IPCI 2024: Technology as a Tool to Advance and Threaten Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights

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Population

The benefits and challenges of technology in SRHR were a key topics at the International Parliamentarians' Conference on Implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action 2024, in Oslo, Norway. Credit: Petter Berntsen / NTB Kommunikasjon

The benefits and challenges of technology in SRHR were a key topics at the International Parliamentarians’ Conference on Implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action 2024, in Oslo, Norway. Credit: Petter Berntsen / NTB Kommunikasjon

OSLO, Apr 12 2024 (IPS) – Technology emerged as a core theme of IPCI Oslo for its relevance in advancing the objectives of the Cairo Programme of Action.

When channeled for good, it is an effective tool that can fill accessibility gaps in the health sector and spread awareness of sexual and reproductive health rights. Yet, the way in which digital technology has been weaponized against SRHR is of great concern for parliamentarians, especially for women.

In a plenary meeting on Thursday, April 11, 2024, parliamentarians shared their countries’ experiences of employing technology to enhance sexual and reproductive health practices (SRHR), while also cautioning its misuse as a tool to propagate misinformation and disinformation about SRHR and to enact online harassment, among other offenses. Information and communications technology was seen to be used often to raise awareness of reproductive and sexual health or to facilitate access to services.

Telemedicine is one example of the way that technology is used to enhance access to reproductive health services. Countries like Tanzania and Ireland saw an increased reliance on telemedicine and digital technology during the COVID-19 pandemic, when in-person appointments were not an option, along with an increased use of digital family planning apps that have allowed young women to make informed decisions.

It was acknowledged that uneven access to technology is a sign of and can result in inequalities in this sector, which can, as Fox Odoi-Oywelowo, a member of parliament from Uganda, remarked, hinder progress in the ICPD. Within the healthcare sector, this is evident in the skills and training of healthcare workers in urban areas versus rural areas. Rural areas already face the issue of fewer options for sexual and reproductive health services and fewer opportunities to develop digital skills, so this digital divide is further indicative of inequality.

Parliamentarians may find it challenging to uphold SRHR in the first place when vocal opponents of these rights are driving online discourse. Women in politics who advocate for these rights are often targets of harassment. Annie Hoey of Ireland’s Seanad Eirann Party recounted her own experience of harassment. She noted in such cases that not only was the politician attacked on an individual level, but the social issue would be attacked as well, and any person involved by association would face harassment online.

The impact of this on SRHR is that women in politics are threatened or prevented from doing their job. Developments in SRHR policies are drafted by women parliamentarians, often based on lived experiences, and women in politics have a public platform through which they can raise awareness on the issues. But if they are driven away from public life out of fear for their safety, the issues may not get picked up again. At the parliamentarian level, there would be no one to advocate for these rights to be enshrined.

Neema Lugangira, MP, Tanzania, said that this form of technology-facilitated gender-based violence on women in politics can cause them to retreat from online spaces, a form of “self-censorship,” which can “shrink democracy.”

“To get more women in politics, we need to be online,” she said. “If we want to truly take advantage of the paths to technology, which will impact more young women and girls who are mostly marginalized, we have to make these online spaces safe. Because how are we going to access the information if the online space is not safe?”

This also ties back to the concept of bodily autonomy and the right to live safely in one’s body. “If there are threats of violence online that can then become in-person, that is, I think, an impact on our sexual and reproductive health because we can’t live as fully,” Hoey told IPS.

She explained that she knew of women politicians who got abortions and had to be private about this in fear of facing judgement and scrutiny from critics online.

“All of this online discourse of demonizing women, demonizing women in politics… means that other elements of our lives are under threat. People should be able to access abortions whether they want to or not, whether they are women parliamentarians or not. This online discourse creates a lack of safety for women to do that.”

This is just one example of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TF-GBV), where online harassment leads to a fear of safety for one’s life and even risks reducing women’s public presence.

UNFPA defines this as an act of violence committed using digital media and communications technologies against a person on the basis of their gender. Other examples also fall into the category of cybercrimes, such as cyberstalking, doxxing, and revenge porn.

