Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a statement on Monday asked the International Cricket Council to suspend the membership of Afghanistan. HRW added that the Afghan cricket team must be suspended from competitions until Afghan women and girls can have the right to education and work.
The organisation stressed that the International Cricket Council's anti-discrimination policy for global games requires the council to ensure that wherever cricket is played, it is enjoyed by all players.
Currently, women in Afghanistan are not allowed to pursue sports including cricket.
It has been over a year since female students in Afghanistan have not been able to go to school.
The Taliban has also banned higher education, work, and any kind of presence of women in social activities.
According to human rights organisations, Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban is experiencing the worst type of gender apartheid in the world.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, reacted to the UN Security Council's concern about the situation of women in Afghanistan. Mujahid said that the Taliban understands the Security Council's concerns, but the group regulates every issue according to Islamic Sharia.
He added that countries and international organisations should not link humanitarian aid to political issues in Afghanistan.
The spokesperson of the Taliban said, "The Taliban cannot allow illegal acts in Afghanistan because religion has obliged them, and they are responsible to the people.”
The Taliban spokesperson’s statement comes after the members of the United Nations Security Council, including UK, United States, Switzerland, Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, France, Japan, Malta, and the United Arab Emirates, expressed their concerns about the situation of Afghan girls and women under the Taliban.
They called on the Taliban to immediately remove all repressive actions against the Afghan women.
In a letter to United Nations Security Council and other organisations, several Afghan lawyers urged for targeted sanctions against Taliban leaders. They have said that the Taliban’s recent decisions are leading Afghanistan to a dark era and the world must act to counter them.
The letter has been signed by over 900 people and stated that prohibition of right to education and work of Afghan women dramatically impacts the life of half of the Afghan population.
The letter stressed that human rights mechanisms of the United Nations, of which Afghanistan is a member, consider the deprivation of girls from education as a direct violation of human rights.
Afghan lawyers have also stated that the Taliban's decision to ban education is against the Islamic laws and teachings.
The letter states, "The Taliban had about 16 months to address concerns related to Hijab, the educational environment, and logistical issues of Afghan girls’ education.”
The letter noted that contrary to the Taliban's claims, there are no traditional or cultural barriers to the education of girls in the Afghan society.
The letter emphasised that the international community is responsible for the current situation in Afghanistan and added that failure to act against the actions of the Taliban can lead to gender apartheid and a disaster that the world will not be able to contain.
The letter also added that other extremist groups are watching the world's reaction to the Taliban's actions and decisions and keeping silent will make these groups bolder.
The Afghan lawyers have also asked the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to immediately hold a debate of religious leaders in order to issue a fatwa to justify the right to education for girls in Afghanistan.
Jan Egeland, the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on Saturday announced that he left Afghanistan with “a heavy heart”. Egeland wrote in on Twitter that, it was minus 20 degree Celsius when we left Kabul.
Egeland added that millions of people will not receive relief until women are allowed to work in Afghanistan.
Egeland was on a week-long visit to Kabul and earlier in a video message said that he visited Kabul to fight for women's right to work in Afghanistan.
He had urged for a unified global message to the Taliban leadership.
The Taliban's decision to ban women from work and education has led to widespread national and international condemnation.
Many Islamic countries have also criticised the Taliban’s latest restrictions against Afghan women.
The Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) announced on Friday that the temperature will dip to -35 degrees Celsius in parts of Afghanistan this week. OCHA added that the ban on women’s work by the Taliban has affected distribution of humanitarian aid.
OCHA on Friday said that humanitarian partners provide support to Afghan families so that they are able to survive through the harsh winters in the country.
United Nations has stressed that Afghanistan is on the edge of a big crisis and more than 28 million people need humanitarian aid in 2023 in the country.
Following Taliban’s ban on women’s work in non-governmental organisations in Afghanistan, many international donor organisations have stopped their operations in Afghanistan.
The closed-door meeting of the United Nation Security Council (UNSC) on Afghanistan on Friday must focus on how to reverse the stifling ban by the Taliban on women and girls from accessing work, education, sports and public spaces, said Amnesty International.
The global organisation added that with poverty rates skyrocketing, the Taliban’s decision to ban women from working with NGOs is pushing the country further into a humanitarian crisis.
“It is imperative that the UN Security Council halts the steep decline in women and girls’ rights in the country. The world watches as the Taliban systematically decimate women’s rights through numerous discriminatory restrictions rolled out by them in quick succession over the last few months,” said Yamini Mishra, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for South Asia.
Amnesty International called on the Taliban to immediately allow women and girls to return to secondary and tertiary education and to allow women to work and access public spaces independently.
It also asked the international community to call on the Taliban to reverse their restrictive policies.
Recalling the repressive policies regarding women implemented by the Taliban, Amnesty International stated that on 24 December 2022, Taliban ordered all local and foreign NGOs not to employ female employees; then on 20 December, they ordered all universities to not accept women students until further notice and in November 2022, women had been denied the right to enter parks and gyms in the country.
Amnesty International added, “The UNSC must call not only for the Taliban to urgently lift their restrictions on women and girls, but also for an end to their crackdown on anyone who dares to protest against these constraints in Afghanistan.”
The statement emphasised that the NGO-led aid sector, which is the main source of humanitarian assistance in the country, is teetering on the brink of collapse with at least three major international NGOs -CARE, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Save the Children and the United Nations– having suspended their operations in the country because they were unable to run their programs without female staff.
Noting that Afghan women and girls are already denied access to secondary and tertiary education, the statement added that the ban on women working with NGOs will also prevent students from accessing education through community-based education systems. Such programs were the only way about 3.7 million out-of-school children, about 60 percent of whom are girls, could still access schooling in pre-Taliban era. The teachers working in this system are primarily women and would be classified by the Taliban as NGO workers, it said.
Stressing on how the Taliban removed women working for the government, including those with roles in civil service, policy-making bodies and the judiciary, the statement recalled how since Taliban took control of the country in August 2021, they have violated women’s and girls’ rights to education, work and free movement; decimated the system of protection and support for those fleeing domestic violence; detained women and girls for minor violations of discriminatory rules; and contributed to a surge in the rates of child, early and forced marriage in Afghanistan.
Earlier too, Amnesty International’s report, Death in Slow Motion: Women and Girls Under Taliban Rule, revealed how women who peacefully protested against these oppressive rules have been threatened, arrested, detained, tortured, and forcibly disappeared.