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In Afghanistan, women and girls are being erased

March 24, 2023

By

Global Opinions contributing columnist
The Washington Post
March 23, 2023 at 7:30 a.m. EDT

I was standing in the arrivals hall at Kigali International Airport in Rwanda this month, waiting for an Afghan girl and thinking about the days that brought the two of us here.

March 23rd marks one year since the Taliban decreed that Afghan girls don’t need to be educated past sixth grade. One year since they closed the doors of schools in the faces of an estimated 3 million girls, though of course these girls have been out of school much longer than that, really ever since the Taliban took power.

In 2001, when the Taliban’s first regime fell, there was officially not a single girl in elementary school and only a handful in secondary school — that’s in the entire nation of Afghanistan. Less than 20 years later, we had 3.6 million girls enrolled in primary and secondary school, and around 90,000 in higher education.

All of it is gone. Live in silence now behind the walls of your home, the Taliban say to women and girls. Live a ghost life.

In that airport terminal, I was waiting for a 12-year-old girl, a new student at SOLA, my Afghan girls’ boarding school. She was en route to Rwanda from an Afghan community in exile, one of many such girls who have arrived in March thanks to a continuing partnership between SOLA (or School of Leadership Afghanistan) and the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).

This girl, like every Afghan girl who refuses to give up on her education, had two choices: go overseas or go underground. Become a refugee from Afghanistan or, effectively, become a criminal within Afghanistan. Pursue the limited educational opportunities open to refugees, or pursue them in our homeland and hope the Taliban never find out.

In Kabul and across Afghanistan, the secret schools are opening again, with girls coming to learn from women who may never have been teachers before, but who now quite literally risk their lives to beat the darkness back.

“To bring a sense of humanity,” one of these teachers said to me, “we share our knowledge.”

I studied with women just like her, when I was a girl attending secret schools in the 1990s under the Taliban. We, who were girls then, are women now, and we are the inheritors of bravery that we pass on to today’s girls. A generational sisterhood holding flames, each of us a light in the dark, and a signal to each other.

And then there she was. My new student, a girl walking through the airport terminal with her female IOM chaperone, and pulling her suitcase on wheels. This suitcase.

The suitcase of one of Shabana Basij-Rasikh’s new students. (Shabana Basij-Rasikh) (Photo by Shabana Basij-Rasikh)

It can feel distant to a global audience, the struggle of Afghan girls. It can be easy for policymakers and private citizens to want to look elsewhere, or to want to focus on the perceived political gains or risks of reminding voters of the horror of Kabul’s fall in August 2021. Or to simply imagine that the problem is too intractable, the need too great, the damage too deep, the Taliban simply too immune to the pressure of global public protest.

That night, after coming home from the airport, I spoke with this girl’s mother. I told her that her daughter is with us at SOLA now, that she arrived safely and that we’ll take care of her.

This Afghan mother, this woman who sent her 12-year-old child to a school in a nation neither of them had ever seen — this woman asked me: “What can I do for other Afghan girls now? Tell me how I can help these girls be where my daughter is.”

When our new students arrive at SOLA’s campus, they quarantine for several days for health screenings. When quarantine ends and they come out to meet their sister students, they find me and they ask, they always ask: “When does the next admissions season begin? What can we do to help more girls come here?”

It’s with pride that I say that SOLA’s new admissions season is opening today. It’s with sadness too, and with anger. We’re one of a vanishingly small number of options available for Afghan girls.

I look to the future in Afghanistan and see three paths: the Taliban can maintain the unforgivable status quo of vanished women and no girls’ education past 6th grade. They can roll back these restrictions and let women be citizens whose contributions to society, which, measured purely economically, is worth billions of dollars to Afghanistan’s economy. Or they can bring my country back to the 1990s, when girls education was outlawed.

I can’t foretell the future, but I can easily anticipate girls’ education being used as leverage for international legitimacy. Basic women’s rights, used as barter — and perhaps not just by the Taliban. It horrifies me.

But hope lives. It lives in Afghan mothers. It lives in the women leading the secret schools. It lives in an Afghan girl pulling her suitcase through a foreign airport.

And it lives in this Afghan girl too — a different girl, at a different airport.

One of Shabana Basij-Rasikh’s new students asleep on an airport floor, with a novel beside her. (Shabana Basij-Rasikh) (Photo by Shabana Basij-Rasikh)

I took this picture in Qatar, back in the summer of 2021, at the midpoint of SOLA’s departure from Afghanistan and its arrival in Rwanda.

It’s one of my students, a girl asleep on an airport floor, with a novel beside her.

This is what we left home to protect. A girl with the right to read, and to learn, and to have the freedom to grow into an educated woman who will teach other girls.

A girl who chooses to think for herself is a force like none other on Earth. She is a member of a global sisterhood of the brightest light.

And so today and every day, as Afghans and as women, we claim the dignity no darkness can eclipse.

Shabana Basij-Rasikh, a Washington Post Global Opinions contributing columnist, is co-founder and president of the School of Leadership, Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, women and girls are being erased
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Simple Pleasures Amidst Great Frustrations: An essentially outlawed Nawruz in Taleban-ruled Afghanistan

March 24, 2023

S Reza Kazemi • Sayed Asadullah Sadat

Afghanistan Analysts Network

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The second Nawruz, the first day of the spring and the new solar hejri year, after the Taleban’s return to power comes in an overwhelmingly frustrating atmosphere and appears even more lacklustre than the previous one. The Taleban have effectively banned it as a holiday and public celebration. A host of other crippling challenges such as severe economic hardships and women’s and girls’ exclusion from the public sphere have further dampened any remaining wishes to celebrate what was a tremendously popular spring festival all over the country. Despite daunting frustrations, at least some people will find simple pleasures at home by shaking the dust of winter from their houses, planting flowers and saplings, preparing special delicacies, visiting relatives and friends, and celebrating not only Nawruz but also the coming month of fasting, Ramadan. Guest author Said Reza Kazemi and AAN’s Sayed Asadullah Sadat hear from five women and four men from across the country about these little joys intermingled with great frustrations, which are another reminder of the profound resilience that is the hallmark of people in Afghanistan.

Nawruz, or New Day, which coincides with the first day of spring and the start of the solar hejri year, is an ancient tradition long celebrated in Afghanistan (see AAN report on the history of Nawruz here). In the approach to Afghanistan’s second Nawruz under Taleban rule, we wanted to find out if and how people from across the country plan to mark the occasion. This report is based on unstructured interviews with nine people from across Afghanistan – five women and four men between the ages of 26 and 63 –  and provides poignant insights into their feelings and experiences for their second new year living under Taleban rule. Their moving responses reveal not only the endurance of joy amid overwhelming disappointments but also the Afghan people’s deep conviviality and humanity.

Nawruz 1402: A lacklustre celebration

“The Nawruz atmosphere is even more diminished than it was last year.” This sentiment expressed by a 32-year old woman we spoke to in Nili, the centre of Daikundi province in central Afghanistan, was echoed by everyone we spoke to about the coming Nawruz.[1] This year “isn’t like previous ones [before the Taleban return to power],” a woman we spoke to in Mazar-e Sharif, the traditional epicentre of Nawruz celebration, told AAN. People from all over Afghanistan used to travel to Mazar in northern Afghanistan for the Janda Bala (flag hoisting) ceremony which was traditionally held at the city’s Rawza-ye Mubarak Shrine, but the Taleban cancelled it last year, a few months after they came to power. “In the past, the city was bustling in these days. People would come here from every corner of Afghanistan [to celebrate Nawruz]. There’s no such thing this year… In the nights around Nawruz, the youth would roam around, playing music, singing and dancing on the streets,” she said. Other people we spoke to had shared smiliar stories, such as a 38-year old woman in Paktia who told us about Nawruz celebrations in Gardez city, the centre of this south-eastern province: “[Before the fall of the Republic] the state and civic activists organised colourful celebrations. They strung up lights in Gardez city, the bazaar was bustling and people bought dried fruit and other things for Nawruz. There were concerts and people went [for picnics] to green areas with their families. The youth danced the atan [traditional dance] and sang. They cooked their food in the open air. In the past, the youth, families and even we the teachers went to picnics, but there are no such things this year.”

One key reason is that the Taleban practically outlawed Nawruz after their return to power some one year and seven months ago. First, by removing Nawruz as a public holiday, which means that the state and its numerous institutions must remain open, making it tricky for civil servants to justify taking the day off work for Nawruz. Second, by forbidding public ceremonies to celebrate Nawruz. The 63-year-old man in Kandahar city, for instance, spoke movingly about the sorrow he felt from this ban on customary celebrations at the shrines in Kandahar province, as did the woman in Nili who lamented the ban on celebrations during the blooming of almond trees in Daikundi province, where she took a very active part in organising the popular Jashn-e Gul-e Badam (Almond Blossom Festival).

The effective outlawing of Nawruz emanates from the belief by the Taleban that because Nawruz is a pre- and un-Islamic tradition, it must not be celebrated and must have no place in Afghanistan’s society.[2] As such, the Taleban do not recognise Nawruz at all, neither as the beginning of the solar hejri calendar year nor as the first day of the spring. The new solar hejri calendar year 1402, which is the most commonly used calendar across the country, falls within the lunar hejri calendar years 1444/1445 and the Georgian calendar years 2023/2024. When top officials of the Islamic Emirate launched a second sapling-planting campaign on 5 March 2023 under the motto “piruzi wa taraqqi” (“victory and progress”) as they did around this time last year under the motto “nahal-e azadi” (“sapling of freedom”), they referred to the coming of the season of the spring as the occasion for the planting campaign, not to the approaching Nawruz. Furthermore, Nawruz had already been dropped as an occasion for celebration from the Islamic Emirate’s official calendar (taqwim-e rasmi).[3] Our interviewee from the northern city of Sheberghan, the centre of Jawzjan province, spoke about how pro-Taleban and like-minded muftis and mullahs have propagated the idea of Nawruz being ‘un-Islamic’ and thus forbidden it over the years in the province.[4]

A vendor selling plants, Kabul city, Kabul province. Photo: Sayed Asadullah Sadat, 15 March 2023.

The prohibition on public Nawruz celebrations is not the only reason for the diminished festive spirit in Afghanistan, where people have been experiencing a host of other crippling challenges. The Emirate’s restrictions on the participation of women in the public sphere make it difficult and dispiriting for women even as part of families to go out for picnics for Nawruz. This has increasingly turned picnics into not only all-male affairs but also occasions for state intervention and surveillance. All our interviewees were unanimous in saying that women and families generally preferred not to celebrate Nawruz with picnics because they “are afraid of being harassed or of facing some inappropriate treatment by those now in charge,” as the woman from  from Nili city put it. “People are fearful. They think that if they have some plan to celebrate the new year, they might face threats or dangers. For this reason, no one dares to have such a plan,” echoed the interviewee from Ahmadabad district of Paktia. The 38-year-old man we spoke to in Sheberghan, Jawzjan province said that when he and his colleagues went on a Friday picnic recently, they “didn’t see a single family going out to have fun on our way from Sheberghan city to Qush Tepa district. It was all young men coming on their motorcycles or in their cars.” The interviewee from Kandahar city said that a city park had been allocated to women visitors only for one day a week and that those “people who have land and garden [of their own], they’ll go there [to their own property to celebrate Nawruz] with their families.” In Kabul, we spoke to a 28-year-old woman who recalled the times when women and girls went to picnics along with their families in parks and green hills around Nawruz fondly, but said sorrowfully that “[now] women don’t have the permission even to breathe.”

