Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), traveled to Kandahar following the Taliban’s ratification of a controversial new law.
The media office of the Taliban governor in Kandahar said on Sunday that Otunbayeva met with the deputy governor of the province.
While UNAMA has yet to comment on the purpose of the visit, the Taliban’s statement quoted Otunbayeva as saying that she was in Kandahar to discuss “alternative crops to opium poppy.”
During the meeting, the Taliban deputy governor reportedly urged international governments not to cite various reasons for withholding investment in Afghanistan.
Otunbayeva’s visit comes in the wake of the Taliban’s Ministry of Justice publicizing a new “Law on the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice” last Wednesday. The law, ratified by the Taliban leadership, has sparked widespread domestic and international criticism, with several human rights organizations and prominent figures condemning it as illegitimate and describing the 114-page document as “hatred toward Afghan women.”
The new law imposes severe restrictions on the rights and freedoms of Afghan citizens, particularly women, with one provision even declaring women’s voices as forbidden in public spaces.
