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Amnesty International warns strides made by women ‘under threat’
Amnesty International said Monday that the two decades of hard-won progress by Afghanistan’s women and girls are at serious risk of being unraveled.
The organization raised concerns in a statement that read “the limited involvement of women in the peace talks” and the major strides on women’s rights “are now under threat.”
Amnesty International stated that as international troops continue to leave the country ahead of a full withdrawal on September 11, and with talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban at an impasse, the prospects for Afghanistan’s women and girls are at a critical juncture.
“Afghanistan is at a tipping point. As peace talks falter, the conflict continues to take the lives of civilians on an almost daily basis. Taken alongside the forthcoming withdrawal of international troops, Afghanistan is drifting towards an outcome that threatens to undo more than twenty years of progress for women and girls,” said Yamini Mishra, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Director.
Mishra stated that these negotiations will shape the future for women and girls in Afghanistan and their voices must be heard.
“Now is the time for the Afghan government and its international partners to unequivocally commit and work to ensure that women’s rights and two decades of achievement are not traded off in the peace talks with the Taliban,” she said.
According to the statement, Afghan women were subjected to severe restrictions including being banned from working outside the home and appearing in public without a close male relative under Taliban rule from 1996-2001.
“Women and girls were further denied access to education and had limited access to healthcare. These restrictions still invariably apply to women in areas currently controlled by the Taliban,” the statement noted.
“While much work remains to be done, women’s rights have improved significantly since 2001. There are now 3.3 million girls in education, and women more actively participate in the political, economic and social life of the country.”
“Despite the ongoing conflict, Afghan women have become lawyers, doctors, judges, teachers, engineers, athletes, activists, politicians, journalists, bureaucrats, business owners, police officers, and members of the military,” the statement read.
Amnesty International noted that Afghan women still face major obstacles to the full realization of their rights.
“Violence against women is rife, the participation of women at all levels of government remains limited and, according to UNICEF, 2.2 million Afghan girls still do not attend school.”
“In the current peace talks, which began in September 2020, the 21-member Afghan government negotiation team included only four women, with no women represented in the Taliban delegation. In the March peace conference on Afghanistan in Moscow, only one woman was included in the 16-member government delegation.”
“The significant under-representation and frequent side-lining of women throughout these talks are indicative of how far there is still to go. These negotiations will shape the future for women and girls in Afghanistan and their voices must be heard. The Afghan government must ensure inclusive and meaningful participation of women in the talks,” said Yamini Mishra.
The Embassy of Japan in Afghanistan announced on Friday that the country has allocated $19.5 million in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
In a statement, the Japanese Embassy said it hopes the aid will help bring positive change to the lives of vulnerable Afghans.
According to the statement, the assistance will cover the basic humanitarian needs of vulnerable communities in Afghanistan.
The embassy added that the aid will be delivered through United Nations agencies, international organizations, and Japanese non-governmental organizations operating in Afghanistan.
Japan’s total assistance to Afghanistan since August 2021 has reached more than $549 million.
Security forces at the Islam Qala border in Herat province prevented hundreds of young Afghans from illegally entering Iran.
Officials from the 207 Al-Farooq Army Corps said that around 530 people attempted over the past two days to illegally enter Iranian territory through areas of Kohsan district in Herat, but border forces detained them and transferred them back to their original areas.
Meanwhile, officials in the local administration of Herat said that due to severe cold along the illegal migration route to Iran, three Afghan migrants have lost their lives in the Kohsan district of the province, and a shepherd has also died there for the same reason.
Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi, spokesperson for the Herat governor’s office, said that some statistics and images shared on social media regarding the incident are not reliable.
According to him, further investigations are underway to determine whether any individuals have died on the other side of the border.
President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that, at Trump’s direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program, the Associated Press reported.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa beginning in 2000, according to an affidavit from a Providence police detective. In 2017, he was issued a diversity immigrant visa and months later obtained legal permanent residence status, according to the affidavit. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.
The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the U.S., many of them in Africa. The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.
Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals. After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other counties.
While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has sought to limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration. He has not been deterred if they are enshrined in law, like the diversity visa lottery, or the Constitution, as with a right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.
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