ICC should prosecute Taliban for denying education to girls: UN envoy

United Nations. The International Criminal Court (ICC) should prosecute Taliban leaders for crimes against humanity for denying education and employment to Afghan girls and women, the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education has said. Gordon Brown told an online UN press conference on Tuesday to mark two years of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan that the Taliban rulers were “perpetrating the most serious, brutal and unforgivable abuses of women’s rights and girls’ rights in the world today”. are responsible for.

The former UK prime minister said he has sent a legal opinion to ICC prosecutor Karim Khan that denial of education and employment is “sex discrimination, which should be seen as a crime against humanity and prosecuted by the ICC”. The Taliban seized power in the country in August 2021, during the final weeks of the withdrawal of US and NATO security forces after a 20-year war against terrorism. The Taliban, during its previous rule of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, imposed harsh rules of Islamic law, or Sharia, that barred girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade and barred women from jobs, public places, etc. And going to the gym has been banned.

Recently, the Taliban regime also closed down beauty salons. Brown urged major Muslim countries to send a delegation of clerics to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, believed to be the home of Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, to clarify whether restrictions on women’s education and employment were “Quran-based”. Or there is no mention in the Islamic religion” and these restrictions should be removed. She said she believes there is a difference of opinion between the education ministry and the government, and that many parties want to see girls’ rights to education restored.

The Taliban’s chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, dismissed questions about restrictions on girls and women in an interview with The Associated Press (AP) in Kabul late Monday. He said that the status quo will remain. He also said that the Taliban consider their rule in Afghanistan to be an open regime, legitimized by Islamic law and pose no significant threat. Brown said the Taliban should be told that education aid to Afghanistan, which had been suspended after the ban, would be restored if girls were allowed to go back to secondary schools and universities.

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