This week marked three years since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan. UN Women’s Afghanistan Country Office has issued a 9-page policy paper highlighting the dire state of women’s rights in the country and what international actors engaging with the Taliban can do to carefully and consistently align all policies and actions with women’s human rights.

The paper calls for renewed international attention to the crisis, emphasising that reduced focus and insufficient investment in women’s resilience pose a threat not only to the already dire gender equality situation but also to Afghanistan’s overall development – impacting girls and women, as well as boys and men.

A couple of months ago, UN Women published its first detailed Gender Country Profile on Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in August 2021. It offers an analysis of the gender equality infrastructure in Afghanistan over the past 40 years. It also assesses how rollbacks on gender equality are impacting progress and limiting opportunities across all sectors of development. And as highlighted in this paper, despite these extreme challenges, Afghan women continue to display extraordinary resilience.

The Gender Country Profile sets out four principles according to which the international community should commit to in their dealings with Afghanistan. The policy paper elaborates on these principles by proposing specific actions, which are:

➤ Hold space open for women, rethink risk and fund creatively.

➤ Keep gender equality and women’s rights high on the agenda.

➤ Involve women in all decision-making forums that concern the future of Afghanistan.

➤ Double down on intersectional feminist political analysis.

Policy paper, ‘Resolve of Afghan women in the face of erasure: Three years since the Taliban takeover’, August 2024 (unfortunately, only available in English):
https://lnkd.in/dx9yDu7N

Gender country profile, ‘Afghanistan Gender Country profile 2024’, June 2024 (unfortunately, only available in English):
https://lnkd.in/dipEyPxT