What the discussions revealed was that there remained gaps at the legislative level to address violence against women in online spaces, especially for women in politics. Gender inequality in politics persisted within communities that perpetuated gender inequality on a societal level. When it came to how technology factored into this, it was identified that this would develop at a faster rate than legislation could keep up to address it. Nevertheless, it was important to revisit the legislation and ensure that it could protect all vulnerable communities.

“As parliamentarians, we are perfectly poised, perfectly placed, to ensure this legislation is in place,” Alando Terrelonge, MP, Jamaica, said as the session reached its conclusion. “We have a duty of care to ourselves, as well as a duty of care to women, children, and other vulnerable groups, to ensure that appropriate legislation is in place all over the world and is enacted.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

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WHO Calls for More Data on Violence Against Older Women and Women With Disabilities

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Gender Violence

Older women and women with disabilities are underrepresented in global data on violence against women. Credit: WHO/Kiana Hayeri

Older women and women with disabilities are underrepresented in global data on violence against women. Credit: WHO/Kiana Hayeri

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 29 2024 (IPS) – Older women and women with disabilities experience abuse that is unique to their demographics, yet they are underrepresented in national and global databases, according to findings shared by the World Health Organization (WHO).

On Wednesday, WHO and UN-Women released two new briefs, the first in a series that will discuss neglected forms of violence, including gender-based violence. The two briefs, titled Measuring violence against older women and Measuring violence against women with disability, investigate the types of violence that these groups face through the data available. Through reviewing existing studies into violence against women, the research team was able to synthesize the information available on this topic and its scope across different countries.

As was noted by Dr. Lynnmarie Sardinha, Technical Officer at WHO and the UN Special Programme on Human Reproduction (HRP) for Violence against Women Data and Measurement, and author of the briefs. The limited data on older women and women with disabilities undermines the ability of programmes to meet their needs. “Understanding how diverse women and girls are differently affected, and if and how they are accessing services, is critical to ending violence in all its forms.”

One in three women is affected by gender-based violence in these forms. For older women—aged 60 years and over—and women with disabilities, they are also subjected to other forms of abuse and neglect, usually at the hands of caregivers, family members, or healthcare institutions such as nursing homes. Examples of this include controlling behaviors such as withholding medicine and assistive devices, and financial abuse. Though these forms of neglect and abuse have been observed, the studies that the briefs reviewed seemed to focus more on intimate partner violence through physical and sexual abuse. The briefs acknowledge, however, that violence against women should not only be exemplified by intimate partner violence. The prevalence of this example hints at further nuances that are not sufficiently captured in the studies due to their limitations.

Violence against older women can manifest in other ways as they and their partners/perpetrators age. Although women aged 15–49 are at higher risk of intimate partner and sexual violence, older women are still likely to experience it, and this can shift towards other forms of abuse, such as neglect, economic abuse, and psychological abuse. The brief on older women reveals, however, that there is limited data to definitively state its prevalence. This is particularly the case for low- and middle-income countries; the data that was compiled for this brief comes largely from high-income countries, a gap that the reports are aware of. Older women are represented in only ten percent of the data on violence against women.

Only 6 percent of the studies reviewed for women with disabilities included measures of violence specific to this group. The lack of questions specific to this demographic indicates that they are, perhaps unconsciously, unaccounted for when measuring the scale of violence against women. Data collection procedures may not be designed to accommodate women with disabilities or prevent them from self-reporting, such as deaf or hard-of-hearing women who are unable to participate in surveys conducted through the telephone.

The briefs also suggest that women who live with lifelong disrespect and neglect may not recognize the specific forms of violence, which could account for fewer instances being reported. This could also apply to older women, where surveying and reporting mechanisms are geared towards women of reproductive age, especially in low- and middle-income countries.

This may also speak of socio-cultural attitudes towards violence against older women that are steeped in ageism, harmful stereotypes, and discriminatory cultural norms that prevent them from sharing their experiences.

The WHO briefs make several recommendations to address the evidence gaps. Among them are extending the age limit for survey participation and incorporating questions that relate to different types of violence. Data collection should also account for cultural-specific contexts of violence and abuse across different countries. Women with disabilities should be consulted in research at every stage when designing surveys targeted at them, which will allow for a broader spectrum of disabilities to be accounted for.

