Afghan women barred from UN-Taliban talks: 'Yielding to terrorist pressure'

On Sunday, the Taliban prevented Afghan women from participating in high-level talks between Taliban leaders and United Nations officials and special envoys in Qatar. The Taliban had previously stipulated that women from Afghanistan should not be included in the negotiations as a precondition for their participation.

The diplomatic community's consistent surrender to terrorist demands strengthens the Taliban's perspective. Women and girls in Afghanistan are confined in an outdoor prison and are dehumanized. Kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder are routine occurrences for women under the Taliban's gender-based discrimination system, as stated by Jason Howk, the director of Global Friends of Afghanistan, in an interview with Planet Chronicle Digital.

The discussions at the meetings were reportedly focused on private sector growth, financing and banking restrictions, and drug trafficking, according to The Associated Press. Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban chief spokesperson, will lead the delegation of Afghanistan’s de facto authorities. After the meetings with the Taliban on Sunday, the special envoys were expected to meet with Afghani women and members of civil society.

The U.N. and any diplomats or nations that support excluding women from the Doha talks to accommodate the wishes of the Taliban and Haqqani terrorist network should be publicly shamed. The women from Afghanistan, who believe in human rights for all, must be in every meeting about the future of the country. The misogynistic terrorists should be kept out of any conference until they reverse their positions on human rights and terrorism.

Jose Luis Diaz, a U.N. spokesman, stated that he and other special envoys will bring up human rights, specifically the rights of women and girls, during discussions with the Taliban. However, when asked about whether the delegates would address a comprehensive list of repressive Taliban orders, such as forced veiling, a ban on girls' education beyond the sixth grade, and restrictions on women's travel without a male chaperone, Diaz did not respond.

According to State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, Special Representative for Afghanistan Tom West and Special Envoy for Afghan Women, Girls, and Human Rights, Rina Amiri, were to participate in the conference, but only after securing clarity on the substantive agenda and confirming that there would be meaningful engagement with Afghan women and members of Afghan civil society.

The Taliban reiterated that they would not discuss women in Doha during a Saturday press conference in Kabul. Mujahid stated that their meetings, including the one in Doha or with other countries, have no relation to the lives of their sisters and will not allow them to interfere in their internal affairs. Mujahid acknowledged that women face issues but noted that they are internal Afghan matters that need to be addressed locally within the framework of Islamic Sharia.

Roza Otunbayeva, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan and Head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), stated in an interview that women's issues can be raised through discussions on private industry and banking, as well as counternarcotics policy.

The Taliban and UNAMA did not respond to questions about women's rights during their discussions.

In November 2022, after Haibatullah Akhundzada implemented sharia law nationwide, Afghan women have been subjected to physical attacks in public for alleged lawbreaking. On June 4, 14 women in Sar-e Pul province were publicly flogged for offenses such as immoral relations, theft, and sodomy.

The Taliban has been accused of committing some of the most heinous attacks on women in private. The State Department's 2023 Human Rights Report revealed that women were allegedly raped in Taliban prisons, forced to undergo abortions after becoming pregnant while in custody, and executed after falling seriously ill due to repeated sexual assaults by Taliban members.

Suhail Shaheen, the head of the Taliban's Doha political office, stated to Planet Chronicle Digital that Western media reports on women's issues in Afghanistan do not accurately represent the ground realities. He explained that girls have access to education in medical institutions and other Darul Uloom institutes across the country. However, when asked about the number of girls receiving such education and how they would qualify for higher education in the future if their schooling ceased after sixth grade, Shaheen did not respond.

Shaheen stated that reports of rape in prisons are "merely claims and accusations." Those who make such accusations are seeking to facilitate asylum for Afghan women in the West. I hope that those in charge of affairs in the West are not misled by biased media outlets.

Lynne O'Donnell, a former Kabul bureau chief for the AP and Agence France-Presse, wrote for the Spectator about investigations into Taliban members raping imprisoned Afghan women. She stated on Planet Chronicle Digital that she wrote about a story that contained credible allegations that are being investigated by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan, and have been mentioned by the State Department. However, she added that her reporting was not a reflection of Western propaganda and is simply a reflection of the Taliban's spin.

In 2022, while reporting on changes in Afghanistan since the Taliban's takeover, O'Donnell was detained and investigated by the Taliban. The Taliban forced her to publicly retract her prior reporting about Taliban crimes, including allegations the Taliban had forced women into marriages, before she was permitted to leave the country.

O'Donnell stated that the U.N., the U.S., the EU, the U.K., and the international community as a whole are colluding with the Taliban, as they have been doing so all along. Their opposition to his reporting serves as proof that they would rather work with a group of terrorists who are murderers, drug dealers, child killers, liars, and misogynists.

According to Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of the Long War Journal, who spoke to Planet Chronicle Digital, U.N. personnel in Doha should not underestimate their negotiating partners. Roggio stated that the Taliban leadership outclassed the U.S. in negotiations, organized the ouster of the U.S. from Afghanistan, and seized control of the country even before the U.S. could leave. Roggio considers these as signs that the group is "organized, unified, and sophisticated."

According to Otunbayeva, the Taliban emerged from battles and the mountains, and it is not easy to immediately turn them into people who will sit and accept the people. In her meetings with de-facto ministers, Otunbayeva stated that some Taliban members claim to support educational access for girls and say that the ban was imposed by higher-ups.

Roggio accused Otunbayeva of echoing Taliban talking points in private conversations, giving the impression of a moderate Taliban willing to grant women's rights, while the Taliban remains steadfast in their opposition to women's rights and he challenged her to identify a prominent leader who disagrees with this stance.

The Taliban were not invited to the first Doha summit in May 2023 and refused to participate in a second conference in February after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated that they had delivered conditions that "denied us the right to talk to other representatives of Afghan society and demanded a treatment that would, to a large extent, be similar to recognition."

Last week, Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the secretary-general, stated that the meetings between U.N. officials and the envoys should not be viewed as an official recognition of the Taliban as the government or legitimization.