Specific demise threats have been made in opposition to dozens of Afghan girls working for the United Nations in Afghanistan, based on a brand new UN report, the place their rights have been severely curtailed for the reason that Taliban returned to energy in 2021.
The UN mission to the nation mentioned feminine nationwide employees have been subjected to direct demise threats in Might, within the newest replace on the human rights state of affairs in Afghanistan revealed on Sunday.
The report says the Taliban informed the UN mission that their cadres weren’t chargeable for the threats, and an Inside Ministry investigation is underneath method.
The threats got here from unidentified people associated to their work with the UN Help Mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA, different companies, funds, and programmes, “requiring the U.N. to implement interim measures to guard their security”, based on the report.
Afghan authorities, together with the Taliban Inside Ministry, didn’t instantly reply to requests for touch upon the report or the investigation, based on The Related Press information company.
The Taliban barred Afghan girls from working at home and international nongovernmental organisations in December 2022, extending this ban to the UN six months later. They then threatened to close down companies and teams nonetheless using girls. Support companies and NGOs say the Taliban have disrupted or interfered with their operations, allegations denied by authorities.
The UN report is the primary official affirmation of demise threats in opposition to Afghan girls working within the sector. The report additionally highlighted different areas affecting girls’s private freedoms and security, together with inspectors from the Vice and Advantage Ministry requiring girls to put on a chador, a full-body cloak masking the pinnacle. Girls have been arrested for under sporting the hijab.
Girls have additionally been denied entry to public areas, according to legal guidelines banning them from such areas.
A UN report from August 2024 discovered that Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities has “intentionally disadvantaged” a minimum of 1.4 million women of their proper to an training throughout its three years in energy.
About 300,000 extra women are lacking out on faculty since UNESCO final carried out a depend in April 2023, it mentioned on Thursday, warning that “the way forward for a whole era is now in jeopardy.”
ICC targets Taliban for persecution of girls
The Worldwide Prison Courtroom (ICC) issued arrest warrants in July for 2 high Taliban leaders in Afghanistan on costs of abuses in opposition to girls and women.
ICC judges mentioned on the time there have been “cheap grounds” to suspect Taliban Supreme Chief Haibatullah Akhunzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani of committing gender-based persecution.
“Whereas the Taliban have imposed sure guidelines and prohibitions on the inhabitants as a complete, they’ve particularly focused women and girls by motive of their gender, depriving them of elementary rights and freedoms,” the court docket mentioned in an announcement in July.
The Taliban has “severely disadvantaged” women and girls of the rights to training, privateness, household life and the freedoms of motion, expression, thought, conscience and faith, ICC judges mentioned.
The Taliban has rejected the ICC warrants as “baseless rhetoric”, saying it doesn’t recognise the ICC’s authority, and underlined the court docket’s failure to guard the “tons of of girls and kids being killed every day” in Gaza.
