UNITED NATIONS THIRD COMMITTEE: INTERACTIVE DIALOGUE: SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON THE HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN AFGHANISTAN
STATEMENT BY YUNEI KIM, FIRST SECRETARY, AUSTRALIAN MISSION TO THE UN
1 November 2024
Thank you Chair, and thank you Special Rapporteur for your latest report that once again highlights the Taliban’s unkept promises to respect human rights.
For over three years, the Taliban has perpetrated severe human rights violations and abuses against the people of Afghanistan, including women and girls, religious and ethnic minorities, human rights defenders, media and civil society.
The Taliban continues sustained and systematic targeting of women and girls. The cumulative effect of its Promotion of Vice and Prevention of Virtue edict, and earlier decisions and practices, is the attempted erasure of women and girls from public life – the Taliban is silencing women and girls’ voices, shrouding their presence, and restricting their freedom of movement, access to work and right to education. We are gravely concerned by reports that these drastic restrictions may amount to gender persecution.
While the edicts are severely harming women and girls and their families, they also damage the Afghan economy. Reports indicate keeping girls out of secondary school costs Afghanistan 2.5 per cent of its annual GDP.
We will not stand by and allow the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan to become a ‘new normal’.
Australia has heeded the calls for accountability. We are acting, alongside Canada, Germany and the Netherlands, to hold Afghanistan to account for the Taliban’s violations of the human rights of women and girls as enshrined in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
Australia calls on the Taliban to reverse its oppressive edicts against women and girls, respect and promote the human rights of all Afghans, and comply with Afghanistan’s obligations under international law.
Special Rapporteur, the Taliban has prohibited you from entering Afghanistan. How can States better support your crucial work of monitoring the human rights situation in Afghanistan?
Thank you.