Read the briefs on women with disability and older women.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Myanmar’s Military Catastrophe: Three Years and Counting

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Credit: Sirachai Arunrugstichai/Getty Images

LONDON, Feb 1 2024 (IPS) – The military must have expected an easier ride. Three years ago, it ousted Myanmar’s democratically elected government. But the coup has been met with fierce resistance, unleashing a bloody conflict with no end in sight.

Civil society has scrambled to respond to humanitarian needs, defend human rights and seek a path to peace. Last year, civil society organisations in Myanmar and the region developed and endorsed a five-point agenda that calls for an international response to end military violence, including through sanctions, an arms embargo and a referral of Myanmar to the International Criminal Court – a call the UN Security Council hasn’t so far heeded.

Civil society is also demanding that the key regional body, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), takes the conflict more seriously and engages beyond the junta, particularly with democratic forces and civil society.

So far civil society’s calls haven’t been heard. But intensifying violence proves that the approaches tried to far have failed. Staying on the same path is a recipe for further carnage.

Violence and repression

Three years on from the coup, the military doesn’t control significant sections of the ethnically diverse country. People’s defence forces are fighting an armed campaign in support of the ousted National Unity Government, often in alliance with long-established ethnic militia groups.

In October 2023, three armed groups in Myanmar’s north joined the conflict against the junta, forming the Brotherhood Alliance. The resulting offensive in Shan state saw the rebels capture the border town of Laukkai and cut off key trading routes with China. The UN stated that this was the biggest escalation in fighting since the coup. A ceasefire in the region was supposedly agreed in January following China-brokered talks, but fighting resumed.

It seems clear the junta won’t win this conflict any time soon. Morale among armed forces is collapsing and soldiers defecting, deserting or surrendering in growing numbers. Even pro-junta voices on social media have begun to criticise military leaders.

Pushed into a corner, the military is lashing out, committing mass killings, burning villages and unleashing indiscriminate airstrikes to compensate for its struggles on the ground. The deadliest strike so far came in April 2023, when 168 people, including 40 children, were reported killed in the village of Pa Zi Gyi.

This was no one-off. The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar has reported that the junta continues to bomb hospitals, schools, villages and camps for displaced people. Attacks on civilians include mass killings, torture, sexual violence and forced labour, and the junta also obstructs essential humanitarian aid supplies.

In September 2023, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, condemned this violence as ‘inhumanity in its vilest form’. Research suggests that most of the military’s senior commanders are responsible for war crimes.

The humanitarian impacts are deep. By the end of 2023, over 2.6 million people had been displaced, 628,000 of them since the Brotherhood Alliance launched its campaign. The UN assesses that 18.6 million need humanitarian help and 5.3 million need it urgently. But aid workers are being targeted: at least 142 were arrested or detained last year.

The restriction of humanitarian work is part of wider repression. Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a human rights organisation, reports that since the coup 4,468 people have been killed by the junta and pro-military groups. Almost 20,000 people are in detention, among them many activists and protesters charged with offences such as treason and sedition. Torture in prison is widespread, and 34 political prisoners died in detention in 2023.

The junta is doing everything it can to try to control the narrative. It’s believed that 64 journalists are currently detained. Internet shutdowns, website blocking and arrests for social media comments are routine occurrences. Last November, the junta took control of the Broadcasting Council, which oversees TV and radio outlets.

In August 2023, the junta extended the state of emergency, in effect since the coup, for a further six months. The elections that it promised on seizing power are nowhere in sight, and even if they eventually come, they won’t serve any purpose other than trying to legitimise military power.

International action needed

The junta faces strong domestic opposition and has no real international legitimacy but crucially, pressure from the regional body is weak.

ASEAN claims to be following a long-discredited plan, the Five-Point Consensus, which dates back to April 2021. The violence unleashed by the junta against civilians shows it can’t be trusted to act in good faith, but ASEAN still claims to believe it’s possible to involve it in an ‘inclusive dialogue’. At its annual summit in May 2023, ASEAN members reiterated their support for the failed plan, despite civil society’s calls.

