Socialist International solidarity campaign with Afghan women and girls

Since the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the situation for women and girls has suffered a particularly cruel setback in terms of their human and social rights. The international media and information networks run by Afghan women themselves, such as Rukhshana Media, have publicised the Taliban decrees that prohibit women and girls from accessing university and secondary education or paid work outside the women's home and that allow the arranged marriages of minors and permit inhumane punishments such as stoning. There are no religious or tribal excuses that justify this.

The situation has been verified by United Nations agencies and its secretariat, which are prevented from reaching the Afghan population with the humanitarian aid they rely on due to the prohibition on hiring or paying salaries to Afghan women. The Ministry of Women's Affairs has been replaced by the new Taliban administration with a Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice that justifies these atrocities against the women and girls living in Afghanistan.

Despite this, Afghan women and girls are resisting and are unwilling to be reduced to mere passive objects under the tutelage of the males in their families. There have been demonstrations by women in Kabul and other Afghan cities demanding their rights be respected in accordance with the international commitments signed by Afghanistan, including the Taliban representatives in the 2020 Doha Accords.

The Presidium of the Socialist International wants to express its solidarity with all the democrats in Afghanistan and especially with women and girls, expressing its admiration for their resistance and defence of their political and social rights.

And agrees to:
1. Urge the parties and organisations of the Socialist International to express their solidarity with the women and girls in Afghanistan.

2. Urge international organisations and agencies, including the UN, to continue with their humanitarian aid, while defending the human, political and social rights of women and girls in Afghanistan.

3. Open and maintain communication channels with women's organisations in Afghanistan and support their activities to defend their human, political and social rights.

4. Carry out an international campaign for the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan by organising events, denouncing their situation in the media and on social media, by whatever means and in whatever form is most effective.

5. Entrust this task to its secretariat in close coordination with Socialist International Women, which will periodically inform the Presidium on its implementation.

In Solidarity; For Progress