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Engagement key to reform of IEA policies restricting women’s rights
The international community must continue to engage with Islamic Emirate leaders in Afghanistan despite deep disagreement with their approach to women’s rights and inclusive governance, the UN Special Representative for the country told the Security Council on Tuesday.
Roza Otunbayeva, who also heads the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), called for a “reframed engagement strategy”, expressing concern over the “lack of positive direction” in current efforts.
“The lack of trust on all sides is a serious impediment to building confidence but the doors to dialogue are still open,” she said.
“This moment, despite its problems, is an opportunity. We must ensure that the doors to dialogue are not shut.”
Otunbayeva said engagement has been significantly undermined by the more than 50 Taliban decrees aimed at eliminating women from public life and education.
“The policies that drive the exclusion of women are unacceptable to the international community,” she said.
She also cited a new UN report based on more than 500 interviews with Afghan women, 46 percent of whom said the Islamic Emirate should not be recognized under any circumstances.
“The question, however, is whether to continue engaging with the de facto authorities despite these policies, or to cease engaging because of them,” she said.
“UNAMA’s view is that we must continue to engage and to maintain a dialogue.
“Dialogue is not recognition. Engagement is not acceptance of these policies. On the contrary: dialogue and engagement are how we are attempting to change these policies.”
Otunbayeza told the Council that this engagement could be more structured and purposeful while remaining principled.
“A reframed engagement strategy must first acknowledge that the de facto authority bears responsibility for the well-being of the Afghan people, in all dimensions but especially concerning women,” she stressed.
Other components would include mechanisms to address the de facto authorities’ long-term concerns, as well as “a sincere intra-Afghan dialogue of the sort that was interrupted when the Taliban took power in August 2021.”
Additionally, “a more coherent position of the international community” would also be required, she said.
Sima Bahous, head of the UN’s gender equality agency, UN Women, also briefed the Council. She told ambassadors that Taliban decrees are costing Afghanistan roughly one billion dollars a year, which will only increase.
The edicts are also exacerbating the dire humanitarian situation in a country where more than two-thirds of the population depend on assistance to survive and some 20 million, mainly women and girls, are facing acute hunger.
She insisted that the way forward must be guided by women’s voices and the principles of the UN Charter.
Bahous recommended that the Security Council Committee that oversees sanctions against Afghanistan convene a session to examine the role it can play in responding to violations of women’s rights in the country.
“We must consider the messages we send when we frame the situation in Afghanistan purely or exclusively as a humanitarian crisis,” she further advised.
“It is an economic crisis, a mental health crisis, a development crisis, and more. And the thread that connects these different facets is the underlying women’s rights crisis. This must be the primary lens through which we understand what is going on and what we must do.”
She also urged ambassadors to fully support efforts to explicitly codify “gender apartheid” in international law.
Three road construction projects worth about one billion Afghanis started in capital Kabul on Saturday.
The projects were inaugurated by Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
The projects are: the second phase of Kotal Khairkhane road, the first part of the Shahid square to Qasaba, and the Airport road to Gumruk.
In the inauguration ceremony, Mullah Baradar said that Kabul municipality is working hard to beautify and regulate the city, and people should cooperate with the government in protecting public benefit projects.
He directed the officials of Kabul municipality to complete the mentioned projects on time and with good quality.
The second phase of Kotel Khairkhaneh road is 2.5 kilometers long and 60 meters wide. Thie road will cost 364 million Afghanis and will be completed in 20 months.
The Shahid square-Qasaba road is 1.8 kilometers long and 45 meters wide, which will be built at a cost of 175 million Afghanis in one year.
The Airport-Gumruk road is 2.7 km long and 60 meters wide, which will be completed at a cost of 407 million Afghanis in 20 months.
The projects are funded by Kabul Municipality.
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu said on Friday that the main threat for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members emanates from Afghanistan where international terrorist groups find shelter due to unstable and indefinite political situation.
Speaking at a meeting of the SCO defense ministers in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana, Shoygu said Washington has stepped up efforts to restore its positions in Central and South Asia that were lost after the withdrawal of coalition troops from Afghanistan, Anadolu Agency reported.
The military chief called “unacceptable” the deployment of the American military infrastructure in the region, arguing that intentions should be regarded as “a direct threat to stability in the SCO space.”
According to him, the US is trying to impose a new security system in the Asia-Pacific region for dominance.
This comes as the Islamic Emirate has repeatedly emphasized that it does not allow anyone to pose threats to any other country from Afghanistan soil.
Recently, Mohammad Yaqub Mujahid, Acting Minister of National Defense Mohammad Yaqub Mujahid said that no destructive groups including Daesh have physical presence in Afghanistan,
In a statement on the occasion of the 32nd anniversary of the victory of the Mujahideen against the then communist government, the Islamic Emirate said that it is a day of freedom of the Afghan nation.
The Islamic Emirate described the coup by People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan on 27th April 1978 as a dark day in history, as a result of which the people of Afghanistan suffered severe human and financial losses.
The statement said that the Afghan nation suffered huge casualties in their 14-year struggle against the thoughts and actions of the communists, as 1.5 million people died and millions more faced various hardships.
“After 20 years of Jihad, our country was freed from another occupation and the Islamic system was established, so the Islamic Emirate will make its utmost efforts so that the fruits of decades of sacrifice and struggle of this nation are not wasted,” the statement said.
“It was the wish of the martyrs to fully implement the Islamic system in the country, and therefore, the Islamic Emirate is trying to facilitate development and prosperity under the shadow of the Islamic system in order to realize the goals of the Afghan people’s jihads,” it added.
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