ASEAN members are mostly repressive states, and some, including Cambodia and Thailand, have shown signs of seeking to normalise relations with the junta. ASEAN continues to allow junta representatives to attend some of its meetings. This year’s chair, Laos, is an authoritarian state that will have no interest in restoring democracy in Myanmar.

Elsewhere, however, the junta may be running out of friends. China was untroubled by military rule, but it doesn’t want unrest on its border. A potential breakthrough came from the US government in October 2023, when it imposed sanctions on the previously untouchable Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), the state-owned corporation that’s the regime’s main source of foreign income. The European Union also stepped up its sanctions in December 2023, including against two companies providing arms and generating income for the junta.

It remains essential to keep the junta diplomatically isolated and to cut economic relations with the many companies it depends on, including MOGE. It’s vital to stop supplying arms to the junta and, above all, to stop selling it the jet fuel it needs to carry out airstrikes.

A UN Human Rights Council resolution adopted in April 2023 condemned the junta’s violence but failed to call for responses such as bans on the sale of weapons or aviation fuel. Events since then have made it sadly clear that decisive action can no longer wait.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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Iran, Back to the Grim Normal

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Credit: Mike Segar/Reuters via Gallo Images

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jan 16 2024 (IPS) – Iran’s time of public rebellion has ended. The protesters marching, chanting, and dancing under the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ banner have long stopped. And shifting regional dynamics may play to the regime’s favour.

Protest wave repressed

The wave of protest against the theocratic regime started on 16 September 2022 and lasted far longer than anyone could have predicted. But by the one-year mark it had all but died down, its unprecedented scale and reach superseded by the unparalleled brutality of the crackdown.

The regime murdered hundreds of protesters, injured thousands and arrested tens of thousands. It subjected many to torture, sexual abuse and denial of medical treatment while in detention.

It weaponised the criminal justice system, holding express trials behind closed doors in ‘revolutionary courts’ presided over by clerics, with zero procedural guarantees. It sentenced hundreds – including journalists – to years in jail and handed out several death sentences. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, some of the human rights violations committed by the regime could constitute crimes against humanity.

Shortly after the first anniversary of the protests, on 6 October, it was announced that the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to Narges Mohammadi, an imprisoned Iranian woman activist with 20 years of struggle for democracy, human rights and women’s rights under her belt. Over the years, she’d been arrested 13 times, sentenced to 31 years in prison and 154 lashes, and been in prison three times. She received the news behind bars.

Ahead of the anniversary, afraid of protests returning, the theocratic regime put back on the streets the morality police whose intervention had resulted in Mahsa Amini’s death. Conservatives proposed a new ‘hijab and chastity’ law that would impose a stricter dress code and harsher penalties for violations.

The reinforcement of morality rules soon claimed its next victim. On 1 October, high school student Armita Garawand was left unconscious, reportedly assaulted by a hijab enforcer for not wearing a headscarf. She remained in a coma for several weeks before dying on 28 October. At her funeral mourners were assaulted and dozens were arrested, including well-known human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.

Succession

Battered but unbeaten, the Iranian regime views upcoming legislative elections as part of its road to recovery. On 1 March, people will be called on to vote for all 290 members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. The key battle will be over turnout, which was already down to 42 per cent in 2020 – the lowest since the 1979 revolution. That record could be shattered, as opposition and reformists call for abstention or boycott.

Along with parliamentary elections, in March Iran will hold elections for the Council of Experts, the body of clerics that appoints Iran’s Supreme Leader. The Council has recently faced criticism for its lax oversight of 84-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s performance, and might have to step in relatively soon.

In power since 1989, Khamenei is in a race against the clock. Bent on ensuring that the theocracy he largely built stands strong after he’s gone, he’s preparing his 54-year-old second son to succeed him. But the ongoing economic crisis may conspire against his plans. The cumulative impacts of international sanctions, fluctuating oil prices, mismanagement and rampant corruption have fuelled inflation and unemployment, and discontent runs high.

To prevent accumulated grievances from translating into mass protest, the regime will likely try to tread a fine line between displaying indestructible power and offering minor concessions.

Regional balance shifts

When the protests erupted international support poured in. People around the world showed solidarity with Iranian women and called on their governments to act. Early on, the USA imposed sanctions on the morality police and several senior leaders of the force and other security agencies. New sanctions by the European Union, UK and USA were announced on the eve of the anniversary of the protests.

