The Taliban’s recently announced “morality law” has alarmed a number of UN Security Council members, including Ecuador, France, Guyana, Malta, Mozambique, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan. The members of the council issued a joint statement on September 6.
This order is viewed as a continuation of the systematic discrimination against women and girls that the dictatorship has long practiced in Afghanistan. The Security Council deemed the Taliban’s actions to be a grave blow to the nation’s fundamental freedoms and human rights.
The new law puts Afghan people’ personal liberty at even greater risk by strengthening already-existing limitations and giving inspections broad enforcement authority. The Council underlined that all Afghans will suffer negative consequences from these measures in a number of areas of daily life.
Ever since the Taliban took power three years ago, the Security Council has made a point of highlighting the worsening state of human rights in Afghanistan. It passed Resolution 2681, which demanded that women and girls be fully and meaningfully included in all aspects of Afghan society, with a unanimous vote in April 2023.
The Council emphasised that women’s and girls’ rights to labour, education, and freedom of expression and movement must all be respected in order to create a stable and prosperous Afghanistan. It encouraged the Taliban to rescind any measures that violate these rights.
In addition, the International community was urged to use its power to demand for an immediate end to these harsh regulations. The Security Council emphasised how the Taliban’s actions jeopardise international attempts to cooperate with them in the goal of a peaceful and reintegrated Afghanistan.
Afghanistan has committed to upholding its commitments under international law and is a member to various international human rights treaties, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
The Security Council expressed concern over the Taliban’s ban on the Special Rapporteur’s entry into the nation and reaffirmed its support for UNAMA and the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, saying that he should be permitted to carry out his mandate without obstruction.
