Afghanistan ‘most repressive country in the world’ for women: UN envoy

WASHINGTON (AA) – UN Special Representative for Afghanistan Roza Otunbayeva said Wednesday that under the Taliban, Afghanistan “remains the most repressive country in the world” when it comes to women’s rights.

“The bans against women working, studying, traveling without a male companion, and even going to parks or baths remain in place. The Taliban claim to have united the country but they have also severely divided it by gender,” Otunbayeva said at a UN Security Council briefing on Afghanistan.

“At a moment when Afghanistan needs all of its human capital to recover from decades of war, half of the country’s potential doctors, scientists, journalists, and politicians are shut in their homes, their dreams crushed and their talents confiscated,” she said.

Otunbayeva also warned that there is an erosion of other human rights in the country, citing “ongoing extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests, detentions and torture carried out by the de facto authorities against former government officials and security forces.”

“These are violations of the Taliban’s amnesty decree. There is no transparency regarding investigations of violations, and violations appear increasingly allowed to occur,” said the envoy.

Otunbayeva said ISIS-Khorasan is increasingly threatening security, which she said has negatively affected the work of the UN Afghanistan Aid Mission (UNAMA).

“Mitigating these threats will require more concerted and more united member state attention,” she said, demanding another annual mandate for the mission.