2024 Gender Report - UN Women's Head in Afghanistan | United Nations

and with that uh let me turn to Our

Guest uh Allison

deidan uh please put her up on the

screen hi Al Allison uh welcome it's

great to see you uh so uh uh we have as

our guest today Allison deidan the UN

women's head of the Afghanistan country

office to discuss uh uh the gender

country profile for 2024 for Afghanistan

Midian the floor is

yours I've just come back from the north

of Afghanistan and I asked the women

that I met

with what would you like the world to

know about your lives

now and one of the women I met with

nasima uh told me

this uh I was married at

16 uh I couldn't finish

school My Hope was that my daughter's

life would be better than

mine now I'm worried that her life is

going to be

worse for those who are still

listening please help us fight for our

freedom this week marks 3 years since

the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan 3

years is worth of countless decrees

directives and statements targeting

women and girls stripping them of their

fundamental rights and eviscerating

their

autonomy our latest publication which

we're launching today shows Trends based

on rounds of consultations that we've

done with Afghan women thousands of

Afghan women across the country from

provincial capitals to the most rural

areas since August

2021 and the first most striking

trend is the Erasure of Afghan women

from public

life to date no woman in

Afghanistan has a leadership position

anywhere that has influence politically

either at National or provincial level

when women are engaged in the Taliban

structures it's their roles are largely

to monitor compliance of other women

with their discriminatory

decrees and this political Erasure is

really mirrored at Social level what our

data shows is when you take away

fundamental rights it impacts across all

areas of

life of the women that we've surveyed

98%

said that they had limited or zero

influence over decision making at the

community level in their

communities and it's also reflected in

the home uh our data shows that the

percentage of women who feel like they

have influence over decision- making at

the household level has dropped almost

60% points over the past year and just

to give some

context 3 years ago uh a woman in

Afghanistan could technically decide to

run for

president now she may not even be able

to decide when to go and buy

groceries now I'm not saying that 3

years ago it was perfect it was not

perfect but it wasn't

this linked to the loss of rights our

data also points to an escalating Mental

Health

crisis

68% of the women we surveyed said they

had bad or very bad mental health and 8%

of women said that they knew at least

one other woman or

girl who had attempted

suicide what's clear 3 years in is that

the taliban's restrictions on women and

girls will affect generations to

come our analysis show shows that by

2026 the impact of leaving 1.1 million

girls out of school and 100,000 women

out of University correlates to an

increase in early childbearing by

45% and an increase in maternal

mortality by up to

50% so in the face of this deepening

women's rights crisis I'm often asked

what can we do what can we do to support

women and girls in Afghanistan and my

answer is always this one key

thing we must continue to invest in

Afghan women and girls nothing

undermines the taliban's vision for

society more than empowering the very

part of the population that it seeks to

oppress practically based on you and

women's work over the past 3 years

invest ing in women uh means three main

strategies the first is to allocate

long-term sustainable funding to women's

organizations this is one of the most

effective ways that we can reach and

access women and girls respond to their

needs and also invest in one of the few

sectors left where women can influence

decision- making it's hard but it's

possible

secondly is to design programs that

directly counter the Erasure of women

and girls investing in their resilience

their empowerment and their leadership

so initiatives especially like education

uh livelihoods uh entrepreneurship these

are crucial ways to address uh the

structural drivers of gender

inequality and finally we need to create

spaces and facilitate spaces where

Afghan women can tell us directly on

what their priorities are and what their

recommendations are our data shows that

Afghan women want to represent

themselves but one meeting one

participation option is not enough in

every and any form of Engagement we need

to be asking how do we meaningfully

include Afghan women and how do we break

the patterns of women's

exclusion 3 years ago

3 years ago the world was watching a

takeover that was live streaming horror

after

horror and 3 years later while the

world's attention may have turned

elsewhere the horrors have not stopped

for Afghan women and girls but nor has

their conviction to stand against

oppression when it comes to the women's

rights situation and the fight for

women's rights in Afghanistan we are at

a real inflection point but not just in

Afghanistan globally as well the world

is watching what happens to Afghan women

and girls and in some cases it watches

to

condemn but in others in others it

watches to

emulate emulate the taliban's systematic

oppression we cannot leave Afghan women

to fight

alone if we do we have no moral ground

to fight for women's rights anywhere

else their fate determines the fate of

women

everywhere and what we do or what we

fail to do for Nima for her daughter for

all Afghan women and girls is the

ultimate test of who we are as a global

community and what we stand

for thank thank you very much for that

uh I'm now going to turn the floor over

to uh to the press for

questions yes

Maggie hi Allison uh thank you for the

briefing it's Margaret Basher with voice

of America uh I was just surprised a bit

I guess at the statistic you mentioned

about women uh losing their input in

decision-making within the home I I can

understand in the community perhaps but

at home

what's your interpretation of this were

men just grudgingly giving their wives

and daughters uh more input before and

now they don't have to or you know what

how do you see this thank

you thanks for that question uh look I

think when you take away women's right

to education and uh restrict their

rights to work and public life it

affects uh All rights and affects

women's agency more generally and that's

reflected in the real decrease uh in

women's decision- making and as these

restrictions go on uh the influence over

decision- making both at community and

household level has

decreased okay uh yes Jennifer Jennifer

pelts hi Jennifer pelts from the

Associated Press um turning to your call