Another woman, a 28-year-old from Herat city in the north-west, said:

Going on picnics on Fridays [around Nawruz] has become less frequent. Few families go out to enjoy the coming of the spring. Those who go are all men. Women don’t go. It’s because there are now restrictions for women to go on a picnic. They can’t speak and laugh. Hijab has also become strict.

The economic crisis has also dampened the Nawruz spirit. Many families are struggling to find their daily food, never mind buying new clothes or other things from the bazaar. “There are families who have nothing to eat. We have neighbours who struggle hard to make a meagre living. People were forced to sell whatever they had. Many people sold their houses and other possessions to buy food,” the interviewee from Kabul city described poignantly.

A 45-year-old man from Jurm district of Afghanistan’s north-easternmost province, Badakhshan, said:

Poverty and unemployment are problems that have taken the Nawruz spirit from the people. People are in need of their food for the day. Currently there are people who have to borrow their food such as tea, flour and rice so that their families don’t go hungry. They borrow and they barter, because people have run out of cash. When they borrow, they do so at an interest, sometimes returning double [the amount borrowed] to the shopkeeper. When they get one kilo of something, they must return two kilos later. People live their lives with great difficulty. The dignity and splendour of the past are all gone this year.

The deteriorating poverty is exacerbated by the Taleban ban on women work, for example, in national and international non-governmental organisations, which is affecting household economies and the lives of women and their families across the country. Added to this is a growing frustration and a sense of foreboding about whether girls above grade 6 will be allowed to go back to school and female students to university in the new year. The woman from Nili city summed up these debilitating difficulties:

Right now, poverty reigns in the neighbourhood, city and province I live in. Few families can celebrate Nawruz. Most simply can’t afford it. They have almost no spirit of Nawruz this year. Nawruz meant the opening of schools for all, girls in particular. It was like having two festivals: Nawruz and going back to school. Families whose daughters are in grade 6 or 5 or even 4 are anxious and worried about the future of their daughters. Girls above grade 6 don’t have permission to go to school at all. The families who have such school-going girls [above grade 6] have lost this simple joy of seeing their daughters go back to school and the others are worried about the future of their daughters. 

The ban on women working has created many problems. In Nili and in Daikundi overall, many women worked for NGOs and they had become the breadwinners and supporters of their families. These women have now lost their jobs and their incomes. This has not only impacted Nawruz celebrations but also the overall lives of these women and their families.

Nevertheless, almost all our interviewees said that at least some people would celebrate Nawruz, mostly at home. They referred to routine activities for this period of the year that they would undertake anyway, such as completely tidying up one’s house by cleaning and washing carpets and curtains, planting saplings and flowers; arranging courtyards and gardens; and, also, visiting relatives and friends as they would do at any other Nawruz. Those who could afford would also be preparing delights at or around Nawruz, such as haft miwa (a mixture of seven fruits soaked in water some days before Nawruz) or special rice dishes such as landi palaw (dried mutton with rice) in Kandahar city or sabzi palaw (herbed rice) in Mazar-e Sharif. Women take a leading role in planning all these preparations around the time of Nawruz.

There will therefore certainly be simple pleasures amidst great frustrations: “[a] small celebration at home,” in the words of the interviewee from Nili city, and “[celebrating] local Nawruz traditions inside … houses and gardens,” in the words of the interviewee from Kandahar city. “My son is engaged. We’ve bought something for Nawruz and we’ll take it in the coming week. In the days of Nawruz, families whose sons are engaged take fish dishes and sweets to the families of their daughters-in-law. Currently fish-cooking and confectionery shops are bustling in the bazaar. Although we make our sweets ourselves at home, there are some people who buy from the bazaar,” said the interviewee from Jurm district. “We have a saying here: start the year happily and then you’re happy the whole year!” summed up a man from Nawmish district of Helmand province to whom we spoke.

Goldfish, a traditional symbol of Nawruz, are sold on handcarts, Kabul city, Kabul province. Photo: Sayed Asadullah Sadat, 15 March 2023.

Additionally, this year’s Nawruz coincides with the fasting month of Ramadan, which also brings with it a host of special traditions. The start of Ramadan, the ninth month of the lunar hejri calendar, falls most probably two days after Nawruz in the new solar hejri year. Several of our interviewees, mostly female, even in contrast to Nawruz, expressed the coming of Ramadan as “a good feeling” as they and their families would coordinate an entire month collectively, especially by planning and preparing the sahri and eftari dishes that mark the start and end of fasting for the day. “… [For] Ramadan … we prepare apple jam and aloo Bukhara (plum jam] for sahri. Padar janam [my dear dad] eats nothing else for sahri,” the interviewee from Kabul city said happily. The interviewee from Jurm district said, “I’m happy about the coming of Ramadan. It’s a month of goodness and blessing. I hope that the blessed month of Ramadan brings some light, some good changes, so that people’s living conditions improve and that we get out of this plight.” The interviewee from Ahmadabad district, her teacher colleagues and other women from her area had even found a way to celebrate the coming of Ramadan together with Nawruz in a traditional women-only event at school:

… other teachers and I plan to hold a ceremony to celebrate both Nawruz and Ramadan. One day before the beginning of Ramadan, the women in our area prepare a special food and enjoy it in an event attended by women only. It’s like mehmanwari [invitation party] that we call da rana khwara [‘food of light’]. Every year, one day before Ramadan starts, the women gather in one house, prepare this food and enjoy it together. It’s a tradition from the past. We want to celebrate it this year at school.

Although some interviewees said they had no idea what the new year would bring them, others saw in the coming Nawruz and Ramadan the possibility for tranquillity, peace, and a year less “disappointing” than the previous one, especially for girls and women. “I take the new year and the new spring as a good omen for calm and peace all over the country,” said the interviewee from Mazar-e Sharif. The interviewee from Kabul city hoped that “with the coming of the blessed month of Ramadan… all regain their access to their rights and that we get out of this plight and darkness.” The interviewee from Ahmadabad district said:

I hope that with the coming of the new year and the blessed month of Ramadan, there’ll be permanent peace in the country and that the doors of schools and universities reopen on girls and women. Every girl, every woman has hopes of her own. I hope that the new year won’t be another disappointing year for Afghan girls and women.

As a time-tested tradition that has endured over centuries and indeed millennia, it is unimaginable that the Taleban, no matter how long the second Islamic Emirate will last, will be able to universally ban and completely eliminate Nawruz and its manifestations in Afghanistan.

We at AAN wish everyone celebrating a happy Nawruz, a generous Ramadan and peace and prosperity for all Afghans in the new year, 1402.

Edited by Fabrizio Foschini and Roxanna Shapour

The transcripts of our interviews with the men and women who spoke to us about their feelings and plans for the 1402 Nawruz, Ramadan and the coming year is in the annex below. You can preview it online and download it by clicking the link below.

 

Nawruz 1402 AnnexDownload

 

References
↑1 For last year’s Nawruz, the first after the Taleban return to power, see AAN’s report ‘Marking a New Century in Afghanistan: Nawruz 1401’.
↑2 Read the Taleban’s full justification of Nawruz celebration as “an act contravening the sharia” in: Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, “tajlil-e ruz-e awwal-e hamal ba nam-e nawruz amal-e khalaf-e shar’ mibashad [celebrating the first day of Hamal in the name of Nawruz is an act contravening the sharia],” Directorate of Guidance and Mosque Coordination, Ministry of Guidance, Hajj and Endowment, 17 March 2023.
↑3 In this year’s version of the official calendar of the Islamic Emirate, the Taleban have removed all days significant to the collapsed Islamic Republic (for example, constitution day and national flag day). Instead they have added days important to the Islamic Emirate, but have not gone so far as making them public holidays (for instance, allegiance and death days of their founder Mullah Muhammad Omar, death day of their previous supreme leader Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansur, day of the US and NATO withdrawal from the country, day of the signing of the Doha accord between Taleban and the US and day of the fall of Kabul) (watch this media report of 12 March 2023).
↑4 The debate on whether Nawruz is Islamic is not new (for a similar controversy in the early 2010s, see this previous AAN report; for a background on Nawruz in history and in Afghanistan, see this previous AAN report on Nawruz in March 2021).

Simple Pleasures Amidst Great Frustrations: An essentially outlawed Nawruz in Taleban-ruled Afghanistan
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Afghanistan is ready to work with the US, but sanctions must go

March 23, 2023
Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi
Interim Foreign Minister of Afghanistan
Al Jazeera
Published On 23 Mar 2023
Afghanistan’s new leaders believe in dialogue and an exchange of ideas. But it takes two hands to clap.

A year and a half after the developments of August 15, 2021, when the Islamic Emirate regained control of Afghanistan, the situation in the country remains extremely hopeful.

The security situation has improved significantly. Violence levels have dropped sharply over the past 18 months and continue to reach new lows, despite doomsday predictions from critics of the new government in Kabul.

Even in the hotel lobbies of Doha during negotiations, many diplomats had harped on about the possibility of another destructive civil war, unless their demands were met. But the leaders of the Islamic Emirate took this contingency into account and enacted measures to avoid such an outcome.

While gaining control of the entire country, we took steps to weaken the possibility of a renewed war, by answering the concerns of Afghans and adopting the humane Islamic message of general amnesty and brotherhood.

Today, not only has the war come to an end but Afghanistan is being administered by an independent, powerful, united, central and responsible government. This is a first for Afghanistan in more than four decades.

The government has taken steps to disentangle Afghanistan from the crippling reliance on foreign aid – which defined the political setup of the past decades. Not only that, we are “Afghanising” all sectors, making them more accountable to the needs of the local population, and with a focus on capacity building and sustainability. This gives strength to our feeling of ownership of our own territory.

At the same time, we also understand that the globalised nature of modern relations means that all state actors must learn to live in harmony and peace with one another. Such relations should be founded on the immutable principles of equality, mutual respect and cooperation through the pursuit of shared interests. Bearing this in mind, the current government of Afghanistan once again extends its hand of positive engagement to the world.

We think a unique opportunity has emerged to embark on rapprochement between Afghanistan and the world. Domestically, the unity and cohesion of Afghan society are stronger than ever before. We celebrate, and take pride, in our diversity and rich history. We don’t believe in imposing the majority’s will on a minority. In our view, every citizen of the country is an inseparable part of the collective whole.

The conditions are ripe for Afghanistan to rise up as a responsible and independent member of the international community and to fulfil its responsibility in promoting global peace and security. The international community, on its part, should reciprocate by welcoming Afghanistan into its fold while paying respect to its independence and assisting it to stand on its feet. Our foreign policy will be based on a balanced and independent approach, that avoids entanglement in global and regional rivalries. We will pursue opportunities for shared interests and peaceful coexistence, based on the principle of equality and respect.

As for our internal affairs, which have at times been misconceived or misconstrued, there remains the need to dispel misinformation and depict an accurate picture of the values and needs of Afghanistan. The religious and cultural sensibilities of our society require a cautious approach. Any government that has not maintained the proper equilibrium, pertaining to such sensibilities, has ultimately faced serious difficulties. This is a lesson that our recent history has emphasised over and over again.

