Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
May 24, 2021
Amnesty International has warned that 20 years of “hard-won” progress by Afghanistan’s women and girls are under threat as intra-Afghan peace talks are at an impasse and international troops prepare to withdraw from the war-torn country later this year.
“Afghanistan is drifting towards an outcome that threatens to undo more than twenty years of progress for women and girls,” Yamini Mishra, the London-based human rights group’s Asia-Pacific director, said in a statement on May 24.
“Now is the time for the Afghan government and its international partners to unequivocally commit and work to ensure that women’s rights and two decades of achievement are not traded off in the peace talks with the Taliban.”
Amnesty International noted that there has been limited involvement of women in the peace talks launched in Qatar in September 2020 between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
The 21-member Afghan government team included only four women, with no women represented in the Taliban delegation.
One woman was part of the 16-member government delegation attending a Moscow international peace conference in March.
No new date has been announced for another high-level peace conference, initially set to be held in Istanbul in April.
Mishra urged the Afghan government to “ensure inclusive and meaningful participation of women” in the negotiations.
“The significant under-representation and frequent side-lining of women throughout these talks is indicative of how far there is still to go. These negotiations will shape the future for women and girls in Afghanistan and their voices must be heard,” she said.
Amnesty International noted that women’s rights have improved “significantly” since U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in 2001.
There are now 3.3 million girls in education, and women have become lawyers, doctors, judges, teachers, engineers, athletes, politicians, journalists, business owners, police officers, and members of the military.
Violence has continued unabated across Afghanistan ahead of a full withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops planned for September 11.
After the pullout, there are fears that the Taliban will overrun Afghanistan’s battered security forces, which have relied heavily on the alliance’s air support, intelligence, and logistics to keep the insurgents at bay.
Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health on Monday reported 628 new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 2,647 samples tested in the last 24 hours. The ministry reported that the cumulative total of known COVID-19 cases is 66,903, the total number of reported deaths is 2,836, and the total number of recoveries is 56,295. 
Tolo News: The protests in Faryab entered their ninth day on Sunday and demonstrators took a vote for a new governor of the northern province. Faryab is currently facing unrest because of President Ashraf Ghani’s appointment of Mohammad Daud Laghmani, a non-resident, as a new governor. At least four names were reportedly put on the unofficial ballot, but protestors said they would also respect nominations made by Abdul Rashid Dostum to the Presidential Palace. 
1TV: Afghanistan will host Pakistan for a series of three T20s and three ODIs to be held in the UAE in August and September, a Pakistani media outlet reported on Sunday. The cricket boards of the two countries are discussing the series, Geo News reported.