The UN examines human rights violations in Afghanistan

Monday 06 October 2025 - 07:30

By: Sahili Aya

The UN examines human rights violations in Afghanistan

The United Nations Human Rights Council is set to decide on Monday whether to establish an independent mechanism to investigate the most serious crimes committed in Afghanistan, a move aimed at tackling “decades of impunity” in the country.

The draft resolution, submitted by Denmark on behalf of the European Union, seeks to strengthen accountability by creating a permanent and independent fact-finding body tasked with collecting, preserving, and analyzing evidence of grave violations of international law. The proposal follows growing concern over the deteriorating human rights situation in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power in 2021.

According to EU representatives, this initiative would help document abuses, particularly those targeting women and girls, and build legal cases for future national or international prosecutions.

Since the Taliban takeover, Afghan women have been largely erased from public life — barred from secondary and higher education, restricted from most jobs, and forbidden from traveling without a male guardian. The draft resolution strongly condemns the Taliban’s “institutionalized system of discrimination and exclusion” against women and girls, as well as the ban on Afghan women working for the UN and NGOs.

Human rights advocates, including Human Rights Watch, have welcomed the initiative as “a major step forward in the fight against impunity.” If approved, the new mechanism would send a clear message to those responsible for past and ongoing atrocities that the evidence will be collected — and justice pursued.