We believe in dialogue and an exchange of ideas, in an atmosphere free from political or economic pressures, and aimed at finding practical solutions and dispelling misunderstandings. Past experiences show that weaponising human suffering does not bear fruit. Alleviating the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is our joint moral responsibility. Seeking to obtain political concessions by perpetuating mass suffering is neither civilised nor morally justifiable.

The primary cause of the ongoing economic crisis is the imposition of sanctions and banking restrictions by the United States. This impedes and delays our efforts to address the humanitarian crisis. The only path that respects the dignity of the Afghan people requires the lifting of sanctions and other commercial restrictions on the country. Space should be created to nurture the spirit and initiative of the Afghan people. Moreover, the US should unfreeze Afghanistan’s frozen assets, and in line with the Doha agreement, lift all sanctions. What moral and political justifications can the US have for imposing crippling sanctions on a war-torn nation?

We remind the US and others that sanctions and pressures do not resolve differences. Only mutual trust does. Afghanistan has a history of failed states and collapsed governments. Not even global powers and grand alliances were able to prevent this.

What would be the consequence of weakening this government? Surely, such a scenario will be accompanied by a great human tragedy that will not be limited to Afghanistan, but rather usher in new and unforeseen security, refugee, economic, health and other challenges for our neighbours, the region and the world.

The bitter reality is that over the past two decades, the Afghan economy was made wholly dependent on foreign aid, almost to the point of addiction. With the screeching halt of foreign aid, there is now a need to address the basic and fundamental needs of the Afghan people.

We recommend that aid should prioritise the creation of jobs and the completion of infrastructural projects with a durable impact. Simply handing out bags of money will not result in sustainable livelihoods for millions of people unless the domestic economy is revived.

The first prerequisite for that is the removal of sanctions, to pave way for the private sector to be revitalised. All obstacles to transnational trade, extraction of natural resources, and the implementation of national mega projects should be removed. We, on our part, remain committed to ensuring a conducive environment and to working with all states based on our shared interests. A self-reliant Afghanistan is in the interest of everyone while a failed Afghanistan jeopardises all.

There is a need for the international community to establish political and economic relations with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, while respecting its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

We have made important progress in the past year and a half. This, despite the fact that we inherited a collapsed narco-state, with an emptied treasury, unpaid bills, millions of drug addicts, rampant corruption, universal poverty and unemployment and a stagnant economy.

We established a professional security force, maintained nationwide security and ensured that no one uses the territory of Afghanistan against other countries. We have completely banned the cultivation of drugs. We welcome those that remain sceptical to visit Afghanistan and witness these undeniable facts up close.

Similarly, for the first time in decades, an Afghan government procured its budget entirely from domestic revenues. In the past, over two-thirds of the government budget was comprised of foreign grants. Moreover, the government has nationalised economic institutions, ensuring that these institutions serve their domestic mandates. In January, the World Bank’s latest report reflected these advances.

Furthermore, the government has clamped down on corruption, which, in the past, resulted in Afghanistan being listed at the top of the most corrupt countries. It has also facilitated movement for Afghans who wish to travel domestically or move overseas. This was done to address the demand of the international community; we also retained around 500,000 members of the previous administration, while increasing the size of the public sector.

We do acknowledge that there remain challenges and shortcomings. But their solution requires time, means and cooperation. Broadly speaking, virtually all countries of the world have problems of their own. Yet, we choose to assist and alleviate, rather than shun and exacerbate.

Let us recall that the international military coalition of the past two decades brought in hundreds of thousands of troops, and expended trillions of dollars, yet were unable to obtain their desired outcome. Even now, they have chosen to live in the past, rather than turn a new leaf. They have repeatedly chosen to turn a blind eye to the positive steps of the government, and have only adopted a policy of accusations and pressure.

Hence, there remains a need to understand and accept the reality that one hand cannot clap.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

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Two Security Council Resolutions and a Humanitarian Appeal: UN grapples with its role in Afghanistan

March 20, 2023

Jelena Bjelica • Roxanna Shapour

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Recent complex negotiations surrounding UNAMA’s mandate in Taleban-run Afghanistan have shone a light on longstanding divisions among UN Security Council members concerning key issues, such as human rights, women’s rights, peace and security and governance. This year, on 16 March 2023, member states agreed to resolve their differences by passing two Afghanistan-related resolutions; one that extended the UNAMA mandate until 17 March 2024 and another that requested an independent assessment of in-country efforts, with a report to be presented to the council before 17 November 2023. Meanwhile, the new Humanitarian Response Plan, which requests USD 4.6 billion to support 23.7 million Afghans in need, was launched in early March after a two-month delay. Defining the coming months as an “operational trial” period, the HRP plans for enhanced monitoring to ensure minimal conditions are met. AAN’s Jelena Bjelica and Roxanna Shapour take a look at the latest developments related to the UN and humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and wonder what the efforts to increase scrutiny might bring. 
UN Security Council unanimously votes on two resolutions on Afghanistan. Photo: United Nations, 16 March 2023.

On 16 March 2023, the UN Security Council (UNSC)[1] passed two resolutions on Afghanistan. The first resolution (S/RES/2678(2023) extends the mandate of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) for another year, until 17 March 2024, without changes to its mandated tasks and priorities as agreed in SC Resolution 2626 adopted in March last year. The second resolution (S/RES/2679(2023) is a brief text with only two paragraphs. The Resolution requests the Secretary-General “to conduct and provide, no later than 17 November, an integrated, independent assessment, after consultations with all relevant Afghan political actors and stakeholders, including relevant authorities, Afghan women and civil society, as well as the region and the wider international community” (see UN website here). This assessment, according to the resolution, should provide recommendations for “an integrated and coherent approach among different actors in the international community in order to address the current challenges facing Afghanistan” (see here.)[2]

Emirate spokesman Zabiullah Mujahed welcomed the extension of UNAMA’s mandate, but cautioned that the assessment should not be used “for producing propaganda against the system and based on false information.” He added that the Emirate stood ready to cooperate with the assessment if it was conducted with “the aim of continuing aid and [supporting] progress” (see ToloNews here and here).

The two resolutions were agreed upon after an initial draft resolution on UNAMA’s mandate, which was circulated to the UNSC members on 1 March 2023. The draft caused deep divisions in the 15-member council. This draft resolution, co-authored by Japan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), envisioned an extension of the mandate without any changes for nine months and asked the Secretary-General to conduct an independent assessment regarding Afghanistan and report to the UNSC by October 2023. The United States, in particular, opposed extending UNAMA’s mandate for only nine months, as well as any change to the mandate, and supported a simple technical 12-month extension instead. The Alternate Representative for Special Political Affairs, Ambassador Robert Wood, said at a UNSC briefing on Afghanistan held on 8 March 2023:

The United States opposes – repeat, opposes – any effort to interfere with a simple technical extension. Such interference is unwarranted. It would negatively affect both UNAMA and the Secretary-General’s plan to convene Afghanistan special envoys. The Council should preserve UNAMA’s mandate through a simple technical extension without delay. We have only days left.

Other members like France, Ecuador, Malta and the UK “indicated that they had reservations and concerns about the independent assessment without directly opposing it.” While China and Russia wanted to expand the focus of the independent assessment to include “engagement with the Taleban and the impact of unilateral coercive measures,” according to a detailed account published on the UN Security Council Report (SCR)[3] website on 15 March. The differences of opinion among Council members regarding the independent assessment and renewal of the mandate ultimately led Japan and the UAE to suggest two separate drafts, one extending UNAMA’s mandate and another requesting an independent assessment.

UN mandate in Afghanistan 

Last year, on 17 March 2022, after several rounds of negotiations and at least four drafts, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2626, which redefined UNAMA’s mandate in Taleban-run Afghanistan. At the time, Security Council members disagreed on whether UNAMA should concentrate on delivering humanitarian and development assistance or also aim to have a more robust role in political dialogue with the Taleban, including on human rights, inclusive governance and gender equality. A 2022 SCR report summarised the discussions among members in February and March 2022 as follows:

It appears that China and Russia contended that UNAMA’s primary focus should be assisting with efforts to address the humanitarian and economic crises in Afghanistan. However, many other Council members strongly supported a more robust mandate for UNAMA spanning several additional areas, including the protection of human rights and the promotion of inclusive governance and gender equality. China and Russia, for their part, apparently argued that the initial draft of the resolution was unrealistic and placed too much emphasis on these issues.

In the end, the 2022 resolution placed at the core of the UNAMA mandate to “coordinate and facilitate, in accordance with international law, including international humanitarian law, and consistent with humanitarian principles, the provision of humanitarian assistance and financial resources to support humanitarian activities” (Article 5.a). Other priorities included political and governance components (outreach and facilitation of dialogue between different stakeholders and promotion of responsible governance and the rule of law); human rights and gender monitoring and reporting (also supporting gender equality and the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women in all levels of decision-making); humanitarian assistance (engaging national and subnational stakeholders, civil society organisations, international NGOs, and donors to support the delivery of humanitarian assistance); and regional cooperation with a view to promoting stability and peace. This mandate, as defined in Resolution 2626, was extended unchanged for another year by the UNSC on 16 March 2023.

The question of whether UNAMA’s primary focus should be assisting humanitarian and economic crises in Afghanistan or taking on a broader governance and human rights mandate, however, remained a point of contention. For example, Japan and the UAE, the co-penholders on Afghanistan, called a private meeting of the UN Security Council[4] on 13 January 2023 (see here) shortly after the Council’s regular quarterly meeting on Afghanistan on 20 December 2022. The two countries wanted to hear from UN and NGO officials about the Taleban’s recent decisions to bar women from higher education and ban them from working for NGOs, and to allow Council members to have a “frank discussion” on the situation in Afghanistan. As the SCR reported on its website, consensus could not be reached on the content of a draft presidential statement:

[…] members were unable to reach consensus, apparently due to disagreements about the scope of the product. It seems that some members wanted to focus on the rights of women and girls and recent developments in this regard. Other members—including China and Russia—felt that the text should have a broader scope and address such issues as the security situation and the economic crisis in the country. 

These divisions also came to the fore in a recent workshop about the mandate and political strategy of UNAMA, organised by the International Peace Institute (IPI), the Stimson Center and the Security Council Report on 14 February 2023 (see the minutes of the meeting here). The discussions illustrated how Security Council members remain divided over the appropriate level of political engagement between the UN and the Taleban and the future of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, particularly in light of the Emirate’s increasing encroachments on the rights of Afghan women and girls:

Some participants alluded to the deputy secretary-general’s characterization of UN strategy as a push-and-pull approach whereby UNAMA leverages the provision of humanitarian support to build trust with the de facto authorities in the hope of achieving commitments for more inclusive governance and reduced restrictions on the Afghan population. Some participants questioned the sustainability of this strategy given the absence of meaningful concessions to date from the de facto authorities. Others argued that the Security Council should continue to give UNAMA time and space to implement this part of its mandate, given the slow-moving nature of such political endeavours. […] Further restricting the mission’s level of engagement with the de facto authorities would arguably hamstring UNAMA’s political engagement and functionally limit its role solely to enabling humanitarian assistance. Others questioned the extent to which UNAMA can promote inclusive governance given the significant recalibration of Afghan state institutions following the Taleban’s takeover, as well as the lack of a written constitution. They argued that engaging with the de facto authorities runs the risk of crystallizing their modus operandi and legitimizing their claim to international recognition.

