HomeLatestUN Security Council Set to Vote Against Taliban Bans on Women, Girls

UN Security Council Set to Vote Against Taliban Bans on Women, Girls

Islamabad – The United Nations Security Council is ready to vote Thursday to demand Afghanistan’s Taliban management swiftly reverse their restrictions on girls’s entry to schooling and work and to sentence a current ban on U.N. native feminine employees.

The draft decision, seen by VOA, expresses ‘deep concern on the growing erosion of respect for the human rights and elementary freedoms of girls and women in Afghanistan by the Taliban.’

The United Arab Emirates and Japan collectively drafted the decision, with diplomats anticipating it to be adopted by the 15-member council.

The decision being put to the vote would describe the ban on feminine Afghan employees as ‘unprecedented’ within the historical past of the United Nations, saying it ‘undermines human rights and humanitarian rules.’ It would reaffirm ‘the indispensable function of girls in Afghan society.’

FILE - Afghan university students in Quetta, Pakistan, chant slogans and hold placards during a protest against the ban on university education for women in their home country, Dec. 24, 2022.

UN, US Decry Relentless ‘Repressive’ Taliban Edicts Against Afghan Women

The ban on feminine U.N. employees and girls working for nongovernmental organizations in Afghanistan ‘will negatively and severely affect’ U.N. operations within the nation, together with the supply of life-saving help and fundamental companies.

FILE - Zabiullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Taliban government, speaks during a press conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, June 30, 2022. FILE - Zabiullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Taliban government, speaks during a press conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, June 30, 2022.

Taliban Defend Ban on Female UN Staff as ‘Internal Issue’ 

Thursday’s vote will come as U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres plans to host a gathering behind closed doorways of envoys on Afghanistan from nations around the globe in Doha, Qatar May 1-2 to debate what needs to be carried out within the wake of the intensifying Taliban crackdown on girls.

The Taliban reclaimed energy in August 2021 because the United States and NATO troops withdrew from the nation after virtually twenty years of involvement within the Afghan warfare.

The reclusive chief of the fundamentalist Taliban authorities, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has since imposed his strict interpretation of Islamic legislation, or Sharia, to control strife-torn Afghanistan. He has banned women’ schooling past the sixth grade and barred most Afghan girls from public life and work throughout the nation.

FILE - A young woman protests against a Taliban ban on women's higher education, outside Kabul University, as Taliban guards stand by, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Dec. 25, 2022. Only male students will be allowed to attend state-run universities when they re-open March 6, 2023. FILE - A young woman protests against a Taliban ban on women's higher education, outside Kabul University, as Taliban guards stand by, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Dec. 25, 2022. Only male students will be allowed to attend state-run universities when they re-open March 6, 2023.

Taliban Announce Reopening of Universities, however Only for Male Students

Akhundzada final week once more dismissed worldwide calls for relieving curbs on girls’s freedom, saying he wouldn’t permit any exterior interference in his Islamic governance, come what could.

‘It is the success and success of the Afghan nation that Allah has blessed them with an Islamic Sharia system,’ Akhundzada advised worshippers in a mosque within the southern Afghan metropolis of Kandahar on Friday.

‘I’ve promised Allah that as long as I’m alive, not a single legislation of infidelity will discover a place in Afghanistan,’ the reclusive Taliban chief stated in his defiant speech that marked the beginning of the three-day annual Muslim competition of Eid al-Fitr.

Other nations have refused to acknowledge the Taliban as Afghanistan’s reputable rulers, citing bans on girls’s schooling and work, amongst different human rights considerations.

Earlier this month, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, whereas sharing particulars of the deliberate Doha assembly, steered recognition would even be on the agenda.

‘We hope that we are going to discover these child steps to place us again on the pathway to recognition [of the Taliban], a principled recognition; in different phrases, there are situations,’ Mohammed advised a seminar at Princeton University.

‘Is it doable? I do not know. That dialogue has to occur. The Taliban clearly need recognition, and that is the leverage we’ve got,’ she stated.

FILE - Taliban leaders participate in a conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, April 3, 2022. FILE - Taliban leaders participate in a conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, April 3, 2022.

US Rules Out Talks on Afghan Taliban Recognition at UN-Hosted Meeting 

The United States has stated that any dialogue of recognition of the Taliban at subsequent week’s U.N.-hosted assembly in Doha ‘can be unacceptable’ for Washington.

State Department spokesman Vedant Patel reiterated on Wednesday that the Taliban’s “human rights abuses towards women and girls…continues to be one of the key roadblocks to their self-proclaimed desire for international recognition.”

The draft decision to be put ahead on Thursday would additionally acknowledge and stress the necessity to tackle ‘the dire financial and humanitarian state of affairs’ dealing with Afghanistan, together with by efforts to revive the nation’s banking and monetary methods.

The United States and different Western nations froze greater than $9 billion in Afghan central financial institution international reserves after the Taliban takeover. Washington has since transferred a portion of the frozen reserves to a belief fund in Switzerland, strictly for use for aid efforts.

FILE - Afghan men walk past Da Afghanistan Bank, Afghanistan's central bank, in Kabul on June 28, 2011. FILE - Afghan men walk past Da Afghanistan Bank, Afghanistan's central bank, in Kabul on June 28, 2011.

Uncertainty Surrounds Billions of Dollars in Afghanistan’s Funds

Afghanistan is listed as one of many largest humanitarian emergencies on the earth, the place U.N. estimates 6 million persons are one step from faminelike situations. The U.N. says greater than 28 million Afghans, or two-thirds of the inhabitants, want help after years of warfare and pure calamities.

Margaret Basheer contributed to this report.

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