Taliban policies denying Afghan children a future, warns UN expert
UN experts warn that the Taliban's highly restrictive policies in Afghanistan are devastating for children and young people, denying them fundamental rights like education and expression. The report highlights increased exposure to gender-based violence, forced marriage, and child labor, undermining their future and mental health.
Why it matters
This report underscores the severe human rights crisis in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, particularly its long-term impact on an entire generation of children, which has profound implications for the country's future development and global human rights efforts.
Five years after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan , United Nation experts have warned that the regime’s “highly restrictive policies are reshaping every aspect of life in Afghanistan, with devastating consequences for children and young people.”
Young people form a majority of the Afghan demographic, and according to a new report by UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, “Taliban’s institutionalised system of discrimination, repression and ideological control is depriving children of their fundamental rights to inclusive and quality education, to express themselves, and to participate meaningfully in social and public life.”
“Afghanistan’s children are growing up in an environment where discrimination, especially against girls and women, is being normalised, they are denied the right to learn and their opportunities for the future are dramatically shrinking,” Mr. Bennett said, as per a press release.
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