U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said Tuesday that Afghan human rights are in a “state of collapse.” UPI File Photo
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday accused the Taliban of committing grave human rights violations and warned that Afghan human rights are in a “state of collapse.”
“Violations of human rights in the country are not new: decades of armed conflict mean that Afghanistan has known violence and injustice for much of its recent history,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said during remarks delivered for the 54th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council. Advertisement
“But the dynamic imposed by the Taliban since they took power two years ago constitutes a systematic assault on the rights and freedoms of the population, which particularly targets women and girls and excludes them from most aspects of public and daily life.”
Since reclaiming power in the summer of 2021, the Taliban have taken a number of steps curtailing women’s rights.
“The shocking level of oppression of Afghan women and girls is immeasurably cruel. Afghanistan has set a devastating precedent as the only country in the world where women and girls are denied access to secondary and higher education,” Turk said. Advertisement
In December, the Taliban banned women from attending universities and prohibited women from working in non-governmental aid organizations, leading to many NGOs withdrawing their staff.
The U.N. Security Council said the move was “undermining human rights and humanitarian principles in the country.”
The Taliban have also barred women from taking medical school exams, effectively barring women from practicing medicine.
In August, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said it had recorded credible reports that the Taliban had committed hundreds of extrajudicial killings.
