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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.
Russia’s Power Machines Company is interested in investing in the rehabilitation and modernization of Afghanistan’s power plants, Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS) said on Tuesday.
DABS Chief Executive Officer Abdul Haq Hamkar discussed the potential investment with technical officials from Power Machines, with talks focusing on rehabilitating existing power plants, modernizing equipment and expanding power-generation capacity.
According to DABS, Hamkar said the company would cooperate in facilitating preliminary technical assessments of Afghanistan’s power plants and in exploring investment opportunities in the sector.
Denis Rudakov, head of Power Machines’ commercial department, said the Russian company plans to conduct preliminary technical assessments of existing power plants in Afghanistan.
Based on the findings, Power Machines will prepare proposals for rehabilitating facilities, modernizing equipment and increasing electricity-generation capacity, DABS said.
Afghanistan currently has several operational power plants, while efforts are underway to increase their generation capacity and upgrade their equipment, according to DABS.
Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), on Tuesday denied that IEA authorities detained Mahmood Shah Habibi, an Afghan-American businessman the US claims disappeared in Kabul four years ago.
“We have no information about Mahmood Shah Habibi. He is not with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. If he were, this issue would have been resolved long ago,” Mujahid said.
His remarks came a day after the FBI marked the fourth anniversary of Habibi’s disappearance and renewed its appeal for information about his whereabouts.
According to the FBI, Habibi disappeared near his home in Kabul on August 10, 2022. At the time, he was working as a consultant for Asia Consultancy Group, a Kabul-based telecommunications company. He had previously served as Afghanistan’s director of civil aviation.
The FBI has alleged that Habibi was detained by the IEA’s General Directorate of Intelligence.
The FBI has continued its investigation and in 2025 released a missing-persons poster for Habibi. The U.S. State Department has also offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his location, recovery and return.
Afghanistan’s Justice Minister Abdul Hakim Sharei says the reclamation of state-owned land seized by land grabbers is a legal matter and should not be linked to ethnicity, religion or language.
Sharei, who also heads the Commission for the Prevention of Land Grabbing, made the remarks at a meeting with officials and representatives of charitable organizations in Kabul.
He said the commission is legally and religiously obligated to enforce rulings issued by the special court handling cases involving seized state land. Once the court determines that a disputed plot belongs to the state, the commission must enforce the decision, he said.
Sharei said the special court bases its rulings on documents, evidence and the law, adding that legal principles must be applied equally to all parties.
The justice minister also called on charitable organizations to work toward establishing a nationwide union and to expand their activities into fundamental and infrastructure projects.
He urged charities to avoid photographing or filming people while distributing aid, saying such practices could undermine the dignity of those receiving assistance.
Representatives of charitable organizations raised concerns over taxes, customs procedures and lengthy administrative processes. The Ministry of Justice said it would work to address the issues following the establishment of a nationwide union.
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