Target: Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
Goal: Work to end gender-based violence and oppression within Afghanistan.
They were arrested in the streets, in shops, and in their homes. Then they were taken to detention centers surrounded by other individuals who had committed the same “offense.” Once alone with guards, they claimed torture, horrific beatings, and sexual assaults. And within days of their detentions, many had taken their own lives, discovered by devastated family members.
What were the grave offenses of these Afghan women? They didn’t wear their head coverings the “right” way. One of the more recent dictates of the oppressive Taliban regime mandates that every woman in the country cover her entire face and head, save for her eyes. Even the smallest breach has reportedly resulted in the aforementioned horrors.
How has the world’s foremost proponent of human rights responded? The United Nations (UN) merely called the litany of allegations “concerning.” And the agency recently hosted the Taliban at a conference on Afghanistan, with the topic of women’s rights apparently nowhere on the agenda.
Sign the petition below to demand the UN do more to stand up for women who are enduring inexcusable oppression daily.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Director-General Azoulay,
Rape, torture, beatings, suicide: since the end of last year, women in Afghanistan have reportedly faced these atrocities in ever-increasing numbers because of supposed “bad hijab” practices. In response, the UN has only referred to these reports as “concerning.” But apparently the allegations were not concerning enough to keep this organization from inviting the Taliban to a conference, nor were they concerning enough to prevent UN leaders from agreeing not to discuss the most urgent issue in Afghanistan today: the deterioration of women’s rights.
What hope are you giving a sizeable portion of this nation’s population when you essentially say through your actions — or inaction — that their pain and their voices do not matter? Please do better for them and for all women. Take the Taliban to task in every manner for its ongoing oppression and its rampant gender-based violence.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Warren Bradley
Over a decade US troops trained Afghans on how to defend their country but when we pulled out the Afghans ran away. Only a few groups of women trained by us stood their ground.
The Taliban has began again beheading women at the soccer stadium.
Pakistan allowed the Taliban to hide in the North and did nothing to stop them there either!
I signed this petition but it’s not going to stop a damn thing the Taliban does because the world is okay with the Taliban as long as they stay in Afghanistan!
Afghans have always placed men first and foremost. Countries in that area of the world seem to have always abused women. Today they are not alone. Here in the US we are having an election which in part is torturing women and killing them. We don’t behead anyone but we do kill. Women hav no say in what happens to their bodies. Only the Extreme Right does. Remember when you were a child your mother told you not to be a tattle tale? This abuse of women is all of that and trains people to rat out anyone they suspect of possibly getting an abortion. If people minded their own business the world might be a more just place. Now they want to make divorce illegal. The world and this abuse is criminal. Men head governments, governments hate each-other but women are raped and hurt and this abuse never ends! This entire world needs help. Why are women so hated or are they just feared?