Islamic Emirate Rejects UN Women’s Report on Afghan Women’s Rights
The Islamic Emirate has rejected the report from the United Nations Women’s division, calling it disconnected from reality.
Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate, said that such reports are based not on information from within Afghanistan, but rather on external propaganda sources.
Mujahid said: “Our response to this report is that, unfortunately, this survey is not accurate. Such views are often based not on information from within Afghanistan but on certain propaganda from groups outside the country or from people who have left the country. We have many women in Afghanistan who are involved in business and other productive work, achieving progress in their fields. Women are also active in various sectors within the government framework.”
Earlier, the UN Women division claimed in a report that women in Afghanistan are moving toward an increasingly restrictive environment concerning their rights.
A part of this 13-page report states that the caretaker government has imposed restrictive directives violating women’s rights across all sectors. Findings from consultations with several Afghan women show that over the past 12 months, around 79% of female respondents were denied access to public places such as parks and health centers.
The report further stated that a significant number (69%) of female respondents noted that they do not feel safe when they step outside their homes. The respondents mentioned a notable change in the societal perspective on girls’ education, both at the primary (47% of women respondents) and secondary levels (65% of women respondents). Approximately 79% of women said that they had not utilized any formal dispute resolution institutions in the past year.
“As human beings, women have a set of rights granted by God that no one can overlook,” Alamtab Rasouli, a women’s rights activist, told TOLOnews.
Another section of the report highlights that 57% of women and 34% of men expressed concern about the decline in their financial situation over the past quarter and criticized the presence of discrimination in the hiring process across various sectors—concerns that the Islamic Emirate had previously denied.