On International Women’s Day in 2023, a group of Afghan and Iranian women launched the End Gender Apartheid campaign, which seeks recognition and condemnation of the two regimes as based on gender apartheid. They want the 1973 UN Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, which so far applies only to racial hierarchies, extended to gender. The campaign wants this specific and extreme form of exclusion to be codified as a crime under international law so those responsible can be prosecuted and punished.

There was hope that such moves would foster action to hold those responsible to account. Civil society called for the creation of a dedicated accountability mechanism to work alongside the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran.

But on 7 October, as Armita lay in a coma, the paramilitary wings of Hamas launched their attacks into Israeli territory, and global attention shifted to this outrage and Israel’s murderous campaign of revenge. As a key source of support for Hamas, Iran was far from out of the spotlight – but condemnation of theocracy and gender apartheid now took a back seat to geopolitical considerations.

Khamenei publicly stated that Iran wasn’t involved in the 7 October attacks, and although he reiterated Iran’s political and moral support for Hamas, he reportedly told Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh that Iran wouldn’t directly intervene unless it was attacked by Israel or the USA. But Iran’s leadership of the anti-Israeli and anti-western ‘Axis of Resistance’ and the key role it can play in either expanding or limiting the scope of the conflict means it will be included in any attempt to redefine the regional order, and could well emerge stronger.

Amid the chaos and in the search for security, the international community might be increasingly willing to look the other way. Iran’s search for international respectability saw a milestone in November, when it took advantage of other states’ lack of interest to claim the chair of the UN Human Rights Council’s Social Forum. The result was a largely empty room – but it remains the case that Iran succeeded in occupying institutional space to whitewash its blood-soaked image.

This mustn’t be allowed to happen. Iranian women mustn’t be left to their own devices. Iranian pro-democracy and human rights activists, both inside and outside Iran, need the support of the international community if they’re to have any chance.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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Hurricane Otis and the Indifference Toward the Children of Acapulco

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ACAPULCO, Mexico, Nov 2 2023 (IPS) – Acapulco is a paradise. A port of golden sunsets, toasted sand, and deep blue sea. Its dream beaches captivated the hearts of Elvis Presley and Elizabeth Taylor. US President John F. Kennedy chose its shores to spend his honeymoon with Jackie Kennedy. Its luxury hotels and the untamed sea made it the most famous tourist destination in Mexico.

Rosi Orozco

Today, Acapulco is devastated. A Category 5 hurricane—the deadliest possible rating—called “Otis” hit the beach on October 25 with incomparable force. No one anticipated it. Hours before it made landfall, it was just an inconvenient storm. Suddenly it became a deadly cyclone. Most of the hotels are destroyed, the sea swallowed people, houses were blown away, and dozens of people are dead.

In the last century, its beauty attracted the world’s most influential celebrities. Its tranquil mornings and lively nightlife attracted actresses, singers, politicians, aristocratic musicians, and families who wanted to spend their summers by the sea. I myself spent my youth at the family timeshare apartment in Acapulco, and it was there that I met my husband Alejandro, with whom I’ve been married for 40 years. My life is permanently connected to Acapulco.

Luxury businessmen, millionaire athletes, and Michelin-starred chefs arrived. Also drug dealers, money launderers, and men looking for girls and boys to rape in exchange for food or a few dollars for their parents who lived in the city’s poor areas.

Because there are two Acapulcos. They both share an airport and roads, so all roads lead to that pair of versions of the same city. There is a “diamond Acapulco” where the rich vacation with all the amenities at their disposal. And there is a “traditional Acapulco,” where the poor live who work for wealthy tourists.

The people who inhabit “diamond Acapulco” and “traditional Acapulco” do not usually cross paths. They live in the same city, but they are separated by golf courses and exclusive shopping malls. Only rich foreigners and wealthy nationals cross to the poor side when they feel a repugnant urge: to make their plans for child sex tourism a reality with girls and boys as young as 3 years old.

Acapulco is one of the most unequal tourist destinations in the world. In Mexico, it is the most unequal municipality of all: more than 60% of its 900,000 inhabitants live in extreme poverty, which means they do not know what they will eat today or tomorrow. They are the workers who serve plates of fresh seafood, who sweep marble floors, who fill the wine glasses of tourists.

