Taliban continues to suppress human rights, particularly those of women, in Afghanistan: Human Rights Watch

Kabul [Afghanistan], January 13 (ANI): Taliban, under its rule in Afghanistan, continues to suppress basic human rights, particularly the rights of women.

According to a newly released report by Human Rights Watch, the Taliban has increased and deepened their suppression of women’s rights in Afghanistan.

In the report, Human Rights Watch Executive Director Tirana Hassan said that 2023 was a year marked by numerous war crimes and violations of human rights around the world. She implored states to honour their pledges to protect human rights.

The report emphasised that the only nation in the world where women are prohibited from attending school is Afghanistan.

The report underlined that the Taliban has stepped up its implementation of oppressive policies in 2023, including suppressing female protestors, arbitrarily detaining female activists, causing some women to vanish from detention, torturing them and their families, and more.

According to Human Rights Watch, the prohibition on women working has cost many Afghan women their livelihoods and has been partially blamed for the country’s economic woes.

The report also stated how important humanitarian help is to Afghanistan, as the country’s economic woes have left nearly two-thirds of the people in need of it.

Among the main issues raised by this organisation are the ongoing oppression of civil society, particularly Afghan women, the widespread censoring of Afghan media, and the arrest of Afghan journalists.

Human Rights Watch also stated in its report that the main causes of Afghanistan’s rising poverty are the Taliban’s hold over the country, international sanctions, and several years of drought.

Despite the Taliban’s initial promise to take a moderate approach towards women’s rights after it seized power in August 2021, the ban on higher education is just one of many steps that the armed group has taken to further segregate the country and limit women’s role in society.

In the immediate aftermath of August 2021, the Taliban banned girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade and imposed strict rules requiring women to wear hijabs and to travel only with a male chaperone.

They closed down beauty salons and blocked women from working with domestic and international non-governmental aid groups, sparking international outrage on the matter.