October 11th is designated by the United Nations as the International Day of the Girl Child. The goal of this campaign is to raise awareness among girls about the gender inequalities they face globally due to their gender. The first International Day of the Girl was held in October 2012. The rights to be fought for within this framework to increase girls’ access include the right to education, nutrition, legal rights, healthcare, and protection against discrimination, violence against women, forced marriage, and child marriage. The twelfth International Day of the Girl is being memorialized at a time when Afghan girls have been facing various forms of violent discrimination, including deprivation of the right to education, under Taliban rule for over two years, as acknowledged by international observers, indicating a gender apartheid situation in Afghanistan.
Rina Amiri, the U.S. special representative for Afghan women’s affairs, has denounced the Taliban’s policies towards girls as cruel on the occasion of the International Day of the Girl. She has also warned that there is a danger of the Taliban’s approach becoming a replicable pattern in other countries. Earlier, the European Parliament condemned absence of human rights violations by the Taliban and considered their hostile policies against Afghan girls and women a clear example of gender apartheid. Repeated reports from the UN special human rights rapporteur and dozens of other international and domestic organizations all tell the story of the increasing widespread violations of the rights of Afghan girls and women.
While the dreams of Afghan girls are being crushed under the Taliban’s kicks, and many families are forced to migrate to neighboring countries due to the education of their daughters, these days they face a wave of hostility, discrimination, and hatred in Iran and Pakistan. The sorrow of displacement and deprivation of hundreds of thousands of Afghan girls due to the oppressive rule of the Taliban, who have taken control of Afghanistan through a conspiracy against the fate of the country, is a shame for the global society and human rights defenders.
Global bodies, governments, and human rights defenders must have realized in the past two years that not only have the Taliban not changed, but they have become even more radical and brutal. On the other hand, they do not understand the logic of diplomacy, condemnation, resolutions, and requests. The Taliban only understand one logic as a global disgrace, and that logic is the logic of force.