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In September 2021, the council created the position of a special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan. It is a group of countries that have pledged to uphold human rights and have powers to do so. One of the entities that matters most is the UN Human Rights Council.

We must demand more from them because there are few other options.

There have been many statements of concern, but few concrete actions to hold the Taliban accountable.īut there are mechanisms that exist to enforce rights–including yours–and we cannot afford to give up on them. The response from the United Nations, which is responsible for upholding international human rights law, and from countries around the world, to the Taliban’s violations of the rights of women and girls has been weak. What use, you might ask, are these treaties if the Taliban can violate them without consequences? This is a fair question. It is your right, under international law, to access health care, live free from violence, and wear what you choose. You have the rights to freedom of movement, expression, and speech-those are in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights protects the right of everyone-including Afghan women-to work. Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, all children-including all Afghan girls-have a right to education.

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Under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, you have the right to full equality with men and boys. Your rights are clear under international human rights law. The second thing I want to say is I know it is very hard to have any faith in the international legal regime and mechanisms given what you are going through, but please keep using these treaties and demanding that they work for you. The world has too easily turned the page on Afghanistan. I am also sorry that you have not received more solidarity from women’s rights groups around the world, especially in the US and elsewhere in the West.

I pay taxes and vote in the US and feel complicit in the tragedy that has unfolded over the last 21 years, and I am truly sorry for that. I’m sorry that the plight of Afghan women and girls under the Taliban was used to help build support for war in 2001, after 9/11, only for it to become clearer and clearer as the years went by that the war was never about women’s rights or promoting gender equality. I’m sorry that my country, the United States, and so many others promised to defend the rights of Afghan women and girls forever, and then broke that promise. The first thing I want to say is I’m sorry. An Afghan girl reads in a classroom at Tajrobawai Girls High School, in Herat, Afghanistan, November 25, 2021.

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