In the past few days, Kabul witnessed numerous visits by Western officials as well as high-ranking officials of the United Nations. Amina J. Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, and many other Western officials have recently met with Taliban leaders in Kabul and Kandahar. What they asked the Taliban has been clear. They asked the Taliban to abolish their decrees on women, especially on the women working in international organizations, and banning girls’ education. But the Taliban’s response has been negative altogether. It is obvious that all these officials have left Kabul disappointed and discouraged.
In a sense, such efforts can be called failed and desperate efforts. As anyone who knows the Taliban and their way of thinking knows that they don’t respect negotiation; especially on what they call Sharia principles. But western officials have just begun to come to this understanding. Because the Former U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad’s big lie that “the Taliban have changed” had created a glimmer of hope among Western politicians during the Doha negotiations. Deceived by Khalilzad’s lie, western officials were also thinking about the moderate and good Taliban against the bad Taliban. Therefore, western officials hoped that they might be able to restore, if not all, perhaps part of the basic human rights of Afghan women and keep the door open for interaction with the Taliban.
The more time passes, the clearer becomes the tragedy of the Doha agreement and the fall of Afghanistan at the hands of the Taliban, the terrorist group. The indispensable current reality in Afghanistan has put the international community in an extremely difficult situation. Severe and increasing poverty in the country does not morally allow the international community to cut off humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. Clearly understanding this situation, the Taliban have left relief organizations in charge of providing aid for the people, and they themselves are busy torturing the people and exercising sovereignty through fear, terror, and kidnapping.
The continuation of humanitarian aid and the current strained, so-so relationship between the Taliban and the international community, also means the free world backtracks and surrenders to a terrorist group. The most important issue is that the Taliban, as a terrorist group, has taken more than 30 million people hostage and stubbornly bargain over the basic human rights of the citizens.
In this tough situation, the main victims are the Afghan people, particularly the women. This is precisely the reason why women are still protesting. Considering the recent visits of western and UN officials to Afghanistan, Afghan women have sensed the possibility of a compromise between the international community and the Taliban over the fundamental rights of Afghan women. For this reason, they raise their voices and protest within the scope of their possibilities and limitations.
The international community is looking for a way to convince the Taliban to restore a part of women’s rights in Afghanistan. But Afghan women want all their rights, as fundamental rights cannot be prioritized. It is impossible for a person to have the right to education but not the right to travel, to have the right to have fun but not the right to work. Afghan women know this and protest against it. Through writing on social media, protesting in the roofed spaces, and, in one case, issuing a declaration at the end of a large meeting of 2,000 women in Istanbul, Turkey, they have clearly expressed that the international community has no right to prioritize the fundamental rights of Afghan women.
The current situation in Afghanistan is a complete deadlock. A deadlock that the Taliban leader, Mullah Hebatullah, is making its walls thicker day by day, regardless of its consequences. But there is also a solution to it. The solution is that the international community should unitedly impose targeted sanctions on the Taliban; Sanctions that do not affect humanitarian aid to the ordinary people, but increase the pressure on the Taliban.
A number of embassies in Afghanistan are still open, and some Afghanistan embassies, including in China, Japan, Russia, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and a number of other countries, are under the control of the Taliban. If the international community, especially the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), reaches an agreement, it should suspend all its interactions and diplomatic relations with the Taliban until the concerned conditions are met. The UNSC should ban foreign travel of all the officials and cabinet members of the Taliban. As demanded by a number of Afghan women organized under the name of “Leader Women”, the Taliban office in Qatar must also be closed.
The Afghan women’s demands are clear and indisputable. They want their human rights: what they needed for a normal and dignified life. But the UN officials only think about Afghan women’s survival, as can be clearly understood from the words of Amina Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, on CNN. This is the issue that Afghan women are worried about. They always warn the world that retreating, indulging against the Taliban, and reducing the expectations of Afghan women to only “survival” is not the solution; But will multiply the problems. The solution is to confront effectively the Taliban’s brutality and to support Afghan women in their nationwide fight for their basic human rights.
