A group of Afghan women on Thursday called on the UN Security Council to give them their full support during the upcoming council meeting organised by Norway.
Speaking at an event in Kabul, the women appealed to the security council to deal with their concerns at the planned meeting.
“Secondary schools are closed for girls, women are prevented from social and political activities, no attention is paid to their situation. Anything that has been done for women has been in words not in action,” said Zhulia Parsi, a women’s rights activist and organizer of the event.
She asked the Security Council to urgently address the situation of women in Afghanistan and to put pressure on the Taliban to reopen girls’ schools and allow women to work in all fields as they did in the past.
Maryam Sadat, a participant at the gathering, said women have been sidelined by the Taliban and have no role in politics or in other fields.
She said that all the achievements of the past two decades, in terms of women’s rights and their role in society, have been lost and the Taliban is “seeking to remove women from society and reduce their role in all sectors.”
She asked the United Nations Security Council to raise the demands of Afghan women during their upcoming meeting and emphasized the importance of the council raising their voices at the event.
“It is a group (Taliban) that opposes feminism. As days pass, more restrictions are imposed and various excuses are made to exclude women from society,” said Laila Basim, a women’s rights activist.
This comes as secondary schools for girls remain closed, and women face numerous restrictions relating to their engagement in society – such as wearing hijab, having separate classes at universities, restrictions on visiting recreational venues, among others.
