While the world has yet not recovered from the sudden shock over swift storming of Afghanistan by the Taliban once the US packed its might back abandoning the war ravaged land to the mercy of brute and archaic rule. The regular and social media has been reporting the apprehensions expressed world over on the fate of human rights of the people in Afghanistan particularly of Afghan women. Though the Taliban has announced that it would allow the women to be part of administration within the Sharia but no one is going to buy their statement. After losing the bloody game deliberately or otherwise, the US State Department has released a joint statement signed by forty seven nations expressing concern for the rights of Afghan women and girls and urging those in power in Afghanistan to guarantee their protection. Surprisingly, India or for that matter no country from south Asia and Islamic world has so far expressed official their similar concern which is disgraceful.
The countries that signed the statement are Albania, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, North Macedonia, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Senegal, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the European Union which constitutes 27 member states.
Since the day the US left for the Taliban to have a field day, women in Afghanistan have been worried about losing their civil rights that they somehow gained in the last two decades of democratic dispensation. Women folk are deeply afraid of reprisal and vengeance against them in the hands of the Taliban.
During the earlier Taliban regime, women were subjected to archaic and oppressive terms dictated by the Taliban. While deprived of genuine liberty and breathing space, they were required to cover their bodies and faces in a Burqa and were not allowed to go to school. They were barred from leaving the house without a male relative.
Afghan women and girls, as all Afghan people, deserve to live in safety, security and dignity, it said. Any form of discrimination and abuse should be prevented. We in the international community stand ready to assist them with humanitarian aid and support, to ensure that their voices can be heard.
It went on to add that the world will monitor closely how any future government ensures rights and freedoms that have become an integral part of the life of women and girls in Afghanistan during the last 20 years. It is hard to believe that the Taliban would have changed and they wouldn’t impose the same draconian restrictions they did when they last ruled Afghanistan.
Notably, no self proclaimed secularists in India have come forward to express similar concern for the rights of women and the minorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
