UNITED NATIONS: The senior woman at the United Nations said on Wednesday she had used everything in her “toolbox” in meetings with Taliban ministers to try to reverse its crackdown on Afghan women and girls, and called on the Muslims Countries to help the Taliban withdraw from the “13. Century to the 21st Century”.
Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, a former Nigerian cabinet minister and Muslim, told a press conference that four Taliban ministers, including the foreign minister and a deputy prime minister, spoke “under script” in meetings with their delegation last week.
She said officials were trying to highlight things they say they’ve done and not received recognition – and what they called their efforts to create an environment that protects women.
“Your definition of protection would be, I would say, ours of oppression,” Mohammed said.
Those meetings in the Afghan capital Kabul and the Islamic group’s birthplace in Kandahar were followed this week by a visit by UN humanitarian aid chief Martin Griffiths and heads of major aid groups. They are urging the Taliban to reverse their edict last month that bans Afghan women from working for national and international non-governmental organizations.
Griffiths, speaking from Kabul on Wednesday, said the focus of the visit is to get the Taliban to understand that getting relief operations going and allowing women to work in them is crucial. The delegation’s message was simple – that the ban made the groups’ work more difficult, he said.
“What I heard from everyone I met was that they understood the need and right of Afghan women to work and that they will be working on a set of policies that we will issue in due course on those requirements respond,” Griffiths said.
Mohammed said her delegation, including the head of UN Women, which campaigns for gender equality and women’s rights, stood up to the Taliban even as they began speaking out on humanitarian principles.
“We reminded them that non-discrimination is a key element in humanitarian principles… and that they are wiping women out of the workplace,” she said.
As a Sunni Muslim, like Taliban officials, Mohammed said she told ministers that they disobey Islam and are harming people when it comes to preventing girls’ education beyond sixth grade and women’s rights gain weight.
In this photo released January 19, 2022, Taliban officials listen as Afghan Prime Minister Mohammad Hassan Akhund speaks at the former presidential residence in Kabul. (AFP)
In one situation, Mohammed said, she was told by a Taliban official, whom she did not name, that “it is haram (prohibited by Islamic law) for me to be there talking to them.” These conservatives don’t look directly at women, she noted, so she said she’s been “playing that game” and not looking at them directly either.
“I gave as much as I thought they gave and we pushed,” she said.
Mohammed said the Taliban had said the rights that were taken from women and girls would return in due course, so the UN delegation was pushing for a timetable. “What they would say was ‘soon,'” she said.
The Taliban seized power for the second time in August 2021, in the final weeks of the withdrawal of US and NATO forces from Afghanistan after 20 years of war.
Mohammed said the Taliban, which has not been recognized by any country, wants international recognition and Afghanistan’s seat at the United Nations, which is currently held by the former government led by Ashraf Ghani.
“Recognition is a lever we have and should hold on to,” Mohammed said.
Before arriving in Kabul, Mohammed’s delegation traveled to Muslim-majority countries including Indonesia, Turkey, the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, where they said there was broad support against the Taliban bans.
She said there was a proposal for the UN and the 57-member Organization for Islamic Cooperation to host an international conference on women in the Muslim world in mid-March.
“It is very important that Muslim countries come together,” she said. “We have to take the fight to the region … and we have to be bold and bold because women’s rights matter.”
Griffiths, the under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, and his delegation, which included the heads of Care International and Save the Children US, did not travel to Kandahar, where the ban on Afghan women working for NGOs was enacted on orders from the reclusive Taliban Supreme Leader, Hibatullah Akhundzdaza .
Martin Griffiths, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief. (AFP)
Griffiths acknowledged Akhundzada’s top status but said there are many important voices among Taliban officials across the country.
“I don’t think it’s just about asking a man to take responsibility and change an edict,” he said. “There is a collective responsibility for this edict and I hope we build a collective will to compensate for its ban.”
Janti Soeripto of Save the Children said there had been meetings with eight ministries in two days and that some among the Taliban seemed to understand the need to reverse the ban.
“There’s resistance, they don’t want to be seen making a U-turn,” she said. “If people don’t see the consequences as viscerally as we do, people will be less inclined.”
Mohammed said it was important for the UN and its partners to work more in about 20 Afghan provinces that are more forward-leaning.
“A lot of what we need to address is how we travel the Taliban from the 13th to the 21st century,” she said. “It’s a journey. So it’s not just overnight.”
She said the Taliban told her delegation that they are proposing a law against gender-based violence, which she described as “a big plus” as rapes and other attacks in Afghanistan are on the rise.
“I want to get the Taliban to work to implement this law,” she said.
Mohammed said it was important to maximize any leverage to bring the Taliban back to the principles underpinning participation in the “international family”.
“No one objects to a Muslim country or Sharia (law),” she said. “But all of this cannot be recast into extremism and advocating views that harm women and girls. This is absolutely unacceptable and we should stand the line.”