Most recently, following the vote on the two resolutions on 16 March 2023, the customary remarks by SC members only confirmed that these divisions run deep. The most evident division is the one between the United States and Russia. In his remarks Robert A Wood (US) said the one-year extension of UNAMA’s mandate would enable the United Nations to foster the human rights of all Afghans, especially women and girls. In contrast, Anna M Evstigneeva (Russian Federation) said it was crucial to maintain the pragmatic cooperation of UNAMA with the de facto authorities and that any attempt to politicise humanitarian assistance was immoral and unacceptable.

The UN’s centrality to the delivery of humanitarian aid

The renewal of UNAMA’s mandate is highly relevant to the ability of humanitarian actors to deliver aid to Afghans in need of urgent assistance (which is one of the drivers for the UNSC extending it, even when there are divergences of opinion on its particulars). Since the fall of the Republic, the UN has emerged, by default, as the most important international aid actor operating on the ground in Afghanistan. The reluctance of donors to work directly with the Taleban means that the UN is the preferred vehicle for delivering humanitarian aid and essential services. The scope of the programme, however, is staggering.

At USD 4.4 billion, the 2022 humanitarian appeal for Afghanistan was the UN’s largest appeal ever for a single country. A virtual pledging conference co-hosted by the United Kingdom, Germany, Qatar and the United Nations on 31 March 2022 saw donors pledge a little over half the requested amount, USD 2.4 billion, with some speculating that the Taleban’s decision a week earlier to renege on their promise to reopen girls’ high schools had caused “a backlash from donors” (see AAN reporting here and here). By the end of the year, however, donor funding stood at USD 3.33 billion (see the UN’s financial tracking service), a sizable amount but still USD 1.07 billion short of the appeal’s request.[5]

The ability of humanitarian actors has, at the same time, been challenged by the Emirate’s increasing encroachments on the rights of Afghans, particularly women. The planned launch of the 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) in January 2023 was derailed by the Emirate’s 24 December 2022 decree banning women and the decision of as many as 150 NGOs and aid organisations to suspend some of their operations pending the ban’s rollback.

What followed was an intense round of discussions and negotiations both with the Islamic Emirate and among humanitarian actors, including a January visit by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC),[6] led by its chair, the UN’s humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths. In a 30 January 2023 press conference after his visit to Kabul, Griffiths provided details of his talks with Taleban officials, which had included assurances that women working in health and primary education would be exempt from the ban. He added that the Taleban authorities had asked humanitarians “to be patient” as the Emirate developed guidelines that would “provide, allegedly, the role of functioning of women in the humanitarian operations.” He was not particularly optimistic about a forthcoming reversal of the ban:

I’m somebody who doesn’t like to speculate too much, because it is a matter of speculation. Let’s see if these guidelines do come through. Let’s see if they are beneficial. Let’s see what space there is for the essential and central role of women in our humanitarian operations. Everybody has opinions as to whether it’s going to work or not. Our view is that the message has clearly been delivered that women are central, essential workers in the humanitarian sector, in addition to having rights, and we need to see them back to work. And in that regard, we need to maintain humanitarian operations in the sectors already [exempt], health and education, but expand that to the others.

The IASC mission did, however, pave the way for the launch of the 2023 HRP. The earlier aid suspension in response to the Emirates’ ban on women working for NGOs was rebranded as “a month-long partial operational pause” and, on the recommendation of the IASC, humanitarian activities moved to an “operational trial period.”[7] During this trial period, as spelled out in the HRP, humanitarian actors, including the UN, would continue negotiations with the Taleban to expand authorisations to cover all sectors; pursue local reinforcement of these authorisations with provincial and district-level authorities; and agree on minimum criteria for operations. The plan’s concept of operations also included an “enhanced monitoring and reporting framework”, including a priority indicator to track the ban’s impact on the ability of humanitarian actors to operate against minimum criteria defined by IASC (See HRP 2023, Section 2 Response Monitoring, pp 48-50).

The 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan

After several weeks’ delay, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) launched the 261-page long 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) on behalf of humanitarian organisations working in Afghanistan on 9 March 2023. The plan requests USD 4.6 billion in assistance, USD 200 million more than the previous year, to support 23.7 million people in need, an increase of 1.6 million from 2022, with a little over half, USD 2.66 billion going to food security and agriculture.

According to the HRP, the number of Afghans in need has tripled since January 2020, from 9.4 million to a staggering 28.3 million, which it attributes to “the progressive shocks of COVID-19, the increase in conflict leading up to the takeover by the DFA [or de facto authorities, a term used by the UN to refer to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan], the resulting economic shock, recurrent drought and the impact of policies, particularly restrictions on women’s rights and mobility, since August 2021.”

The numbers are indeed staggering. As a result of the economic crisis touched off by the collapse of the Republic and the suspension of foreign development aid, which accounted for 75 per cent of public spending, “the proportion of households reporting humanitarian assistance as their main source of income increase[ed] six-fold since 2021,” according to the HRP.

Source: 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP)

Three years of drought have resulted in diminished surface waters and a major drop in groundwater levels, with the “proportion of households experiencing barriers to accessing water increasing from 48 per cent in 2021 to 60 per cent in 2022.” The weakened household economies coupled with the severe drought conditions have left an estimated twenty million people facing acute food insecurity (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) 3 or above),[8] six million of which are facing “emergency levels” (one step away from famine) – one of the highest figures in the world.

The mix of economic collapse, natural calamity and gender repression has left the majority of the Afghan population in peril for the foreseeable future: 33 out of 34 provinces, and 27 out of 34 major cities/provincial capitals are considered in extreme need, with the rest in severe need. While the HRP noted that some needs had stabilised as a result of the humanitarian assistance provided in 2022, it did raise the alarm on unprecedented levels of need in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and protection. “Without economic stabilisation, large-scale investment in infrastructure for water and a shift in the restrictive policies of the [de facto authorities] on women’s rights, the likelihood of further deterioration remains extremely high,” it said.

The Emirate’s restrictive gender policies have had far-reaching knock-on effects on planned humanitarian activities. For example, humanitarian actors have now classified all secondary school age girls as people in need, as a result of the Taleban ban on girls’ education, meaning that there is less money to support other vulnerable groups within the planned appeal. Because of this, the education, emergency shelter and non-food items, and protection clusters now plan to assist far fewer beneficiaries than their original 50 per cent targets and water, sanitation and hygiene has had to scale back to only two-thirds of what was envisaged for the sector.

The Taleban’s decision to ban women from working for NGOs has left humanitarians and donors in the difficult position of working to alleviate human suffering while at the same time ensuring the participation of women in the humanitarian response and the full participation of women in public life. As the 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan puts it:

Women have a right to work and are an integral part of humanitarian action, and their participation is essential (as in all aid operations) if we are to reach populations in need safely and effectively with principled and quality assistance – be they men, women, boys or girls. Furthermore, women beneficiaries depend on the involvement of female humanitarian workers not only to directly receive assistance and services, but also for the safeguarding, meaningful engagement and quality assurance that their presence ensures.

Looking forward

While the UNAMA mandate was extended for another year (until 17 March 2024) in line with the one defined by the March 2022 UNSC Resolution 2626, it remains to be seen what an independent assessment of in-country efforts will bring to the fore in November. This assessment, along with the outcome of the IASC-mandated “operational trial” period and its attendant monitoring, could have an impact on humanitarian aid scope and delivery, as will as any future decision by the Emirate to ease or tighten the restrictions on Afghan women in general and in particular the ban on women working for NGOs.

Those on the UN Security Council who called for an assessment, Japan and United Arab Emirates, expect it to provide “forward-looking recommendations on how relevant actors can address challenges more coherently.” Other Security Council members, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, did not even mention the assessment in their remarks after the vote on 16 March 2023. Divisions and differences of opinion in the UNSC remain and it is unclear how and in which format they will be reconciled once the independent assessment has concluded. Given the UN’s centrality to the provision of humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, and the Security Council’s probable difficulty in reaching a consensus, it is very likely that UNAMA’s mandate will be extended in the foreseeable future, with few substantive changes. At the same time, however, the assessment, which will put UNAMA’s work in Afghanistan to the test, could present interesting avenues for a repurposed mandate. This is certainly something to keep an eye on in November.

Edited by Martine van Bijlert 

References

References
↑1 The UN Security Council is composed of 15 Members; five permanent members: China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly. The current non-permanent members (with end of term year) are Albania (2023), Brazil (2023), Ecuador (2024), Gabon (2023), Ghana (2023), Japan (2024), Malta (2024), Mozambique (2024), Switzerland (2024) and the United Arab Emirates (2023). The United Nations Charter established six main organs of the United Nations, including the Security Council. It gives the Security Council, which may meet whenever peace is threatened, primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. All members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council. While other organs of the United Nations make recommendations to member states, only the Security Council has the power to make decisions that member states are obligated to implement under the Charter.
↑2 The entire text of the second paragraph reads: “Requests that the independent assessment provide forward-looking recommendations for an integrated and coherent approach among relevant political, humanitarian, and development actors, within and outside of the United Nations system, in order to address the current challenges faced by Afghanistan, including, but not limited to, humanitarian, human rights and especially the rights of women and girls, religious and ethnic minorities, security and terrorism, narcotics, development, economic and social challenges, dialogue, governance and the rule of law; and to advance the objective of a secure, stable, prosperous and inclusive Afghanistan in line with the elements set out by the Security Council in previous resolutions.” While the resolution itself does not spell out what the subject of the assessment should be, the accompanying UN press release framed it as an assessment of “in-country efforts”.
↑3  The Security Council Report (SCR) is a non-profit organisation that provides information about the UNSC and its subsidiary bodies to the public (see here).
↑4 A private UNSC meeting is closed to the public. This format differs from UNSC consultations, which are also closed, but as formal meetings of the Security Council allow persons other than Council members and Secretariat officials to participate.
↑5  While the 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) reported the funding received for the appeal to be USD 2.2 billion (which is less than the amount pledged at the virtual conference), in its final tally for 2022, The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ (OCHA) Financial Tracking System (FTS) put the total humanitarian funding for Afghanistan at USD 3.75 billion, with USD 3.33 billion going to the Humanitarian Response Plan (2023) and USD 416. 6 million logged as “other funding.”
↑6 The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) was established by the UN General Assembly in 1991 as the primary coordination mechanism for the delivery of humanitarian assistance. IASC brings together 18 UN and non-UN organisations and consortia to agree on policies, set priorities and mobilise resources in response to humanitarian crises. The committee is chaired by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, who is also Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, currently Martin Griffiths.
↑7 See this “Note on the HRP planning process and impact of DFA decree on women in humanitarian work”: Following an in-country mission, the IASC Mission recommended moving from an ‘operational pause’ to an ‘operational trial’ period supported by a related concept of operations. It was also decided to proceed with the issuance of the HRP for 2023 based on the baselines developed in the original planning period. Therefore, while references to the ban and changes to the context have been incorporated into this document, the strategy and planning have not been revised substantially.
↑8 IPC Phase 3 (Crisis) households either have food consumption gaps that are reflected by high or above-usual acute malnutrition, or are marginally able to meet minimum food needs but only by depleting essential livelihood assets or through crisis-coping strategies.

