As repression of Afghan women continues, global community urged to help

Kabul : As the Taliban's continued repression of women in the nation, Nasir Ahmad Andisha, Afghanistan's permanent representative to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, criticised the Taliban's ban on women and girls attending school and called for women in Afghanistan to be given access to education, TOLOnews reported.

Andisha urged the world community to join in defence of the rights of all Afghan residents. "We call upon the international community to stand united in its support for an inclusive representative government in Afghanistan committed to upholding the rights of all its citizens," he noted, TOLOnews reported.

Since the Taliban seized power in Kabul last year, the human rights situation has been exacerbated by a nationwide economic, financial and humanitarian crisis of an unprecedented scale.

The Taliban dismantled the system to respond to gender-based violence, created new barriers to women accessing health care, blocked women's aid workers from doing their jobs, and attacked women's rights protesters.

Several female students in Afghanistan claimed they were having mental and emotional issues as a result of the shutdown of the country's colleges and universities for girls.

"Boys can have access to education, but we can't, and this has caused me mental problems because I can't study," Nazdana, a student told TOLOnews.

The Islamic Emirate has not made the decision to reopen the secondary and high schools, despite the fact that the academic year has started and they have been off-limits to female students for approximately 600 days.

Several human rights and education activists had urged world leaders in an open letter recently to mount diplomatic pressure on the Taliban to reopen secondary schools for girls in the war-torn country, according to TOLOnews.

Moreover, in an earlier statement, HRW's Barr said the Taliban rollback of the rights of women and girls began immediately after they took power on August 15, 2021.