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UNITED NATIONS, Sep 28 (IPS) – When the Taliban dominated Afghanistan throughout 1996-2001, the United Nations was engaged in a shedding battle for girls’s rights.
And that battle was often led by two senior feminine UN officers, one among them working for a UN company offering humanitarian help inside unfriendly Taliban territory.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, a former UN Beneath-Secretary-Normal, who travelled around the globe as Particular Rapporteur on Violence Towards Girls (1994-2003), recounted an uncomfortable eye-to-back – not an eye-to-eye — assembly she had with a Taliban official.
“After I met the Overseas Minister”, she informed me final week, “We sat aspect by aspect on two distant chairs and he wouldn’t have a look at me. I stored placing my face within the line of his imaginative and prescient and he slowly turned his again.”
“My bodyguard then leaned over and informed me what ought to have been apparent: that he is not going to set eyes on me”.
“And once I met the Minister of Justice, I requested him about home violence” and he informed me that “Afghan ladies have been properly introduced up, and they don’t assault their husbands,” mentioned Coomaraswamy, one of many third high-ranking officers within the UN hierarchy, subsequent to the Secretary-Normal and the Deputy Secretary-Normal.
In the meantime, when Anoja Wijeyesekera, obtained her new UNICEF task in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan again in 1997, her appointment letter arrived with a “survival handbook” and chilling directions: write your final will earlier than leaving dwelling.
A former UNICEF Resident Undertaking Officer (1997-1999) in Jalalabad and later in Kabul (1999-2001), she recounted an equivalent anecdote much like Coomaraswamy’s.
“After I first went to Afghanistan in 1997, because the UNICEF Resident Undertaking Officer in Jalalabad, the Taliban refused to take a look at me, as I occurred to be a lady. At conferences, which have been all- male occasions, they’d look away from me with an expression of complete disgust and would maintain their heads turned away from me, when chatting with me,” she recounted.
“After a few months of this icy reception, which I thought of to be a farcical comedy, they steadily thawed and even shook my hand, spoke in English, and have become pleasant”
“And I mentioned to my workers maybe the Taliban thought that I had become a person!” she added jokingly.
In line with a report within the New York Occasions final week, through the first years of Taliban rule, ladies have been forbidden to work outdoors the house and even to depart the home and not using a male guardian.
“They may not attend college, and confronted public flogging in the event that they have been discovered to have violated morality guidelines, like one requiring that they be totally coated.”
At a fund-raiser final week for humanitarian help to Afghanistan, which generated greater than $1.2 billion in pledges, Martin Griffiths, the UN Beneath-Secretary-Normal for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Aid Coordinator, mentioned when he met with Taliban officers not too long ago in Kabul, he obtained assurances— in writing.
Their message learn: “We’ve made it clear in all public boards that we’re dedicated to all rights of ladies, rights of minorities and ideas of freedom of expression within the gentle of faith and tradition, subsequently we as soon as once more reiterate our dedication and can steadily take concrete steps with the assistance of the worldwide neighborhood.”
However the lingering query is whether or not the Taliban authorities will honour these commitments – significantly, judging by its previous monitor report.
Of the $1.2 billion in pledges, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric mentioned September 27, solely about $131 million has really been obtained; that’s 21.7 per cent of the $606 million required via the top of this yr.
“We’re very happy with pledges; we’re much more happy after we get money,” he mentioned.
In the meantime, requested about her private experiences throughout her tenure in Afghanistan, UNICEF”s Wijeyesekera, described the Taliban as a motley group of fighters, mullahs and different fringe parts of society together with drop outs, bandits, criminals and bigots which have come collectively below the umbrella time period “Taliban” which suggests college students.
They’re purported to be college students of Islam and by their very own definition, she identified, they’re college students and never graduates or professors. That is revealing as most of the foot troopers are semi-literate however properly versed within the artwork of guerrilla warfare.
