On Inside Geneva this week, host Imogen Foulkes asks if the United Nations (UN) should still work in Afghanistan, now the Taliban are banning women from work, and girls from secondary school?
Karima Bennoune, professor of International Law: ‘Anyone who believed in something called Taliban 2.0, had never actually spoken to an Afghan woman human rights defender. Because the Afghan women human rights defenders, they knew what was going to happen. They did their best without a loud microphone to tell governments, to tell international organisations, what was going to happen.’
Is the UN becoming complicit in what some call gender apartheid?
Fiona Frazer, UN human rights, Kabul: Despite the fact that it does seem, every month, or three months or so on a new decree comes out that pushes women further back into their homes, we have to keep being here. That's what women and girls tell us: they want us to be here. They feel the need to have the UN be here, to be present, and to keep going back.
It’s now almost two years since the Taliban seized power again. What do Afghan women think?
Fereshta Abbasi, Human Rights Watch: If there is a resistance in Afghanistan, it’s definitely coming from the women of Afghanistan. That 12-year-old girl who's still attending an underground school in Helmand is the resistance of Afghanistan. The Taliban will never be able to erase their minds and erase the knowledge that they have already gained.
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Speaker 1:
I am unable to report improvements in the human rights situation, certainly not for women and girls, whose predicament has only worsened, nor for others in the population who are marginalized, associated with the former Islamic Republic or who resist or even disagree with the Taliban's ideology. We also draw to the Council's attention our deep concern that these serious deprivations of women and girls' fundamental human rights and the harsh enforcement by the de facto authorities of their restrictive measures may constitute the crime against humanity of gender persecution Grave, systematic and institutionalized discrimination against women and girls, as is at the heart of Taliban ideology and rule, which also gives rise to concerns that they may be responsible for gender apartheid.
Speaker 3:
I am deeply worried about the deteriorating human rights situation in Afghanistan, where the Taliban de facto authorities have dismantled the most fundamental principles of human rights, particularly for women and girls. Yet some openings for engagement have been possible by the special rapporteur, by other experts and, notably, our field presence on the ground, for instance through continued visits to prisons.
Speaker 2:
Afghan women often talk about being breathed alive. Breathing but not being able to do much else without facing restrictions and punishments. Their lives held still while the lives of the men around them, their male children, their brothers, their husbands, move forward. Afghan women are envious observers but not participants, as women in neighboring countries, Muslim nations and around the world seek an education, pursue their dreams, travel to space and participate in politics.