Afghanistan Peace CampaignHeather Barr, director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, said that the Human Rights Council meeting will be held in Geneva in September of this year.
Heather Barr told TOLOnews that various issues will be discussed at the meeting, including the extension of the mission of the UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan.
“The council will convene again in September and there are a couple of things on their agenda that are extremely important for Afghanistan. One is that they will be deciding about whether to renew the mandate of the special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan. Another issue is that, in their joint report, the special rapporteur and the working group recommended that states should mandate or report on the issue of gender apartheid and how that might apply in Afghanistan. So, it will be interesting to see whether the human rights council takes up that recommendation or not. And then, a third issue is that Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations have been pushing hard to say that the human rights councils should also set up a new separate UN mandated mechanism to collect evidence and preserve evidence of human rights violations being committed in Afghanistan,” she said.
Meanwhile, a number of women’s rights activists are asking the UN to take action on human rights issues, especially to support women’s rights in Afghanistan.
“Religion has given us human rights, so why are we far from it, why do we not have them, why are the programs that are implemented ineffective and not having a positive impact? The reason is that these programs are symbolic,” Mina, a women’s rights activist, said.
“The fact that the UN and the countries of the world hold the meeting regarding human rights is important for us. It should not be theoretical, but it should have practical measures too,” Alamtab Rasouli, a women’s rights activist said.
However, the Islamic Emirate argued that in international discussions regarding Afghanistan, more focus should be placed on the Islamic Emirate’s accomplishments.
“They should have good supervision regarding the progress of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the fact that a 44-year war has come to an end and progress has been made in the economy and other fields,” said Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesman of the Islamic Emirate.
Several human rights organizations have voiced their concerns over the human rights situation in Afghanistan.