REVISIONS:

This article was last updated on 20 Mar 2023

 

Two Security Council Resolutions and a Humanitarian Appeal: UN grapples with its role in Afghanistan
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Afghan women deserve a Nobel Peace Prize

March 20, 2023

Hujjatullah Zia

A Kabul-based journalist

Al Jazeera
19 Mar 2023
Under the Taliban regime, Afghan women are facing growing hostility and restrictions, but they continue to resist.

Over the past few weeks, there has been a vivid debate among Afghans on which prominent individual from among our women compatriots deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. Some have suggested women who held official positions before the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 2021. Others have supported women’s rights activists in exile.

Still others have named Fatima Amiri, a 17-year-old girl who survived the September 30th bombing of the Kaj Educational Center in Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood. The attack killed dozens of students, mostly girls, who had gathered at the private school to take a mock test for the Kankor exam, which is needed to enter public universities in Afghanistan.

Notwithstanding being traumatised, suffering from serious injury and mourning the loss of her classmates, she took the Kankor exam and scored above 85 percent, which made her eligible to study her favourite subject, computer science, at Kabul University – something she is now barred from doing.

Indeed, Fatima has emerged as a symbol of women and girls’ struggle for their rights under the Taliban regime.

As a father of two girls, I constantly worry about the present and future of my children. But young women like Fatima and others that I see or hear about in my everyday life give me hope that things will change.

Since the Taliban took over Kabul, its government has imposed various restrictions on women. Afghan girls have been barred from going to high school and university, and even private educational institutions. Afghan women have been banned from going to parks, gyms, and other public places and from working in nongovernmental organisations and certain government institutions. They are also not allowed to travel alone and have to wear a head-to-toe covering in public.

As a result, places in Kabul that used to bustle with women and girls are now almost completely dominated by men. Many coffee shops that were the favourite hangout spots for girls and women have had to close down, as they have lost many of their customers. Parks no longer enjoy crowds, as men cannot go there with their families or girlfriends, and many beauty parlours ran out of business as women are reluctant to visit them.

But Afghan girls and women have resisted the injustice of being stripped of their rights to education, work and access to public spaces. They have held protests in many cities, especially Kabul, demanding their rights.

However, the Taliban authorities have responded with an increasingly harsh crackdown, and some of the protesters and activists have been arrested and imprisoned.

Activist Zarifa Yaqubi, for example, was arrested in November last year after she tried to launch a women’s rights movement. She was detained for 40 days.

When I spoke to Zarifa last month, she held back her tears and refused to talk about her imprisonment out of fear. She told me she was traumatised and had to take medicine and receive psychological care.

She said that the world is unwilling to support Afghan girls and their struggle, and only issues empty condemnations. In her view, the international reactions to Iranian women’s protests were much more powerful and visible.

But Afghan women have not given up. Girls and young women have started flocking to secret schools led by courageous teachers. Others have joined online classes organised on messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram.

When the Taliban declared a ban on private educational institutions in December 2022, I joined other volunteers to teach English to high-school and university-age girls. Information about online classes spreads through word of mouth and when there are enough students, we get them together in a WhatsApp or a Telegram group.

We record the lessons and send them as voice messages, along with other teaching materials, in these apps and give them home assignments. They download the lessons, listen, do their homework and then send it back in the same way.

Women have also not given up on employment. Despite restrictions and harassment, women continue to run their own businesses – such as beauty parlours and cosmetics stores – and some even work as street vendors. Women also continue to work as nurses and doctors in hospitals and teachers at elementary schools.

Afghan women abroad also contribute to the struggle. A number of activists, journalists and former officials who fled the country work tirelessly to keep the Afghan women’s cause on the international agenda.

They speak up about the imprisonment and torture Afghan women have faced and challenge the Taliban’s claims that its decision to restrict women is based on religious considerations. This pressure is contributing to the continuing international reluctance to recognise the Taliban government and normalise relations with it.

Indeed, Afghan women have demonstrated incredible bravery, resilience and dignity in their fight for their rights. They are challenging an armed group and a merciless government that many Afghan men have failed to stand up to. I know that as my girls grow up, they will have plenty of Afghan heroines to look up to.

The world needs to recognise these women and girls’ courage and support them in their fight. They more than deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

Afghan women deserve a Nobel Peace Prize
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The Taliban Are Out of Step With Afghans on Women’s Rights

March 14, 2023
World Politics Review

Last week, International Women’s Day drew renewed media attention to the situation in Afghanistan, now characterized by the United Nations as the most repressive country on earth for women. Over the past 18 months since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, conditions for women in the country have continuously deteriorated. Despite early promises by the Taliban to keep girls in school, women and girls were immediately banned from attending high school, and since December, the same is now true for university. Women have been banned from most jobs, including NGO work. Floggings of women and men have been reinstated for violations of the Taliban’s morality code. In a particularly cruel twist, women who previously divorced abusive husbands are now being told those divorces are invalid, meaning they and their new partners could be considered adulterers and punished accordingly.

This situation is particularly paradoxical because for the vast majority of Afghans, protecting women’s human rights—especially the right to education—is among their key priorities. In a random survey of Afghan internet users conducted last year by the Human Security Lab, which I direct at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 66 percent of respondents stated they either “agree” or “strongly agree” with the statement, “I believe women’s human rights are among the top priorities for the future of the country.” Only 19 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed, and 15 percent were undecided. Even more important are the trend-lines: Over the three months the survey was in the field, the number of those who said “strongly agree” rose, and those choosing any other answer went down.

When asked which three rights for women from a provided list matter the most to them, Afghans most frequently chose education, at 62 percent; the right to work, at 41 percent; the right to participate in government, at 36 percent; the right to choose a husband, at 34 percent; and the right to access health services, at 31 percent. Some chose “Something Else” from the list, and many of the answers included refusals to choose among rights. One Afghan wrote into the comment box, “They are all important to me.” Another wrote, “All the things mentioned in this questionnaire are important for women.”

When asked to explain in their own words what achieving women’s human rights looks like to them, some Afghans listed specific rights that mattered to them most, including many of the ones listed above, but also including things like the “right to play sports” and “the right to learn science.” And while many Afghans articulated rights as something that should be implemented “in an Islamic framework,” many of them explicitly stated that Islam was consistent with human rights. One wrote, “The right to education according to Islamic laws and other rights is guaranteed by Islam.”

This attitude is reflected as well in the condemnations of the Taliban’s prohibitions on women and girls’ access to education by the Organization of Islamic States, Islamic scholars and even ultra-conservative Muslim-majority countries like Saudi Arabia. In April, a group of Afghan clerics in Kabul also issued a statement declaring that “Islam is the bearer of rights for women, including the rights to education and work.”

The finding that women’s rights are extremely important to Afghans holds true even among Taliban supporters.

For Afghans, too, women’s rights are not just a women’s issue. The Human Security Lab’s survey shows that Afghan men and women alike are concerned about them. In fact, fewer men than women “strongly disagreed” with the idea of women’s human rights as a national priority. And men feel even more strongly than women about some specific rights. For example, 66 percent of men chose education among their top three priorities, compared to only 55 percent of women. The survey revealed similar gender gaps for the rights to health care and political participation, and the right to choose a husband, with men pushing harder for these rights than women themselves. Equal percentages of men and women feel strongly about the rights to work and travel freely without an escort, women’s freedom to dress according to their wishes, and the prohibition of domestic violence.

Even more interestingly, the finding that women’s human rights are extremely important to Afghans holds true even among Taliban supporters. Overall, 66 percent of men and women who support the Taliban “a lot” also “agree or strongly agree” that women’s human rights are a national priority, although Taliban-leaning women feel even more strongly than Taliban men on this. On specific rights, 60 percent of those who support the Taliban “a lot” listed the right to education as a priority. And they actually are more likely than Taliban opponents to mention securing health care, ending domestic violence, and the right to choose a husband when asked to list the three most important rights. The gap between strong Taliban supporters and strong Taliban opponents seems widest on rights like dress freedom, the right to work and political participation. But even here, 28 percent of strong Taliban supporters said that women should have the right to work, and 22 percent said they should have the right to participate in government.

If women’s human rights matter to most Afghans, even Taliban supporters, why are the Taliban able to get away with continually and increasingly restricting them? Many of the decisions about the treatment of women are coming from a small but influential minority within the Taliban leadership, with the most draconian orders trickling down from Hibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader, over significant resistance by the Taliban rank and file, who themselves appear to want schooling for their daughters. But according to a report prepared by the United States Institute of Peace, the status of women has also become a wedge issue used by competing factions within the Taliban as they jockey for power, as well as a way to prove to the West that the Taliban will not bow to foreign interference.

The survey data from Afghans also suggests other ways the international community might help. First of all, when asked about whether outside governments should recognize the Taliban absent significant improvements in human rights and an inclusive government, over half the respondents said no, and only 25 percent said yes; the other quarter of respondents didn’t wish to answer. They were evenly split on whether the international community should continue to withhold economic support to pressure the Taliban.

When asked to speak in their own words about “other” ways the international community could help, the findings are mixed. Thirty-five percent of Afghans said the international community should support a peace process between the Taliban and opposition groups, but 31 percent said they would prefer that the West either arm the opposition against the Taliban or intervene militarily themselves. Twenty-six percent would like to see neutral peacekeepers in the country.

One-quarter of respondents who answered this question wrote an answer in their own words, and the second most frequent response, after “economic support,” was “support for human rights.” However, Afghans—particularly Afghan women—also emphasized a human right seldom discussed in the context of Afghanistan and entirely in the hands of the international community: the right to flee the country.

Many of them stated that the best way the international community could help would be to evacuate Afghans like themselves and streamline asylum proceedings. “Immediate assistance must be provided for the departure of Afghans like me so that they are not killed by the Taliban,” one wrote. Another pleaded, “Take us away from this!” The advantage of implementing this human right, at least, is that it would not require negotiating with the Taliban.

Charli Carpenter is a professor of political science and legal studies at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, specializing in human security and international law. 

The Taliban Are Out of Step With Afghans on Women’s Rights
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America Is Again Failing Afghanistan’s Women—and Itself

March 9, 2023

By

CEO and co-founder of The Fuller Project.
Foreign Policy
The deteriorating status of women under Taliban rule is a strategic disaster for Washington.

On Aug. 16, 2021, the day after Kabul fell to the Taliban and the United States began its hasty withdrawal, journalist Zahra Joya woke up in despair.

Joya, then 28, was a woman to be reckoned with. Eight months earlier, using money from her government salary, she founded Rukhshana Media, a newsroom committed to listening to women and telling their stories. By 2021, it had already produced articles that won international acclaim. Now, the Taliban threatened to dismantle all she had built.

Today, 18 months later, her newsroom is a fraction of what it once was, and most of her staff toil in secret. But they persist, often anonymously—shining a sliver of light into the increasingly dark world of the women of Afghanistan.

The United States and other Western governments should take note. The women of Afghanistan, after 20 years of relative freedom, will not be content to slink into the shadows. Their continued protest and fight are an essential lever of power for the United States and all other countries that share a stake in promoting recovery and ultimately peace and security in Afghanistan.

How a nation state empowers or disempowers women is a key predictor of how it will behave among the community of nations. More than two decades of research have affirmed that women are essential to security, and their well-being and empowerment play a determinant role in the prevention of war and assurance of peace. We also know that women have a central role in advancing democratic freedom.

Simply put, it is in the strategic interest of the United States to create and maintain a foreign policy that prioritizes women. To do so, it will first have to understand what it got so terribly wrong in Afghanistan.

