Just over two weeks ago we marked 1,000 days since the Taliban closed schools and universities to half of Afghanistan’s youth population: the female half. This week, we revealed that the UN talks with the Taliban, to be held in Doha next week, would have no women in the room at the group’s request. The UN has rolled over to this extremist and hypocritical misogyny – and women’s rights will also not be on the table. Quite apart from wondering what is on the table, if the brutal suppression of 50% of Afghanistan’s population is not, I can’t help but feel complete incredulity at why on earth the international community is accepting this.
Consider “bad hijab”: thanks to the Taliban’s decree from 2022, girls and women are being jailed if they leave home without being covered from head to toe, so that nothing but their eyes can be seen. This week, reporters from the Afghan agency Zan Times, in collaboration with the Guardian, revealed in a horrifying story how women who have been arrested have then been sexually assaulted while in detention.
It is difficult to stomach that talks with the Taliban could go ahead without reference to their treatment of Afghan women.
But then, when has the international community really pushed for justice in Afghanistan? As the news broke this week that Julian Assange has been freed, no matter what your view is of Wikileaks, it is notable that 14 years after one of the biggest leaks in US military history – what this paper called “a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents” – no action was taken, no one was held to account. So perhaps it is not so surprising that the Taliban are not being held to account either. Tracy McVeigh, editor, Global development
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