“Their model of Islam is completely against the accepted model of Islam that’s taught in universities and different locations of real studying,” mentioned Wijeyesekera, in an interview with IPS final week.
“As the madrassas of Pakistan have been established with the help of the CIA to coach mujahidin fighters to defeat the Russians. I’ve seen the Nebraska curriculum, which is defined in my e-book (“Dealing with the Taliban,” obtainable on Amazon) which was a instrument to brain-wash poor youngsters into turning into cannon fodder on the battle subject.”
Throughout her time in Afghanistan, she mentioned, some Talibs holding positions in authorities have been extra educated. Nevertheless, many have been Mullahs who have been utterly closed to the surface world, having solely been taught in a Madrassa.
The Minister for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Advantage named Torabi was a one- eyed, one-legged fighter whose solely occupation was beating individuals, largely ladies, she mentioned.
His Ministry was in command of floggings, beheadings, amputations and stonings. If the newly created Ministry with that title, is headed by the same individual, the consequence can be related, she added.
Regardless of these completely horrific practices, carried out by their very own “authorities”, “I’ve to say that at a private and sub-national degree, the extra educated departmental heads have been comparatively versatile, as they understood the advantages of UNICEF programmes for the youngsters and girls of Afghanistan.”
As time progressed, probably the most ruthless and die-hard Taliban leaders — the Minister of Well being, developed an understanding with me, relating to the implementation of UNICEF programmes, as he may see the advantages of these programmes.
Thus,” I might say that though “coverage” could possibly be one factor, practices may differ relying on the placement and the actual Talib in query”.
Requested about different senior feminine UN officers, she mentioned there have been ladies heading different UN companies in Afghanistan, together with the pinnacle of UN Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) each in Jalalabad and Kabul. Additionally, in Jalalabad the pinnacle of the workplace of the World Well being Group (WHO) was a lady.
In the meantime, the UN might maintain posting ladies to Afghanistan– at the least to problem the validity of Taliban’s claims on ladies rights.
Talking at a seminar on the UN on September 21, Michelle Bachelet, United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights, mentioned there have been credible stories of significant violations of worldwide humanitarian regulation and human rights abuses going down in lots of areas below efficient Taliban management corresponding to abstract executions of civilians, restrictions on the rights of ladies, together with their proper to maneuver freely and women’ proper to attend faculties, recruitment of kid troopers, and extra.
Because the Taliban’s takeover, its spokespeople have issued a number of bulletins of human rights commitments. Notably, in a letter to the United Nations they introduced their “dedication to all rights of ladies… within the gentle of faith and tradition” and vowed to “steadily take concrete steps with the assistance of the worldwide neighborhood”.
Nevertheless, practices on the bottom have undermined and sadly contradicted these acknowledged commitments, she added.
“Girls have been progressively excluded from the general public sphere. In lots of areas, they’re prohibited from showing in public areas and not using a male guardian. In quite a few skilled sectors, ladies face rising restrictions”.
Up to now, Bachelet mentioned, women over the age of 12 have in impact been prohibited from attending college. Feminine and male college college students at the moment are separated, with feminine college students solely to be taught by feminine professors – of whom there are few, additional undermining ladies’s entry to larger training.
She identified that the Ministry that when promoted ladies’s rights has been dis-banded, and its premises taken over by a Ministry for the propagation of Advantage and the prevention of Vice – an all-male workplace that can apply tips on applicable gown and behavior.
Taliban representatives have dismantled many Departments of Girls’s Affairs throughout Afghanistan, having access to delicate information and threatening their personnel, and have accused ladies’s civil society teams of immorality and spreading ‘anti-Islamic’ concepts, mentioned Bachelet.
“Afghan ladies and women comprise half of the inhabitants. It is going to be to Afghanistan’s benefit that the skills and capabilities of its ladies are utilised, to contribute to the Afghanistan of the longer term.”
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© Inter Press Service (2021) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
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