining areas of the international lever effect.
Second, there is a lack of transparency or formal consultation with the Afghans. In fact, in a presentation document for the plan shared with various countries, non -Taliban Afghans are called “stakeholders” – at the height of experts specific to terrorism or banking services. The structure of discussions therefore continues to envisage the international driver’s seats community to negotiate on behalf of the Afghans, rather than the real terms of the special evaluation, which envisaged international support for an intra-Afghan preparatory dialogue for national political dialogue.
Where would that leave Afghan women? Even more helpless than before, with additional repression given the apparent blessing of the global community. Low and inconsistent responses indicate that Afghan women’s rights are secondary to geopolitical interests. Despite international commitments to human rights, the lack of significant application allows diets like the Taliban to operate with impunity. We urge the United Nations to bring Afghan women to the negotiating table, to be their own defenders and to create their own destiny, before it is too late.