By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-09-30 22:23:07 | Updated at 2024-10-01 01:48:06
4 hours ago
Pressure is mounting on the Taliban to respect the rights of women after Western governments decided to take the group to the International Court of Justice for gender discrimination.
The Netherlands, Canada, Germany and Australia announced the move on Wednesday at the United Nations General Assembly, marking only the second time a country is sent to the International Court of Justice for violating the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination of Women (CEDAW).
Dutch foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp said the situation was “heartbreaking” while Australian foreign minister Penny Wong said the four countries would “hold the Taliban to account” for its treatment of women in Afghanistan.
Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban has treated women and girls abysmally. According to the UN, 2.5 million school-age girls have been denied their right to education while women have been banned from working for aid organisations and UN agencies.
The Taliban has also rolled out “vice and virtue” laws prohibiting women from speaking or showing their faces in public, and forbidding them to look directly at strange men or catch taxis without a male escort. This comes after the Taliban banned beauty parlours, a transparently cruel move designed to remove women from public spaces.
