A gathering of women’s rights advocates has resolved to draft a women’s political manifesto to support Afghanistan’s future as the Taliban continue to force extreme restrictions across the country.
In a three-day summit held in Albania’s capital Tirana from September 11-13, women activists, human rights defenders, and international representatives convened to address Afghanistan’s severe human rights crisis.
The goals from the summit included a resolution to form a working group tasked with writing the manifesto.
“This group shall include diverse representation of all segments of the Afghan society,” summit organizers said in the Tirana Declaration summarizing its goals.
The summit aimed to draw global attention to the Taliban’s widespread violations of women’s rights and to call for urgent action from the international community.
The Tirana Declaration stated the Taliban takeover has led to a daily deterioration of human rights, with women and girls especially stripped of their fundamental rights.
The Taliban’s ban on secondary and higher education for girls, widespread restrictions on women’s employment, and total exclusions of women from political participation are only a few of the dozens of ways girls’ and women’s lives are curtailed.
The Declaration stated that “the current situation of Afghan women [is] a
form of gender apartheid and gender-based persecution” and called for legal recognition of gender apartheid in the international law.
Participants stressed the need to strengthen such accountability mechanisms, including utilizing the International Criminal Court to address the Taliban’s human rights abuses, and on the international community to withhold recognition of the Taliban regime.
It further emphasized the importance of allocating resources for justice, establishing standards for documenting rights’ violations, and preventing future abuses.
In this regard, it highlighted an urgent need to reopen secondary schools and universities to women and girls and facilitate the return of women to the workforce.
The declaration also calls for centralized platforms for meaningful female participation and improved communication within and outside Afghanistan.
The participants reaffirmed their commitment to ongoing monitoring of the situation and urged the international community to enhance support for Afghan women and girls.