Whatever gains women made in Afghanistan during the past two decades have mostly slipped away over the last 18 months. In 2021, women held 27 percent of the seats in Afghanistan’s National Assembly, worked in government positions, and attended university. Afghanistan and the international community financed the training and deployment of thousands of midwives, reducing the maternal death rate from 1,600 women per 100,000 births in 2002 to 638 women per 100,000 births in 2017.

Now, a steady drumbeat of onerous restrictions ensure that women are kept in their homes, unable to access jobs, health care, and education. This year, the Taliban ordered all female health care workers to wear a full hijab, including face coverings. In late December 2022, Taliban leaders issued a decree that bars Afghan women from working for nongovernmental organizations. The lost income from barring women from the workforce could cost Afghanistan as much as 5 percent of its GDP or about $1 billion, according to the United Nations—plunging the country deeper into poverty, exacerbating food insecurity, and threatening stability.

The United States and its allies in the war on terrorism invested billions of dollars to bolster the status of women in Afghanistan, pushing programs to elevate basic health care, include women in governance, and advance educational opportunities. Many of them fell short.

For example, the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs—with support from the internationally funded, U.N.-administered Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan—set a goal of hiring 5,000 female police officers by June 2014, yet it failed to plan for and build restroom and locker room facilities to accommodate them. Afghanistan never reached its goal. That, in turn, created a counterinsurgency security gap. In a gender-segregated society, female police officers are essential for conducting searches of women at checkpoints. Now, some suicide bombers disguise themselves as women to evade searches.

We already know in many cases that the programs created to advance women’s inclusion lacked a key component: the voices of Afghan women on the ground, the only people who truly understand how to navigate the strictures of Afghanistan’s male-controlled society. The United States’ 2017 Women, Peace, and Security Act affirms that women’s rights should be at the center of peace and security planning. Yet in the reality of the war-fighting bureaucracy, women are often an afterthought. Indeed, the U.S. National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, two essential documents that guide the country’s peace and security posture, included few references to gender issues except with regard to gender-based violence.

Engaging in a war and subsequent stability operation without this key intelligence has real consequences. The United States “often struggled to understand or mitigate the cultural and social barriers to supporting women and girls,” which led U.S. agencies to set unrealistic goals, wrote John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, in his August 2021 report, “Lessons From Twenty Years of Afghanistan Reconstruction.” As Melanne Verveer, executive director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, pointed out at a recent Atlantic Council panel I moderated, had the United States done more to empower women and done it better, Afghanistan might look different today. “When the dust settles and we finally go back and analyze all the things that went wrong [in Afghanistan], one of them will certainly be that we did not fully ensure the meaningful participation of women in Afghanistan,” Verveer said.

These shortcomings deserve close examination, both for reasons of accountability and the potential to learn from these mistakes. From its start, the George W. Bush administration used women’s rights and empowerment as a justification for its war in Afghanistan. “The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women,” then-first lady Laura Bush said during the administration’s weekly radio address, delivered on Nov. 17, 2001—a little more than a month after U.S. ground troops began their assault. She focused on the suffering of women and children under the brutal rule of the Taliban. In the Obama administration, then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Taliban that women’s rights were nonnegotiable, and she led efforts to advance understanding of the connection between gender and security within government.

Yet 20 years of war and more than $2 trillion later, the Taliban are back in power, and women are once again veiled, shut in their homes, and excluded from civic life. Given the grandeur of past gender goals and scope of the United States’ failure, U.S. taxpayers deserve a reckoning. The U.S. response to the fall of Kabul raises stark questions about whether women’s rights are valued, especially in the midst of a crisis. As the Taliban took over Kabul, officials scrambled—caught off guard—and turned to civil society to help evacuate and get visas for women leaders, who faced imminent danger.

If the United States wants to maintain peace, stabilize rogue nations, and ensure that its next military endeavor succeeds, it must examine how its policies and practices to support and empower women went so dreadfully wrong in Afghanistan. We need to know what went well so we can replicate it—and what failed so we can fix it.

The bipartisan Afghanistan War Commission is tasked by Congress with conducting a review of U.S. military, intelligence, foreign assistance, and diplomatic involvement in Afghanistan. The 16 commissioners include only two women, a composition that hardly lives up to the United States’ own Women, Peace, and Security Act, which affirms the importance of women having a full seat at the policymaking table. If this commission is tasked with examining 20 years of involvement in Afghanistan and gleaning the lessons learned with regard to women’s rights, then it is seemingly off to a poor start.

Afghanistan—the failures endured and the inroads achieved—provides some of the most important potential policymaking lessons in recent history related to applying a gender lens to foreign policy, lessons that stand to be lost if not given their full due by this commission. Gender issues are such a pervasive contributor to the United States’ failures in the country that one could argue they deserve to stand at the center of this effort, if not as a stand-alone commission.

We don’t know—and may never know—whether a different approach to women’s rights and empowerment in Afghanistan would have changed the outcome, but we need to ask the questions. The findings should inform U.S. security strategy going forward.

Until we have better answers, we must do what we can to keep what little the United States built for the women in Afghanistan from crumbling further and to support Afghan women leaders, both inside and outside the country, who have established inroads to support others—even if the effort takes decades. The Taliban are erasing women from public life in Afghanistan, wrote Richard Bennett, U.N. special rapporteur on Afghanistan, in a recent report. Women said they feel targeted and unsafe, but “they continue to resist violations of their human rights,” he wrote. “We know that what has happened to us is not right. Some of us could have left the country, but we did not. We decided to stay and fight for women’s place in Afghan society,” the women told Bennett.

Afghan women don’t have the option to walk away from the consequences of the failed promises that now govern their daily lives. The U.S. government shouldn’t either. The United States cannot hide in the shadow of its failures and hope to dodge its responsibilities. The situation is dire, and the world is watching.

The arc of history is long. If the United States give up on supporting women in a forceful way, then it will pay for it down the line. Not investing in the well-being of women is a factor in military failure. If the United States and its allies want any chance at maintaining stability and security in the region, then they must support women leaders at every level, both in and outside of Afghanistan, to promote immediate and long-term work as well as spur other countries to do the same. Most importantly, they must listen to the women of Afghanistan. That’s why we at the Fuller Project continue to support Afghanistan’s female journalists by publishing their stories and amplifying their voices—women like Joya.

Joya’s life in Afghanistan mirrors the triumphs and struggles of the women and girls of Afghanistan. She began her life under Taliban rule, dressing as a boy to attend her elementary school. In 2001, after the United States chased the Taliban from the country, Joya shed her disguise, finished her education, and embarked on her journalism career. She was often the only woman in the newsroom. The absence of women’s voices motivated her to create Rukhshana Media, named for a young woman stoned to death by the Taliban.

Joya belongs to a generation of women who experienced an Afghan society free of the Taliban. She is accustomed to freedom, and she feels its absence acutely. She feels, she said, like she has traveled back in time.

These days, Joya works in exile after Taliban threats against female journalists forced her to flee Kabul. She edits stories from her remaining colleagues in Afghanistan. When the Taliban took power in August 2021, 2,490 women worked as journalists. By December 2021, that number had dwindled to 410, according to Reporters Without Borders.

“It’s very painful and sad,” Joya told actress Angelina Jolie in an interview for Time magazine’s Women of the Year. “Honestly, we don’t do simple journalism these days; we are trying to write for our freedom.”

She is ready to do her part to pull Afghanistan back. She wants to hire more journalists, tell more stories, and maintain the freedom of expression she sees as her birthright.

That is democracy building worthy of investment.

Xanthe Scharff is the CEO and co-founder of The Fuller Project, the global newsroom dedicated to groundbreaking journalism that catalyzes positive change for women.

America Is Again Failing Afghanistan’s Women—and Itself
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A Worsening “Human Rights Crisis”: New hard-hitting report from UN Special Rapporteur

March 6, 2023

Kate Clark

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, has said the Islamic Emirate is increasingly flouting “fundamental freedoms, including the rights of peaceful assembly and association, expression and the rights to life and protection against ill-treatment” and is “ruling Afghanistan through fear and repressive policies.” He also said the authorities’ “systematic violation of the human rights of women and girls” has deepened and asked the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to consider whether the “crime of gender persecution” is taking place. As AAN’s Kate Clark reports, he also had words of criticism for the ‘international community’ and its contribution to the “widespread extreme poverty and acute food insecurity” faced by millions of Afghans.

Introduction

This is Richard Bennett’s second report to the UN’s Human Rights Council and is bleaker than his first, [1] with just glimpses of anything positive. It follows a visit by Bennett to Afghanistan in October 2022, during which he met government officials – whom he thanks for their cooperation – human rights defenders, legal professionals, women’s groups, journalists, businesswomen, teachers, clerics, representatives of minority groups, the UN, NGOs and diplomats, and visited Kabul, Bamyan and Panjshir. He will present his report to the UN Human Rights Council today, 6 March 2023.

What is in the report?

Bennett’s description of human rights in Afghanistan is of a crisis worsening, of the Islamic Emirate blocking the expression of fundamental freedoms – to assembly, free speech, and the right to life, and with policies “aimed at suppressing communities… women in particular.” Inclusiveness, he reported, is “negligible; there is very little tolerance for difference, and none for dissent.” He also criticised the international powers for how their policies contribute to the harm being done to Afghans’ economic rights and right to life. Even so, most of Bennett’s conclusions are directed at the Islamic Emirate. He assessed the various categories of rights in turn (see full report here).

Women and girls

The Special Rapporteur listed the many ways the Taleban are restricting the rights and freedoms of women and girls: banning them from higher education (adding to the ban on secondary schooling), “restrictions in their movement, attire, employment options, ability to seek public office or perform public roles and access to public spaces.” He said that instead of “taking steps to eliminate discrimination against women” and honouring the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, to which Afghanistan is a state party, the Taleban authorities are “flagrantly contravening it” and normalising discrimination. By punishing the male relatives of women they consider to be breaking laws and norms, the Taleban “pit men against women, take away the agency of women and girls, and further normalise discrimination and violence against them.”

He noted, “with profound concern,” the rise in sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls, including “report of young women found dead, with indications of having been sexually violated.” He said such violence was occurring “with impunity and with minimal support for victims.” He cited the high number of “unnatural deaths of women and children” taking place in this environment and how restrictions, coupled with the economic and humanitarian crisis, have resulted in forced and child marriage, especially among teenage girls denied an education, widespread reports of depression and suicide. Bennett also noted:

Human rights defenders, who peacefully protest the increased restrictions on women and girls, are at heightened risk and have been increasingly beaten and arrested. The intention is clearly not only to punish them for protesting, but also to deter others from protesting.

