July 2, 2024
Staff Report
LAHORE:
The United Nations-led two-day conference of special envoys for Afghanistan concluded on July 1 in Doha, Qatar, with participants mostly focusing on developing a private business sector, helping the Taliban sustain anti-narcotics gains – and mentioning critical concerns about restrictions on women and girls only as an afterthought.
“Afghanistan cannot return to the international fold, or fully develop economically and socially, if it is deprived of the contributions and potential of half its population,” said Rosemary DiCarlo, UN undersecretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, who presided over the gathering of 25 countries, including the US, Russia and China, alongside regional organisations such as the EU.
However, reportedly the Taliban refused to engage with the international community on rights issues. Zabiullah Mujahid, chief spokesperson of the Taliban’s interim government, who is leading the Kabul delegation, insisted that Afghanistan upholds certain religious and cultural values and public aspirations that must be acknowledged.
His statement is consistent with their stance on women that the treatment meted out to them in Afghanistan is an “internal matter”.
Disappointed with DiCarlo’s statement, Mahbouba Siraj, a rights activist and Nobel Prize nominee, talking to Voicepk, said, it’s a “band-aid”. “I knew the envoys at the UN-led conference in Doha would try to do some damage control – it’s part of their job.”
She refused to accept the Doha talks as diplomacy, “It’s laughable”.
She added that the Doha platform should have been used as a first step to engage with the Taliban on critical rights issues. “By not bringing rights to the main table, they have missed another opportunity to free women in Afghanistan. They have made the Afghan women’s struggle even harder.”
Fatima Atif, who works with Hazara refugees, said the Doha meeting discussed the money blocked by Afghan banks and drugs. “We do not know what is the deal between the international community and the Taliban.”
She added that the Taliban are not bound by any commitment, even the commitment they made to the NATO member countries at the first meeting in Doha. “They are not a legitimate, national government that protects the rights of all social and political groups in Afghanistan.”
The envoys participating in Doha III should have listened to demands of the Afghan women living in exile, said Khushal Khan, a member of the National Democratic Movement – “By holding this meeting, the UN is paving the way for the legitimization of the Taliban government. This is highly objectionable, as they are not elected, and hence a non-legitimate group controlling Afghanistan.”
Mariam Solaimankhil, member of Afghanistan’s parliament living in exile, posted on X, “… the Doha meeting concluded… The real message: women have no future under this proxy regime. Everything else they said? Absolute garbage.”
Oh, the Doha meeting concluded and the Taliban, with their ISI-picked translator, conveyed their "messages"? How predictable. The real message: women have no future under this proxy regime. Everything else they said? Absolute garbage. Wake up, world! https://t.co/7MvPXHY95W
— Mariam Solaimankhil (@Mariamistan) July 1, 2024
Samira Hamidi, activist from Afghanistan, posted on X: “Using media as a propaganda space, Taliban are promoting their narrative successfully calling women’s crises they have created internal matter. This is result of UN & Intl community overlooking severity women’s rights crisis in & prioritizing engagement with Taliban on Doha.”
Using media as a propaganda space, Taliban are promoting their narrative successfully calling women's crises they have created internal matter. This is result of UN & Intl community overlooking severity women’s rights crisis in 🇦🇫 & prioritizing engagement with Taliban on Doha.
— Samira Hamidi (@HuriaSamira) July 1, 2024
Fawzia Koofi, first woman deputy speaker of parliament, said on X that “…Attempts to design Doha 3rd based on desire of Taliban go against SC Resolution 2721. Excluding women, CSOs and democratic forces is yet another failure of the UN who now sees itself as the only player in Afghanistan.”
Using media as a propaganda space, Taliban are promoting their narrative successfully calling women's crises they have created internal matter. This is result of UN & Intl community overlooking severity women’s rights crisis in 🇦🇫 & prioritizing engagement with Taliban on Doha.
— Samira Hamidi (@HuriaSamira) July 1, 2024
Since the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021, education has become inaccessible to girls over the age of 12. Female civil servants were instructed not to attend their offices, women were prohibited from working for NGOs and humanitarian agencies, including the UN, and women-run businesses were forcibly closed. Movement for women is heavily restricted, requiring them to be accompanied by a mehrum (blood relation), severely limiting their participation in public spaces.
Ahead of the Doha III meeting, human rights groups as well as Afghan women groups have criticized the decision of the participants of the talks process to not hold the women’s cause at the heart of the meeting. They maintain that their stance is inconsistent with the UN Charter, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security and nine subsequent, related resolutions, and conventions including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). And, that the failure to address these critical human rights issues is a disservice to women and girls living in Afghanistan.
In a letter addressed to the UN Security Council and its member states, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) urged the UN to reconsider its engagement with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The letter highlighted the severe human rights violations occurring in Pakistan’s province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, bordering Afghanistan, as a direct result of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. It drew attention to the gender apartheid and systemic discrimination against women and religious minorities in Afghanistan and advised the organisation “not to engage with the Taliban unless they end violations against women and minorities”.
Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International said women’s exclusion sets “a deeply damaging precedent” and “risks legitimatising their gender-based institutional system of oppression”.
The Doha III meetingis a new low for the UN since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, states a Human Rights Watch dispatch –“The UN, pulling out all the stops to get the Taliban to attend, has crafted an agenda excluding human rights and a guestlist excluding Afghan women from the main meetings. In other words, those most impacted by Taliban abuses are being sidelined and excluded from talking about their fate by the UN.”
MalalaYousufzai wrote on X last a few days ahead of the Doha III that she spoke to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about the Doha meeting, and that she was “alarmed and disappointed” that the Taliban were invited to meet U.N. special envoys while Afghan women and rights defenders were excluded from the main conversation.”
She added that convening the meeting without Afghan women sent “all the wrong” signals – that the world was willing to accommodate the Taliban’s demands.
The UN has also been criticized for excluding women’s rights issues from the talks. Richard Bennett, UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan in April 2022, writing for The New York Times, said that it is a mistake to measure the success of this meeting by whether the Taliban show up.
Recalling her interaction with Afghan girls, he wrote: “Afghan women and girls have often said to me that their greatest fear used to be that the Taliban would return to power. Now they say that they fear the Taliban will be recognized simply because of their power, in disregard of their cruel policies and practices.”