Explicit death threats have been made against dozens of Afghan women working for the United Nations in Afghanistan, according to a new UN report, where their rights have been severely curtailed since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
The UN mission to the country said female national staff were subjected to direct death threats in May, in the latest update on the human rights situation in Afghanistan published on Sunday.
The report says the Taliban told the UN mission that their cadres were not responsible for the threats, and an Interior Ministry investigation is under way.
The threats came from unidentified individuals related to their work with the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA, other agencies, funds, and programmes, “requiring the U.N. to implement interim measures to protect their safety”, according to the report.
Afghan authorities, including the Taliban Interior Ministry, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the report or the investigation, according to The Associated Press news agency.
The Taliban barred Afghan women from working at domestic and foreign nongovernmental organisations in December 2022, extending this ban to the UN six months later. They then threatened to shut down agencies and groups still employing women. Aid agencies and NGOs say the Taliban have disrupted or interfered with their operations, allegations denied by authorities.
The UN report is the first official confirmation of death threats against Afghan women working in the sector. The report also highlighted other areas affecting women’s personal freedoms and safety, including inspectors from the Vice and Virtue Ministry requiring women to wear a chador, a full-body cloak covering the head. Women have been arrested for only wearing the hijab.
Women have also been denied access to public areas, in line with laws banning them from such spaces.
A UN report from August 2024 found that Afghanistan’s Taliban government has “deliberately deprived” at least 1.4 million girls of their right to an education during its three years in power.
About 300,000 more girls are missing out on school since UNESCO last carried out a count in April 2023, it said on Thursday, warning that “the future of an entire generation is now in jeopardy.”
ICC targets Taliban for persecution of women
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants in July for two top Taliban leaders in Afghanistan on charges of abuses against women and girls.
ICC judges said at the time there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect Taliban Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhunzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani of committing gender-based persecution.
“While the Taliban have imposed certain rules and prohibitions on the population as a whole, they have specifically targeted girls and women by reason of their gender, depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms,” the court said in a statement in July.
The Taliban has “severely deprived” girls and women of the rights to education, privacy, family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion, ICC judges said.
The Taliban has rejected the ICC warrants as “baseless rhetoric”, saying it does not recognise the ICC’s authority, and underlined the court’s failure to protect the “hundreds of women and children being killed daily” in Gaza.
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