The theme of gender-based discrimination, exclusion and harm runs through this report, appearing in almost every section – economic rights, rule of law, fundamental freedoms, and the rights of disabled people. It also featured in Bennett’s welcoming of the resumption of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan that have allegedly occurred since May 2003. [2] The Special Rapporteur encouraged the ICC prosecutor to “take note of the unprecedented deterioration of women’s rights” and “consider the crime of gender persecution.” It is an indication of just how serious he believes the stripping of rights and freedoms of Afghan women and girls is. [3]

Economic, social and cultural rights

Afghanistan’s economic crisis, Bennett reported, has resulted in “widespread extreme poverty and acute food insecurity, which had severely undermined the public health system and impacted the right to work.” He welcomed the United States’ facilitation of Afghanistan’s central bank acquiring new bank notes, and the UN Security Council exempting humanitarian activities from sanctions. However, he expressed concern about the adverse consequences of various actions from international actors, including blocking the central bank from the international banking system. “Largely due to risk averseness on the part of foreign banks,” the humanitarian exemption, Bennett said, has not been effective in mitigating those consequences, while “the absence of clear guidance on the humanitarian exemption and [due] to its rigid framework” has created difficulties for businesses and international organisations trying to carry out legitimate activities. At the same time, Bennett said he was also disturbed that the Taleban authorities “have not taken all necessary measures to address the dire situation, including meeting fundamental human rights standards, such as reopening girls’ secondary schools and universities.”

Without international assistance, the Special Rapporteur said the Taleban government will be unable to “mobilize sufficient resources to ensure that the Afghan people enjoy economic, social and cultural rights at the minimum base level.” He added that the United Nations has stressed that “this cannot be achieved without female aid workers.”

Bennett noted that two-thirds of Afghan households had reported difficulties in meeting basic food and non-food needs, that healthcare has become unaffordable for many, more children have dropped out of school in order to work, about 700,000 people have lost their jobs since August 2021 and the nature of work itself has deteriorated, with casual work and self-employment, that is poorly paid and unpredictable, on the rise. He is concerned about the “large unmet portion of humanitarian funding required” by Afghanistan. He also noted the “precarious circumstances” facing humanitarian workers with local authorities “routinely interfere[ing] and restrict[ing] their operations, contrary to humanitarian principles, hampering the delivery of life-saving support.” He pointed out that “this dire situation” has been seriously exacerbated by the Taleban’s barring of women from working for NGOs.”

Minority Rights

Bennett’s reporting on minority rights covered attacks, forced evictions and political marginalisation. Hazaras, Sikhs, Hindus and other minorities, he said, “have endured historical suffering that has evolved into a form of structural injustice that needs to be addressed, including through transitional justice processes.” He noted minorities’ “low representation in public positions, both at the most senior levels of government (the cabinet has 25 Pashtuns, two Tajiks, two Uzbeks, one Nuristani and no Hazaras) and in the provinces:

Over the past two decades, locals tended to work in provincial administrations in rough proportion to their presence in an area’s ethnic make-up. However, since the Taliban return to power, the ethnic composition of governance structures has been reconfigured, including at the provincial and district levels. In Bamyan, Daikundi and Ghor Provinces, the Taliban has replaced a number of former government employees at the Departments of Justice, Agriculture and Irrigation, Mines and Petroleum and Education, including at Bamyan University and in the municipalities, almost certainly due to their ethnic affiliation.

He also reported that “forces associated with the de facto authorities” have ordered many “Hazaras and other locals” to leave their homes and farms, frequently with only a few days’ notice and without giving them a chance to assert their legal rights to the property.” They included “at least 2,800 Hazara residents [who] were forcibly displaced from 15 villages in Daikundi and Uruzgan Provinces in September 2021 alone.” Community representatives who demanded an investigation were, reported Bennett, arrested. He also reported that on 19 December 2022, the largely Uzbek and Tajik residents of Sar-e Pul Province, who protested against their forced eviction and the seizure of 6,000 jeribs [12,000 hectares] of land in eight villages by the Taleban, were “reportedly threatened with a military response.” He said the authorities responded to his concerns by saying that, in October 2022, based on a decree by the Supreme Leader, “a regulation was issued to prevent land grabbing and that subsequently a commission and a special court were established to implement the decree.”

Bennett also noted threats against and attacks on Hazara Shia and other Shia Muslims, Sikhs and Sufis: between 30 August 2021 to 30 September 2022, he said, there were 22 recorded attacks against civilians, with at least 334 killed and 631 injured. Of those, 16 attacks targeted Hazaras, including three against educational facilities. He notes that in the past, the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) has claimed such attacks, although not for the most egregious recent assault, on the Kaaj Educational Centre in Dasht-e Barchi in Kabul on 30 September 2022, which killed 54 people and injured 114. Most victims were girls and young women studying for the university entrance exam. He pointed out that after that attack, it took one hour for ambulances to reach the scene and moreover, that the authorities had reportedly “physically assaulted and humiliated” some family members, denied them access to the site of the attack, and prevented them from transporting victims to hospitals, collecting dead bodies and donating blood. Journalists, he said, were prevented from covering the incident at the site and visiting the hospitals and relatives of the victims were told not to speak to the media.

Bennett said community representatives, fearing such attacks, said they had requested protection from the authorities in vain. They had also had weapons, authorised by the Republic for guarding educational centres, confiscated and licenses not re-issued. The Special Rapporteur acknowledges “the counter-terrorism efforts by the de facto authorities against [ISKP], which indicate that they have the capacity to undertake intelligence and investigative work and should be capable of bringing those they believe responsible to justice through the holding of trials that meet international standards.”

Rule of Law

Bennett noted the absence of any codification of law, or the issuing of standardised procedures or substantive statutes relating to criminal or civil matters, that police, judges or lawyers could follow. With almost all judges appointed under the Republic fired and prosecutors increasingly sidelined, Bennett said that often, judges, who are now largely religious scholars, are acting as both investigators and adjudicators in contravention of fair trial standards.

In practice, it appears that the muftis [mullahs deemed capable of giving rulings, or fatwas, on religious matters] have become even more powerful, being involved in pretrial and trial processes, including investigations and the provision of advice on punishment, with judges mainly following their advice. Alarmingly, there are reports that it is common for alleged perpetrators to be detained, sentenced and punished by the police and other security agencies all on the same day, without any semblance of due process or judicial review. There have also been allegations of bribes.

Given that court officials are all men, Bennett says women’s access to justice is now severely restricted. They generally need to be accompanied by a man in court, and their testimony may not be allowed at all or given less weight than a man’s.

Fundamental freedoms

Bennett said he is deeply concerned about the “rapidly shrinking civic space” in Afghanistan. Journalists, he said, have increasingly been “subject to surveillance, intimidation, threats, violence, arrest and detention” and are resorting to self-censorship to try to protect themselves from the authorities. He said members of civil society have reported increased limitations and surveillance of their activities by the authorities, and human rights defenders have been “subjected to intimidation, including by phone calls, visits to their homes, physical and verbal attacks and arbitrary arrest, which have created a climate of fear and sense of desperation.” He said the authorities had raided several civil society organisations, he reported, demanding the names and contact details of the staff and associated individuals, sometimes including family members, and added:

[The de facto authorities] are increasingly using bureaucratic mechanisms to control civil society organizations. Their requests are incoherent, inconsistent and difficult to interpret. Disclosure requirements have been noted as a major obstacle for several civil society organizations which are required to re-register at the de facto Ministry of Economy.

Bennett noted the extra pressure women are under, with female human rights defenders at particularly high risk of harassment. He said the UN, international NGOs and civil society organisations had all expressed concern to him about their female staff being harassed by the authorities. He also reported an increase in the arrests of humanitarian workers, from 3 in 2020 to 76 in the first ten months of 2022.

Bennett said he is alarmed by Taleban policy towards protesters, the banning of protests, use of excessive force to disperse those who do demonstrate, deployment of arbitrary arrest and detention, abusive interrogations, denial of access to lawyers and other due process rights and coerced confessions. Again, he expressed special concerns for women protesters, who “have been subjected to threats, intimidation, arrest and ill-treatment while in detention.”

Conflict-related violence

Bennett is concerned about the ongoing clashes between Taleban and armed opposition forces in Panjshir and other provinces from where he had received “credible reports and documents” regarding a whole host of violations of the laws of war and human rights by government forces, including:

  • Torture, arbitrary arrest and disappearance of individuals perceived to be affiliated with the National Resistance Front, and extrajudicial executions of captured fighters;
  • Heavy suppression of communities and an information blackout;
  • The routine subjection of civilians considered by the Taleban to be associated with the National Resistance Front to house-to-house searches, arbitrary arrest and detention, extrajudicial killings, torture and displacement.

He also reported multiple sources describing Taleban forces looting gold and cash from people’s homes and reports of forced marriages, including of children, to Taleban fighters in the Khawak area of Paryan District.

Bennett also reported that the targeted and revenge killings of former members of the Afghan security forces and prosecutors continue, despite the 2021 amnesty given by the Islamic Emirate’s Supreme Leader. He said he believed “these killings only fuel tensions and animosity within communities and may hamper reconciliation efforts in the future.” He renewed his call for the amnesty to be enforced and for those who break it to be prosecuted.

Conclusion

Asked what he hoped to achieve from this and other reporting, Bennett told AAN he was mandated to publicly report on the developing human rights situation and to make recommendations. Beyond that, he said:

I want Afghans to feel that an independent official of the UN is monitoring the human rights situation diligently and reporting publicly, expressing concerns about the situation and the violations they’re experiencing. I want others to pick the report up and use it – I want it to be useful. I want the Taleban to take note of it. Even if they don’t like or agree with it, I want them to know someone is watching and to debate the issues with me, so that a dialogue takes place. And I’d like the recommendations to be considered, even better implemented, but at least considered.

Those recommendations are largely to the Taleban, whom he called on to recognise the equality of men and women, immediately restore equal access to education, ensure women are represented in the judiciary, government and commissions, and immediately restore the right of women to work in NGOs and other organisations. On economic rights, he wants the Taleban to take steps to meet the requirements that would allow Afghanistan’s assets to be unfrozen and to refrain from interfering in humanitarian operations. He has called on the authorities to ensure representation for minorities, support a free media and “immediately and unconditionally” release all those detained for exercising their rights to freedom of expression.

As to ICC member states and the ‘international community’, he wants them to ensure the situation in Afghanistan is “central to foreign policy, bearing in mind their responsibilities for the human rights and well-being of the population and the regional and global implications of failing to protect human rights in Afghanistan, especially those of women and girls and minorities.” He calls on other countries to increase humanitarian funding, provide clear guidance to end the “overcompliance with sanctions by financial institutions” and support international investigation and accountability mechanisms.

On 7 October 2022, the Human Rights Council renewed Bennett’s mandate as Special Rapporteur for a further year (Resolution 51/20). The Council also added a significant new responsibility, “to document and preserve information relating to human rights violations and abuses.” [4] This, in itself, looked like a challenge to impunity, a signal to perpetrators that their actions will be recorded and that there could be consequences.

You can read the full report: Situation of human rights in Afghanistan – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett here.

Edited by Roxanna Shapour

References

References
↑1 The Special Rapporteur’s first report was published in September 2022 (see AAN analysis here).
↑2 The ICC’s investigation is into the war crimes and crimes against humanity which have taken place in relation in Afghanistan since 1 May 2003, when Afghanistan became an ICC member state, and July 2002 for international crimes allegedly committed in Poland, Lithuania and Romania, as part of the Afghanistan conflict nexus: those countries, which joined the ICC on that earlier date, and hosted CIA black sites where detainees rendered from Afghanistan were held and allegedly suffered the crimes of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon their personal dignity and/or rape. For more on this, see AAN’s 2016 report, One Step Closer to War Crime Trials? New ICC report on Afghanistan. 

