Exclusion of women costs Afghanistan US$1 billion a year, according to UN

The exclusion of women from most of the working market in Afghanistan and public space in general is costing the country US$ 1,000 million, a sum that will only increase, warned today the executive director of UN Women, Sima Bahous.

Bahous was speaking at a session of the Security Council dedicated to the situation of women in Afghanistan, and called on all its members to explicitly codify “gender apartheid in international law” as the only way to appropriately respond to this “massive oppression organized by the state” of the Taliban.

Karima Bennoune, a UN expert specializing in human rights, also spoke, graphically saying that “soon women in Afghanistan will have to ask men for permission to breathe” and once again insisted on the idea of “gender apartheid”.

It does not seem to be that simple, since prior to the Council session, the Albanian presidency promoted a common declaration of support for Afghan women that had the support of 11 of its members, but there were four significant absences: Russia, China, Kenya and Ghana.

Although Russia and China have taken a stand against the persecution of Afghan women in the past, they increasingly resort to the principle of “non-interference” in the affairs of member states, and thus tend to actively or passively block adoption. of resolutions against countries such as Burma, Syria or Afghanistan.

The holding of this session coincides with the UN High Level Week, which concludes today, in which the peculiar situation of Afghanistan will once again be highlighted, a country still represented by a diplomat appointed by the regime deposed two years ago and no connection to the current Taliban government.

The Taliban have repeatedly requested official recognition from the UN, so far without success; and just today, the representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan, Roza Otumbayeva, reminded the Council that Afghan women themselves, in a survey carried out among 500 of them, asked in a 46% of the cases that “the Taliban are not recognized under any circumstances”.