For years, journalists and human rights organizations have told horrific stories that combine poverty, inequality, and sex tourism: a 6-year-old boy rented out to be photographed naked in exchange for milk and eggs; a 9-year-old girl sold to a Canadian tourist to be his wife for a month; homeless teenagers invited to sex parties on lavish yachts in exchange for food; parents and mothers waiting outside hotels for their children to be raped for a price paid in dollars per hour.

Those pedophiles and child molesters turned Acapulco into the country’s primary destination for child sexual tourism. They also led Mexico to the disgraceful second position in the production of child pornography, only surpassed by Thailand, according to data from the Mexican Chamber of Deputies and the United Nations Children’s Fund.

Today, Acapulco is a different place. Little remains of the port that enchanted singers Agustín Lara and Luis Miguel. There are thousands of poor families without homes, hundreds of workers who lost their jobs, and dozens of fishermen without boats to go out to sea to find sustenance. The destruction is so extensive that complete economic recovery is estimated to take decades, not years.

Under these conditions, childhood is at very high risk. Many families have lost so much that their bodies are the only currency they have left. And in the dirty business of forced prostitution, child bodies are the most sought after.

Amid this unprecedented crisis in Mexico, the Chamber of Deputies approved amendments to the general law against human trafficking. These changes aim to broaden the scope of the law enacted in 2012 and update it to address new technologies that traffickers and organized crime engaged in sexual exploitation can use. The wording has some issues that we are still analyzing, but it also includes positive aspects.

For example, it introduces new protections for individuals with injuries, intellectual disabilities, and Afro-Mexican towns and communities. The latter represent 6.5% of the total population in Guerrero and 4% of the residents in Acapulco, according to the National Population Council.

Civil society organizations are monitoring these changes and hope that the deputies will honor their commitment to protecting the victims.

Meanwhile, it is the responsibility of all, not just in Mexico, to help Acapulco back on its feet, a place that has given so much to both nationals and foreigners. It won’t be easy or quick, but every day we delay puts the vulnerable children at risk due to the magnitude of sexual tourism in that beautiful port.

After Hurricane Otis, Acapulco will be different. Its reconstruction is an opportunity to build a new city on the ruins of depravity, one with values and respect for human dignity. I long for the day to see it standing and for its coastline, beach, and air to remain a paradise, especially for children like me who grew up happily by the sea.

IPS UN Bureau

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Two Years after the Taliban Took over, More Should Be Done to Rescue Afghanistan

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A young girl in school uniform and covered in veil walks alone in the empty corridor of Tajrobawai girls primary and secondary school seen on September 16, 2021 in Herat, Afghanistan. The Taliban has forbidden girls at high school level to attend schools throughout Afghanistan. Credit: Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images

KUALA LUMPUR / JOHANNESBURG, Aug 28 2023 (IPS) – His name is Matiullah Wesa, a girls education campaigner who now symbolises the “war” waged by the Taliban against the education and empowerment of women and girls. Exactly two years since the Taliban took over, Afghanistan is on a downward trajectory and unfortunately, global attention that was drawn by families chasing planes to flee a few days after the Taliban assumed control of the government has waned over the last two years.

Any improvements made in advancing human rights, especially the rights of women and access to education have been quickly reversed and replaced with severe restrictions that have almost completely wiped away the rights of women in almost all sectors and spheres of life. In a brazen move that provided a clear indication to the international community that the Taliban had an anti-human rights agenda, human rights defenders and members of their families have been harassed, detained and attacked in their homes while Afghanistan’s independent human rights commission was dissolved and its premises confiscated. In the absence of any internal human rights mechanism, the Taliban are only accountable to themselves and act with utmost impunity.

Matiullah was arrested in March 2023 for his dedication to provide education to girls particularly in rural areas. Through his organisation – PenPath which he founded in 2009, he campaigned for the right to education for girls, working with tribal leaders to provide mobile libraries to ensure girls have access to education. Penpath has successfully reopened 100 schools (including those closed for more than a decade due to war and the Taliban’s restrictions on education) in 16 provinces.