Bennett also said he “trusts that the Court will investigate international crimes by all parties to the conflict in Afghanistan,” an apparent reference to the ICC prosecutor indicating that he wanted to drop investigations into the US military, the CIA and former Afghan government forces, all of whom face. For more on the decision to resume the investigation and questions over who to investigate, see Ehsan Qaane’s report for AAN on this decision, ICC Afghanistan Investigation Re-Authorised: But will it cover the CIA, ISKP and the forces of the Islamic Republic, as well as the Taleban?, published on 11 November 2022.
↑3 On 7 December 2022, the ICC published a document, Policy on the Crime of Gender Persecution, in part, to provide clarity and direction to ICC staff on the application of this crime, as per the Rome Statute.
↑4 The new mandate also gave him a duty to report from a child’s rights perspective.

A Worsening “Human Rights Crisis”: New hard-hitting report from UN Special Rapporteur
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THE U.S. SET UP THE AFGHAN ARMY TO FAIL

March 3, 2023
The Intercept

March 1 2023, 11:07 a.m.

Echoing America’s failure in Vietnam, a new inspector general report found the U.S. built an Afghan army dependent on outside support.

WHEN THE AFGHAN military and government collapsed in the summer of 2021, it was the worst failure of the U.S. defense establishment since the fall of Saigon. The U.S. today has moved on — providing the Ukrainian military with weapons and tactical support in its fight against Russia — but the question of why the world’s most powerful nation failed to build a capable Afghan military has not yet been fully answered.

A new report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, issued this week sheds critical light on what went so terribly wrong in America’s longest war — and how tens of thousands of ordinary Afghans were set up by their leaders and foreign partners to fight and die for a doomed cause.

“The real damning thing about what is in the report is that people had been telling the U.S. military this for years.”

The SIGAR report, “Why the Afghan Security Forces Collapsed,” paints a picture of the U.S. government’s effort to construct an Afghan military from scratch over two decades. As in many other U.S. conflicts, this enterprise relied heavily on contractors and advisers who themselves were “poorly trained and experienced for their mission,” according to the report. Among other tasks, contractors would often run logistics systems and direct airstrikes on the Afghans’ behalf.

The American mission in Afghanistan had been to build an army that could stand on its own feet to resist the Taliban. In the end, however, the Afghan military was not only riddled with corruption, but also designed to function properly only so long as the foreign contractors and soldiers remained around to manage it.

In effect, similar to its disastrous experience in South Vietnam, the United States had attempted to build an army suitable for a modern, industrialized country like itself, rather than one that would fit the realities of a poor and agrarian state.

“The types of security forces that we were trying to build, which were relatively sophisticated and relied on advanced technology and electronics logistics systems, were just not within the general capacity of what Afghanistan would be able to use in sustainable ways,” said Jonathan Schroden, an Afghanistan expert at the Center for Naval Analyses, a nonprofit military research and analysis center in Virginia. “The real damning thing about what is in the report is that people had been telling the U.S. military this for years.”

Afghans were not blameless in this debacle. Ethnic and political divisions within the government resulted in competent commanders being shuffled out of roles in favor of individuals connected to Kabul-based powerbrokers. Corruption at elite levels was endemic. The notorious issue of “ghost soldiers,” conscripts who existed only as budget-line items but not as flesh-and-blood service members in the field, continued to dog the Afghan military to its last days.

Yet the oft-repeated claim that the Afghan military itself did not fight the Taliban proved untrue. Tens of thousands of Afghans died fighting the Taliban, continuing the war until the fight became futile.

THE SIGAR REPORT outlined another reason for U.S. failure in Afghanistan that will be relevant to any future foreign conflicts or nation-building enterprises that the U.S. embarks upon: The war went on too long.

The report says that “the length of the U.S. commitment was disconnected from a realistic understanding of the time required to build a self-sustaining security sector.” For a period lasting more than a decade up until the final withdrawal, U.S. political leaders — recognizing how unpopular the war was at home, as casualties mounted and little battlefield progress was made ­— began drawing up timelines for when they would head for the exits.

What’s more, Schroden, the Center for Naval Analyses expert, pointed to the issue, highlighted in the SIGAR report, of U.S. government personnel and contractors rotating in and out of the country on short stints, leading them to repeat the same mistakes as their predecessors every few years. Despite the length, then, the U.S. continued its long commitment, without any realistic prospect of success on the horizon.

The half-in, half-out approach to the war was inconducive to a lasting victory over the Taliban. It pushed neighboring countries like Pakistan and Iran to hedge their bets and bide their time. And, most importantly, the short timeframes involved made it almost certain that the Afghan security forces would not have time to develop the solid institutional structure they would need to survive indefinitely, even if their training had been effective.

Given the fundamentally flawed approach that the U.S. had taken to building up the Afghan military, spending another two decades occupying Afghanistan and then withdrawing on the same terms would have been unlikely to lead to a very different outcome.

As tragically as the war ended for many Afghans, including tens of thousands who were sent to fight and die in a military that was unequipped for the task of securing the country, the withdrawal agreement negotiated in Qatar by the U.S. and the Taliban in 2020 did finally put an end to an endeavor that had already been failing for many years.

“The Taliban and D.C. ultimately wanted the same thing, which was for U.S. troops to leave,” said Adam Weinstein, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and former U.S. Marine in Afghanistan. “The conditions of the final agreement were not as important as leaving the country as soon as possible.”

THE U.S. SET UP THE AFGHAN ARMY TO FAIL
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The Daily Hustle: How to survive a winter in Kabul

March 3, 2023

Roxanna Shapour

 

Winters in Kabul are always difficult, and this year was no exception – with temperatures dropping well below zero and heavy snowfall. The snow turns the unpaved secondary roads where most Kabulis live into rivers of mud, making it difficult for people to get around. But if there’s little snow – increasingly the case because of global warming – water will be scarce in the summer. This year, winter arrived early, leaving many Afghan families, already struggling with the fallout from Afghanistan’s economic collapse, ill-equipped to manage. The start of winter also marked weeks of power outages across the country and a skyrocketing of the cost of coal and wood, the fuels people use to heat their homes. In the latest instalment of The Daily Hustle, our series of individual accounts about one aspect of daily life in Afghanistan, we hear how one family is coping with winter in Kabul.

It’s still dark when we wake up, well before the morning call to prayer. My wife has gently tapped my shoulder to wake me. I listen to the children’s slow steady breathing and savour a last few minutes under the warm covers before I face the chill that has set in the room since the fire went out in the bukhari [heater] overnight. I can hear the rustling of my brothers. I usually have to wake them, but they’re already awake this morning.

I leave the room quietly, careful not to wake the children, and light a fire in the bukhari in the dahliz [large hallway]. We used to have an electric fire there, but electricity has been scarce in Kabul since the start of winter and we’ve had to put a small gas heater instead – we use it only for an hour or two in the mornings just to take the chill off the air when we first wake up. My wife often wheels it into the kitchen when she gets breakfast ready for the family.

The price of coal has soared this year. Last year, I paid 8,500 Afs [about 97 USD] per tonne, but this year the price had almost doubled, to 15,600 Afs [177 USD]. I go out to a wholesaler in Deh Sabz [just to the northeast of Kabul city], but even then, it was difficult even to find coal. I had to put my name on a waiting list. He called me a week later to say I could come and pick up the coal. We don’t usually get enough to last the whole winter. Especially if spring comes late, we buy extra coal late in the season. But everything is so expensive this year, I don’t think we could afford more coal, so we have to economise. I mix the coal with firewood to make it last.

Wood has also got more expensive, but not as much as coal. Since last year, it’s gone up from 7,000 Afs to 8,000 Afs [79 to 91 USD] per kharwar [equivalent to about 560 kg]. We used to have a sawdust bukhari in my brothers’ room, as well. Slow-burning sawdust is an efficient way to heat a room, but it’s costly and most people have stopped using it, so it’s not easy to find. So now, there’s a sandali [a rectangular wooden table covered with a large quilt that uses a coal or electric fire under the table as a heat source] there, with an electric fire under it when there’s electricity and hot water bottles there isn’t.

My father’s room is the largest in the house and we keep the bukhari going there 24 hours a day because he’s old and he shares it with my ailing aunt and younger sister. The family spends most of its time there, watching TV, playing games, talking and generally passing the time. My aunt’s already awake when I carry the children into the room before I leave for work. She’s reading the Quran by the dim light of a solar-powered light bulb. She looks up and greets me with a smile. I point to the corner of the room where we usually pray to let her know I’m about to bring her a bowl of warm water for her ablutions.

These days we have about eight hours of electricity a day, by turns; one day, it’ll be during the day, the next in the evening. At the start of winter, we began having days-long power cuts. If we were lucky, we’d get an hour or two in a day. Sometimes, it would come on in the middle of the night, which did us no good because we were sleeping. A couple of years ago, with help from a technically savvy colleague, I installed a small solar system in our house. It generates 20,000 Watts of DC power, enough to give us light throughout the house, but not sufficient for TV or other appliances. The 300 USD I paid for the two batteries and solar panels was a huge outlay and more than most Afghans could afford.

We’re among the lucky families in Kabul who can afford such things. Many families have to make do with whatever they can find to burn, use hot water bottles [if they can boil water] or just endure the cold, putting on layer upon layer of clothes to try and keep warm. We have neighbours too poor to afford any sort of heating. We help them the best we can. We’ve given them a line of electricity from our house to use when there’s power and we also give them boiling water so they can fill their hot water bottles to try to keep warm.

This morning, there’s no electricity, so my wife has put two pots of water on the stove, one for our family to use for ablutions and another that she’s already boiled for the neighbours, which she asks me to take round to them.

By the time I get home in the evening, it’s already dark. On the nights when there’s electricity in our neighbourhood, the streetlights cast a yellow glow on the snow, turning the mounds of snow piled up on either side of the road into gold. On those nights, everyone in the family is gathered in my father’s room watching TV. But when there’s no power, the streets are dark and ominous. Every alley, every turn in the road, every dark corner could be harbouring a thief standing in wait to rob you.

On the long winter nights when there’s no electricity, we while away the time chatting about the day that’s passed. My aunt is a gifted calligrapher and tutors my sister – who can’t go to school any more because of the Taleban’s ban on girls’ education – in penmanship. My brothers sell clothes on pushcarts in the Mandawi [Kabul’s central market] and tell me about their day, how many customers they’ve had and how much money they’ve made. On snowy days, when they can’t take their carts out to tout their wares, they stay home and help my wife with the heavy housework, plough the snow from our roof and clear the snow from the yard and the road outside our house. I watch after the children to give my wife some rest after a long day of housework. My three-year-old daughter is waiting patiently, but still fidgeting with expectant eyes, for the treat I’ve picked up for her on my way home, usually a small chocolate bar. One of my greatest joys is watching her jump up and down and squeal with pleasure when I finally reach into my pockets to fish out her daily present.

As I get dressed to go to the office, the smell of freshly baked bread wafts from the kitchen, but I have no time to eat breakfast at home this morning. On snowy days, I leave the house early and walk to work. I love to walk in the snow. I enjoy the fresh air, the rare respite from Kabul’s usual pollution, which forces us to cover our faces. I find the snowflakes dancing in the air and the delicate light coming off the carpet of snow romantic. But I know that snowfall is not romantic for the poor. For them, it’s a nightmare that will only end with the coming of spring and the hope that next year there will be enough money to heat their homes and electricity to light the long winter nights.

Edited by Roxanna Shapour

 

The Daily Hustle: How to survive a winter in Kabul
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