to invest in education entrepreneurship

and so on for women

how is it possible to do so under the

conditions you describe how can you

Foster entrepreneurship among people who

aren't even allowed

to take their own initiative to go to

the grocery

store so women um are uh able to run

businesses in particular sectors um

except not beauty salons but uh they are

running um mainly homebased businesses

in uh tailoring uh uh carpet weaving

food processing but there's two main

challenges that they face uh first is

access to markets especially around

Mobility restrictions because of the

mobility restrictions and the second is

access to finance access to formal Banks

um so uh there's a lot that you and

women and we as a system are doing to uh

support women in terms of accessing

markets access accessing capital

uh and supporting Business Development

skills um so that in the space that they

have um they're able to utilize it as

much as possible um so there there is a

real uh Focus right now and and on women

businesses as an entry

point okay and uh online we have a

question from Ivon

Murray thank you um thank you Alison my

name is Ivon maram with RTE News did you

ask the the women that you spoke to in

Afghanistan about the Doha meetings

organized by the United Nations and if

so what was their view of these meetings

and specifically what did they think

about women's rights uh not being on the

main agenda and women uh women's groups

being excluded from the main meetings

thank

you so uh we know that one meeting and

one participation option is never going

to be enough to address the severity of

the situation for women and girls in

Afghanistan uh last year we know that

the security Council adopted a

resolution uh

2721 um that clearly called for women's

participation and this should be the

text uh that we really anchor strategies

to increase uh women's participation

across a multitude of avenues uh both

direct uh and indirect and we also need

to make sure that these long-term

strategies are accompanied uh by also

programs to support women's leadership

and resilience at the country level in

everything we do in every format we need

to be asking how do we engage Afghan

women how do we integrate women's rights

across all of the topics that we're

discussing how do we break the patterns

of exclusion when we speak to Afghan

women afan women say we want to

represent

ourselves uh and uh and we need to be

ensuring that happens across all of the

forums uh multitude of forums uh

possible yes

please hi hi uh I'm from uh NHK Japan uh

so I heard some madrasa uh the religious

school in Afghanistan is uh start

accepting you know some GRS for the

secular education how do you evaluate

the laws of uh those madasa and do you

have concern maybe Taliban might start

restricting those education in

madrasa so I travel across Afghanistan

uh regularly and the topic that

continues to come up Time and Time Again

by women everywhere I go from the

provincial capitals to the most rural

areas is this Collective mourning truly

over the inability of girls to be able

to go to school and to be able to

graduate and go to

university uh and uh there's no other

country in the world that bans girls

from going to school as a matter of

policy um and so uh the impact that this

also has not just on education but on

the economy um is is very clear uh we

have data that says that by 206 2066 if

these banss were to

continue uh that Afghanistan would lose

$9.6 billion in GDP that's 2/3 of its

GDP as it currently stands so we're

seeing how the overall bans on girls

access to education affect uh the health

of the economy uh and uh women want

girls to be able to go to school um

major education uh they what we hear

from afan women is it it should not be

uh a a replacement for that

uh uh Abdul Hamed

online thank you Alison my name is ABD

from the Arabic daily

Al Alison I have personal question I

hope

you understand my background I served in

Afghanistan too but for a brief uh time

um how do you connect with the women do

you sit with them do you talk to to them

do they do they open up for

you did do you speak their language

or how how do you evaluate your relation

personal relation with Afghan women I I

have a an experience when women start

talking they started crying and they

affected me as well so how do you

evaluate your personal

experience yeah thank you for your

question um

uh one of the I mean the best part of my

job is that I'm able to go and meet with

Afghan women across the country and

listen to them and hear what their

priorities are um all of our programming

everything we do at you and women is

anchored on their voices and their

priorities and what Afghan women want is

what any woman wants which is uh the

ability to live a life of her own

choosing and that's a real basic

commonality that we all have in common

so in that sense it's um I mean it's the

greatest privilege of my life to be able

to go and meet with Afghan women and

hear from them directly and to use every

platform I have to elevate those voices

and

priorities thank you um Margaret Basher

again uh thanks Alison it's Margaret

again just one more question um the

results of your survey really were

pretty grim and I'm just wondering then

has advocacy International pressure

frozen assets has any of this uh had any

success whatsoever in easing the plate

of Afghan

women so I mean despite all of the

challenges you know Afghan women are

still finding ways to uh run uh women's

organizations run businesses deliver

Services uh to other women uh protest

protest online and I think what's what's

really critical is that uh that we

continue to have Global solidarity and

commitment and action um behind them uh

Afghanistan is not the only only country

in the world where women's rights are

being rolled

back but it's true that the speed and

the scale of the roll back in

Afghanistan is a warning to women you

know everywhere of how fragile Gams are

on gender equality and how quickly that

can be taken away so we need to continue

I mean it's a long game we need to

continue to put uh invest in women and

girls put our political will and our

funding behind them and continue to have

Global advocacy uh to to affect change

uh in the in their

lives okay uh I don't see any further

questions so with that I'd like to thank

once more Our Guest thanks very much for

for uh for this uh uh briefing Allison

uh and good luck to you uh I'd like to

tell all of you in the Press uh we'll

also be emailing uh some of uh Allison

devan's remarks to you uh shortly so

you'll be able to get some of that in in

print as well uh thanks and uh thanks

again Allison have have a good

afternoon thank you so much thank

you technically she she will have a good

evening