The Security Council as a whole against the Taliban: a strong signal, because the 15 members voted, on Thursday April 27, in a rare moment of unity, for a resolution condemning the recent restrictions imposed on women and girls by the masters of Kabul and formally asking them to cancel them.
The resolution, adopted unanimously by the 15 members and co-sponsored by some 90 UN member states, “ condemns the Taliban’s decision to ban Afghan women from working for the United Nations in Afghanistan “, decision announced at the beginning of April which “ compromises human rights and humanitarian principles “.
” The world will not remain silent as women in Afghanistan are erased from society “, commented the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates, Lana Zaki Nusseibeh, who wrote the text with Japan.
Since the return of the Taliban to power almost 2 years ago, the UN has quickly realized that the only thing it could fight for by balancing humanitarian aid and the operations of its teams on the ground are the rights of women and girls, reports our correspondent in New York, Carrie Nooten.
But contrary to what they had promised in August 2021, the Taliban imposed waves of successive restrictions : no more school after 6th grade for girls, women can no longer leave their homes without a male chaperone. At the end of December, they prohibited humanitarian organizations from hiring women.
The number 2 of the United Nations, Amina Mohamed had gone there to try to negotiate, but a few weeks later, the ax fell: ban on the UN hiring Afghan women.
Long and difficult negotiations
For 17 days, the Council wanted to express itself. However, the negotiations around the resolution were long and difficult between the 15 countries, China and Russia wishing both to weaken the condemnations, and to indicate that the economic crisis in which Afghanistan got mired was due in particular to the freezing of $7 billion in Afghan central bank holdings by the United States.
The Russian ambassador Vassili Nebenzia, despite his favorable vote, regretted that Westerners had ” blocked “a more approach” ambitious especially on this question. ” If you are sincere, why not return the stolen assets, without precondition “, he launched.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is organizing a meeting in Doha on 1 and 2 May with envoys from various countries in charge of Afghanistan to “ reinvigorate international engagement around common goals towards a sustainable path regarding the situation in Afghanistan “.
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(And with AFP)