Matiullah Wesa, Afghan educational activist, reads to students in Afghanistan. Photo courtesy of Matiullah Wesa/PenPath

In an interview with CIVICUS, a year before he was arbitrarily arrested, Matiullah pointed out that they had provided education facilities for about 110000 children, about 60% were girls and distributed 1.5 million stationary and collected 34000 books through its book donation campaigns. His continued detention means, at best this much needed support provided to communities has been scaled back substantively and at worse has almost completely stopped. Yet, Matiullah is just one among hundreds who have worked tirelessly to improve the lives of Afghans over the years and are unable to do so either because they are in detention, have fled the country to avoid reprisals or have been forced to self censor.

The de facto Taliban regime has over the last two years institutionalised restrictions against women, dismissed women in public service, prevented girls from attending school and university and in December 2022, banned women from working with NGOs and aid agencies. It followed this decision exactly four months later by banning women from working for the UN in Afghanistan – as they had been exempted from the previous ban.

Through the Directorate for Intelligence, the regime monitors and targets women activists on social media and those identified as protest leaders. Others who participate in protests are identified through pictures posted on social media and through interrogations and arrested. On 11 February 2023, women’s rights activist and founder of the social movement – the Takhar Women’s Protest Movement – Parisa Mobarez, was arrested together with her brother in Takhar province and physically assaulted before they were released.

Matiullah Wesa, Afghan educational activist, reads to students in Afghanistan. Photo courtesy of Matiullah Wesa/PenPath

A day after, activist Nargis Sadat was arrested for protesting against the restrictions on women’s right to work and education and released after two months. In response to an announcement by the Taliban regime that it would close beauty salons, women protesters converged at the Shar-e Naw district in Kabul on 19 July, displaying protest signs with calls for ‘bread,’ ‘work’ and ‘justice.’ The women protesters were rounded up as security forces fired shots into the air and physically assaulted some of the women using electric stun guns.

The above restrictions are happening in a context of an ever increasing humanitarian crises exacerbated by growing social and economic challenges. Human rights groups report that the number of people living in poverty has increased to 97%, an increase of about 47% over the last three years and that more than half of the population – about 28 million people urgently need humanitarian assistance. The restrictions placed on women in government ministries and the ban on women from working for NGOs have a devastating impact on the families of these women and communities including women and children who have benefited from services provided. In addition, most women have literally been confined to their homes as they are banned from gyms, swimming pools and public parks.

Afghan women are fighting back

Despite the reprisals from the Taliban and threats of violence and arrests, Afghan women continue to mobilise to keep the face they face on the agenda of the international community. The resilience of these brave Afghan women and their sustained protests continue to shed light on the state of human rights in Afghanistan, especially at a time when the international community seems to have moved on to other crises. As women protesters, journalists and human rights defenders and families face increased attacks, protests have been moved indoors and online. Some of the protesters continue to cover their faces to avoid reprisals while others remain unveiled to encourage others.

Photo courtesy of PenPath

What can be done?

The current situation is especially tricky for many international actors and though the Taliban craves for international recognition to boast its legitimacy, members of the international community including the European Union, United Kingdom and India who engage with the Taliban as well as humanitarian organisations and civil society groups should respect the wishes of Afghans and not provide any form of formal recognition to the de facto regime. They should also support Afghan women rights activists in exile.

Millions of Afghans will continue to need humanitarian assistance for the foreseeable future and ongoing and future dialogues to negotiate for space and access through humanitarian corridors should be premised on respect for human rights and lifting of current restrictions on women and girls.

At the level of the United Nations, the UN Security Council Resolution on Afghanistan which accused the Taliban of violating human rights and the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan are important steps in the right direction but nearly not enough. The Security Council should continue to prioritise Afghanistan and push for accountability mechanisms inside of Afghanistan which would serve as some kind of a deterrent and a check on impunity. Lastly, there is a need for an intra-Afghan dialogue that is inclusive and should be led by a neutral party.

Josef Benedict is a researcher covering the Asia Pacific region for the CIVICUS Monitor. Malaysia. David Kode is the advocacy and campaigns lead for CIVICUS. South Africa

IPS UN Bureau

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