The United Nations began a two-day, closed-door meeting in Qatar on Monday aimed at helping the international community figure out how to save lives in Afghanistan without backing the Islamic hardliners of the Taliban movement, which currently controls the country. .
In a statement on Sunday, the United Nations said the purpose of the meeting was to “achieve a common understanding among the international community on how to engage with the Taliban,” including “human rights, particularly the rights of women and girls, inclusive governance.” Countering Terrorism and Drug Trafficking.”
But even before the meeting began in Doha, Qatar, it was the subject of strong backlash from Afghan women who felt underrepresented in the talks and who feared the meetings could lead to something they have failed to achieve since the Taliban took over. Control of Afghanistan when the US-led military coalition withdraws in August 2021: recognition.
The Taliban have Afghan women have been stripped of virtually all basic rights Embrace two decades of Western-backed rule, barring most of them from jobs and from school for girls over the age of 12. Their harsh crackdown on fundamental rights has resulted in the freezing of millions of dollars in financial assets held in other countries, and not one country has recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
The Taliban itself expressed anger at being left out of talks in Doha on Monday, with the head of Qatar’s ruling ministry telling CBS News that any meeting without its participation would be “unproductive, sometimes even counterproductive.”
“How will they implement decisions when we are not part of it? Problems can be solved through a pragmatic approach, not unilateral decisions,” said Suhail Shaheen.
But Afghan women who feel they have been erased from existence by the Taliban express different concerns.
Protests in Kabul
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the meeting on Monday after a weekend of protests against the gathering, which was intended to help.
A group of Afghan women braved the threat Strong response by Taliban security forcesThey took to the streets of Kabul over the weekend to demand basic rights to work and education, and to sharply criticize the United Nations for talks they believe could lead to a new level of recognition for the Taliban.
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The protests, which were mirrored by mostly women’s rallies in Pakistan, the US and several European countries, saw protesters chanting: “We will fight, we will die to get our basic rights back.”
Clips shared with CBS News from Saturday’s protests in Kabul showed one protester directly addressing Guterres: “Antonio Guterres, stop supporting the Taliban. The Doha meeting is a repeat mistake. Recognizing the Taliban is tantamount to killing women in Afghanistan.”
“Any attempt to recognize the Taliban under the current circumstances is unacceptable to the people of Afghanistan,” said another.
Jimena Borrajas/SOPA Images/Lightrocket/Getty
Fawzia Kufi, who served as the first female deputy speaker of the Afghan parliament and worked as a peace negotiator with the Taliban, criticized the United Nations for not including women activists in meetings this week.
“Women are being erased from all social and political processes in Afghanistan,” she told CBS News. “We have always campaigned for international organizations to meaningfully include women in all processes, as we believe meaningful inclusion of women will send a strong signal to the Taliban that the world is serious about women and human rights in Afghanistan.”
Why response to the meeting of the United Nations?
To be clear: the UN leadership does not formally recognize the legitimacy of any country’s government, as that assessment is left to individual member states. The UN General Assembly, however, has a committee made up of representatives from various member states that votes on whether to grant credentials to a party under the control of a member state.
So far, the nine countries that currently sit on the committee, including the United States, China and Russia, have all rejected the Taliban’s request for credentials.
Meanwhile, the United Nations, with much of its help under the auspices of an advocacy organization, has tried to continue its work in Afghanistan over the past few years. That work is of particular importance in the horrors of humanity A crisis has emerged under Taliban rule.
What angered many Afghan women were comments by Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammad on April 19, who suggested that some recognition of the Taliban government might be on the table in Doha.
“From that (Doha meeting), we hope that we will find those baby steps that will get us back on the road to recognition, a principled recognition (of the Taliban). Is that possible? I don’t know,” Mohammad told the Princeton Review. “That discussion has to happen… The Taliban obviously want recognition, and that’s our advantage.”
The UN later backtracked on its comments, but the UN insisted it wanted to continue its vital humanitarian relief operations in Afghanistan if it could. The advice to the entire global body followed other comments by UN officials May withdraw from AfghanistanMany see the two-day meeting in Doha as a way to determine how that work can move forward despite some very serious challenges.
What’s at stake, and the opportunity
Hours before the start of the Doha conference, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said that $4.6 billion in international funding is needed for 2023 alone to save lives in Afghanistan and “right now, we’re asking the government to give us the money that we need to do it.” Will, because that program is largely pointless.”
Afghanistan is at the highest risk of mass famine in 25 years, but the United Nations says it has managed to raise only 5% of the $4.6 billion it needs. And funding shortages are not the only challenge.
Last month, the Taliban banned all female UN staff from working in the country. The move was condemned in a rare, unanimous vote by the normally divided UN Security Council, highlighting the high stakes for the Taliban as it seeks global credibility.
“In Doha, the humanitarian aid system will become the focus of the United Nations,” senior regional analyst Torek Farhadi told CBS News. “The real problem for the UN is that it is seriously underfunded for its operations in Afghanistan – a failed state under the harsh rule of the Taliban that no country in the world recognizes.”
He said, “Despite a rare showing of a unified voice (at the UN Security Council) China, Russia and the United States have called on the Taliban to fall in line… the prospect of recognizing the Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan is slim. And the international community is with Afghanistan as a failed and unrecognized state under the Taliban.” Accepted to live.”
Mansoor Khan, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Afghanistan and the United Nations, told CBS News that abandoning efforts to work with the Taliban will not improve the situation on the ground for the Afghan people.
“In the last one year, the gap between the Afghan interim government and the international community has widened. This is causing more suffering to the Afghan people, hindering their communication and interaction with the world,” Khan said, adding that the countries participating in the Doha talks were asked to “review the situation and The coming months may provide an opportunity to explore” steps that might help address some of this disparity.
“I don’t think the Doha conference is about recognizing the Afghan interim government,” Khan insisted. “Recognition is a decision that each sovereign country must make on its own. But finding ways to ease economic sanctions, remove banking restrictions and unfreeze Afghanistan’s foreign currency assets is important to send a signal that the international community wants to help Afghanistan. But the Afghan interim government Flexibility and accommodation must be shown to respond to the needs and rights of the Afghan people, including girls’ education, working conditions for women and inclusive governance.”
CBS News’ Tucker Reals, Sami Yousafzai and Pamela Falk contributed to this report.
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