RASC News Agency: Richard Bennett, the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan, has called on the Taliban to take immediate and meaningful steps to dismantle the system that deprives women and girls of their fundamental rights. In a report released on Monday July 1, Bennett stated on his X account that the systematic violation of human rights in Afghanistan, particularly those of women and girls, has intensified under the Taliban’s regime.
Bennett remarked that the Taliban’s repression of women should shock the conscience of humanity. He also urged the use of all available tools to challenge and dismantle the entrenched system of “gender-based oppression” by the Taliban and to hold the group’s leaders accountable. Bennett recommended that UN member states recognize and support the concept of gender apartheid.
This comes as the third Doha meeting, chaired by the United Nations, concluded on Monday after two days of discussions. The Taliban were invited to participate, but no women were present. The United Nations did not invite women to this meeting, and several women who were invited chose to boycott the event. Zubaida Akbar and Nabila Mosleh, two of the invited women, did not attend, stating that any meeting sidelining women is inherently invalid.
Since the Taliban’s ascension to power in Afghanistan, the group has stripped women of all basic rights, including the rights to education, employment, travel, recreation, and political participation.
